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Archive for July, 2011

The big monkey and the emperor’s new rainbow

05/07/2011, 07:38:38 AM

by Dan Hodges

Enough now. We’ve had our fun.

Blue Labour. Purple Labour. Green Labour. A veritable kaleidoscope of renewal.

Each, in their own superficial way, has been easy on the eye. The force of nature that is Maurice Glasman, the Labour party’s very own Norman Mailer. The defiant defence of the Blairite bunker, and the refusal of the last tiny band of hard core New Labourites to march quietly into the night. The Compass-ite left’s touching unwillingness to relinquish their dream of a progressive realignment, even as Nick Clegg smashes it to pieces in front of them.

But now the colours which dazzled have become garish. Where once they complemented, now they clash. There is no structure, however abstract, emerging. We are simply producing a mess.

Too harsh? Go and dig out Sunday’s Murnaghan. Relive the spectacle of two Labour shadow ministers, Caroline Flint and Diane Abbott, knocking lumps out of each other as they scrap over Maurice Glasman’s latest pronouncements on immigration policy. It was like watching an episode of the Jeremey Kyle show; “Maurice has been flirting with both Caroline and Diane, and they’re not happy. So we’ve brought them all together to fight it out. Live”. (more…)

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The govt must swallow its pride and adapt to the Arab spring

04/07/2011, 09:32:38 AM

by Michael Dugher

The foreign secretary, William Hague, has said that the impact of the Arab spring is potentially greater in significance than even the attacks of 9/11. After 9/11, Labour in government produced a “new chapter” to the 1998 defence review, precisely to face up to the shifting strategic landscape and emerging threats to the UK. A new chapter to the 2010 SDSR is desperately needed today. This would bring the review up to date and make a full assessment of the impact of the Arab spring on UK security. As Jim Murphy has said: “It’s not about looking backwards, but about turning hindsight into foresight.”

Lord Levene’s more managerial review into MoD reform was published last week. As far as it goes, it is good. Labour welcomed many of its recommendations. Indeed, Bob Ainsworth, Kevan Jones and others deserve much of the credit, as several ideas in the report stem from the defence green paper, adaptability and partnership, which the previous Labour government produced in February 2010. As the official opposition, it is as much our responsibility to support the government when its proposals are right as to oppose when they get things wrong.

Changes such as a smaller defence board inside the MoD, and greater clarification of responsibilities and the accountability for the individuals within the department, are much needed, not least to overcome the sometimes fractious command structure that has too often been based on inter-service rivalry. As Labour suggested in the 2010 green paper, the creation of a joint forces command in particular should help to change the face of our armed forces for the better and play a crucial role in helping them combat future threats to the UK. It will encourage more joint operations and enhance our ability to integrate out activities across land, sea and air, enabling joined up logistics and better communication.

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Monday News Review

04/07/2011, 06:04:55 AM

A care revolution

The Dilnot Report will suggest an overhaul to the system which is intended to benefit Britain’s ageing population. Under the current system elderly people only start to receive state support when they are down to the last £23,250 of their assets. People would instead pay up to a capped amount – expected to be around £35,000 – before state-funding kicks in. It’s possible that a tax rise or further cuts in public spending would be necessary to pay for this. Estimates suggest the proposals would cost the Treasury £2bn at the start before rising further. Experts estimate that a maximum liability of £50,000 could be insured for a one-off premium of around £17,000 on retirement. The report has partly sought to make clearer the burden of cost facing the elderly so people can prepare and save for it during their working life. Charities working with elderly and vulnerable people have cautiously welcomed the report and suggest changes are long overdue. The Labour leader Ed Miliband has publicly offered to hold talks with the Prime Minister to achieve cross-party agreement on the proposals. The government is not expected to make any changes immediately, instead weighing up the best course of action and deciding who will pay and how. The current system of support for the elderly is widely regarded as a lottery, as one quarter of 65-year-olds will not need to spend significant sums on care, while another quarter will face bills of more than £50,000 and one in 10 – often those who spend long periods in residential homes suffering from dementia – will have extensive needs costing more than £100,000. Some 20,000 people a year are thought to sell their homes to pay for care. – Sky News

A long-awaited shake-up of the way elderly people contribute to their care home bills will be announced today. The report is expected to recommend OAPs should pay no more than £50,000 towards their stay. The Treasury would pick up the rest of the bill – meaning fewer people will be forced to sell their homes. Care would remain free for those with very few savings or assets. But millions of people will be urged to take out insurance costing up to £17,000 to cover care fees. The measures drawn up by Andrew Dilnot are seen by many as the last best hope to pay for our growing elderly population. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley yesterday signalled the measures could come into force by the end of Parliament in 2015. But there are fears the £2billion-a-year cost of the plans could see Chancellor George Osborne strangle the proposals at birth. Labour leader Ed Miliband said: “The last thing Britain needs is for Andrew Dilnot’s proposals to be put into the long grass. We three party leaders are of similar age and the same generation. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity which our generation must address.” – Daily Mirror

Local councils are poised to take on a major financial services role under proposed reforms to be unveiled on Monday of the funding system for the care of elderly and disabled people. Under the scheme, local authorities will be empowered to make a loan at a preferential rate against the value of a property owned by someone entering a care home. The loan would be redeemed on the sale of the property after the person dies. The plan is part of a series of ideas drawn up by a government commission led by the economist Andrew Dilnot. The proposals seek to inject more funding into the care system by tapping into people’s assets. The typical 55- to 64-year-old in the UK has a total wealth of £200,000. Although the centrepiece of Dilnot’s report will be a recommended cap of about £35,000 on individual liability for care costs, which would require underwriting by the government, other proposals will seek to make it easier for people to draw on their assets without having to sell their home during their lifetime. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, about a million elderly homeowners have properties worth more than £100,000 yet qualify for means-tested benefits. Charities and welfare groups are calling on the government and Labour to seize the opportunity presented by Dilnot to begin a shakeup of the care funding system. An open letter from 26 leading charities declared on Sunday: “We expect all parties to deliver on this.” Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has reiterated his offer to engage in cross-party talks on the Dilnot proposals with an “open mind”, setting aside his party’s previous policy of a national care service. – the Guardian

Goldsmith gloats

Ed Miliband’s faltering leadership suffered a fresh blow yesterday as a close ally of Tony Blair warned it was ‘not clear what he stands for’. Former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith launched a withering attack on the Labour leader, warning that nine months after his election he still has to ‘prove himself’. He said the party’s Blairites were ‘standing back’ to give Mr Miliband a chance. But asked whether the Labour leader was connecting with the public said: ‘He doesn’t at the moment. It is not clear what he stands for.’ Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper – seen by many at Westminster as a future Labour leader – yesterday insisted that Mr Miliband’s leadership was not ‘faltering’. She said he was doing a ‘good job’ but urged critics to give him more time to impose himself and connect with the public in the wake of last year’s election defeat. Lord Goldsmith’s intervention came amid reports that the Blairite, ex-Cabinet minister James Purnell was being urged to return to Parliament to help rescue Labour from the leftwards drift seen under Mr Miliband. – Daily Mail

Lord Goldsmith suggested Mr Miliband was harming Labour by excluding major figures from the Blairite wing of the party. He named former minister James Purnell, who quit as an MP last year, as a “loss” and “potentially a very important figure in the party”. It came amid reports that Mr Purnell – who quit the Cabinet in 2009 in a failed bid to oust Gordon Brown and now heads a think tank – is being urged by figures close to Mr Blair to return to Westminster to stave off another election defeat. Lord Goldsmith, who was Attorney General under Tony Blair, said he did not believe the rifts had been healed between Left wingers seen as loyal to Mr Brown – such as Mr Miliband – and those from Mr Blair’s camp. “I think people are standing back, letting Ed Miliband have an opportunity to prove that he can do it – and that, at the end of the day, is what matters,” he told Sky News’s Murnaghan programme. Asked if the Labour leader was connecting with voters, he replied: “He doesn’t at the moment. It is not clear what he stands for.” The question, he said, was whether Ed Miliband had healed the Blair-Brown split and “whether there are enough Blair heavy hitters in his shadow cabinet”. He went on: “I think many of us would like to see more of them back. There are very powerful figures still able to help Ed Miliband and they are being excluded and that is a problem.’’ – Daily Express

Huhne under increased pressure as son’s phone becomes evidence

Chris Huhne’s former marital home has been raided as part of a police investigation into allegations he persuaded his wife to take responsibility for a speeding offence that he had committed so he could avoid a driving ban. Officers from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate visited the home in Clapham, south London, where the Energy Secretary’s former wife, economist Vicky Pryce, lives. They confiscated the mobile phone of the pair’s son, Peter, 18. The phone is alleged to contain an exchange of text messages between Mr Huhne and his son in which the pair discuss the investigation into the March 2003 speeding offence. – the Independent

Pressure was mounting on Chris Huhne last night after it emerged that police raided his ex-wife’s home and seized his son’s mobile phone. The Cabinet minister is fighting for his political career over claims he persuaded Vicky Pryce to accept a speeding conviction on his behalf. Detectives with a search warrant raided Ms Pryce’s £2million home at 7am, woke 18-year-old Peter and asked him to hand over the mobile, which reportedly contained a text message exchange in which the pair discuss details of the case. Energy Secretary Mr Huhne currently has the backing of Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg but insiders say patience is running out due to the constant trickle of stories about him. Ms Pryce, 57, told friends of her shock when the three Essex Police officers turned up unannounced at her South London home. Mr Huhne, 56, denies persuading her to take three points for him but a photograph of her licence shows an endorsement for speeding on March 12, 2003 – the date his car was allegedly caught on camera. Relations between the couple broke down when he left her for media consultant Carina Trimingham last year. – Daily Mirror

It’s that lady again

Voters rate Margaret Thatcher the most capable Prime Minister of recent decades, but Tony Blair was the most likeable, according to a poll. Only ten per cent regarded David Cameron the most capable and 17 per cent the most likeable. Current Conservative voters overwhelmingly preferred Lady Thatcher, with two-thirds saying she was the most capable compared with one-fifth for Cameron. Overall, 36 per cent of those questioned said Thatcher – Tory Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990 – was the most capable leader of the past 30 years. She was followed by Mr Blair on 27 per cent, Gordon Brown on 11 per cent, Mr Cameron, ten per cent and Sir John Major, seven per cent. When asked about likeability as a person, some 26 per cent put Mr Blair first, followed by 22 per cent for Lady Thatcher, 17 per cent for Mr Cameron, 13 per cent for Mr Brown and ten per cent for Major. – Daily Mail

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Sunday Review: The great stagnation: how America ate all the low hanging fruit, got sick, and will (eventually) feel better, by Tyler Cowen

03/07/2011, 10:30:20 AM

by Anthony Painter

There is a complacent assumption that austerity will pass. As soon as our course is corrected, then the upward charge begins again. The sunny uplands of things only getting better will return. Just in case you were feeling a wave of optimism, these assumptions that have served us well for a couple of centuries and more may no longer apply. We have entered a great stagnation. Or so Tyler Cowen thinks.

Whenever things are bad there’s always a Malthus on the scene and in his short book, The Great Stagnation, Cowen is one of the candidates for the vacancy of pessimist for our times. He tells America that it will eventually feel better, but that’s just the soothing words of a doctor refusing to dispirit a terminally ill patient. You’ll have more bad days than good with this illness. This is not to dismiss this pacy and powerful book or the argument he expounds within it. It’s just not ultimately convincing.

The thing about Malthus figures – and I’m using this in a broad sense of pessimistic accounts about our economic future – is that they are occasionally right. There are occasional disasters – economic or otherwise – so if you predict them you are going to be right now and again. When you are right then you become a global celebrity. Just ask Nicholas Nassim Taleb. It is important, though, to be right for the right reasons a much as it is to be right per se.

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Sunday News Review

03/07/2011, 04:55:45 AM

War on the homeless

Deep-seated concerns within Government over the Chancellor’s plan to cap benefit at £500 a week per family have been laid bare in a leaked letter apparently seen by The Observer newspaper. The letter, from Communities Secretary Eric Pickles’s private secretary to his opposite number in the Prime Minister’s office, will be deeply embarrasing to the coalition. It suggests that the estimated £270m saving from the cap may end up as a net loss, because 40,000 people could be made homeless. In addition, it suggests, half the 56,000 affordable homes the Government expects to be constructed by 2015 will not be built because developers will not be able to recoup enough money from tenants. Both Downing Street and the Communities department have already mounted a damage limitation exercise. A spokesman for Mr Pickles said: “We are fully supportive of all the Government’s policies on benefits. Clearly action is needed to tackle the housing benefit bill which has spiralled to £21bn a year under Labour.” And a Downing Street spokesman said: “The entire Government is behind the policies on welfare and housing benefit. The bill has been growing enormously in recent years and needs to be tackled.” Nonetheless, Labour will seek to capitalise on what it sees as confusion and division at the heart of Government. Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne is quoted by the newspaper as saying: “We were assured by ministers that costs wouldn’t rise. Now top-level leaks reveal the truth. – Sky News

The warning came in a letter from the private office of Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and appears to reflect deep concern in his Department for Communities and Local Government over the plan to cap total household benefits at £500 a week. Written by Mr Pickles’ private secretary, Nico Heslop, to his opposite number in 10 Downing Street and obtained by The Observer, the letter warns that the estimated £270 million annual savings from the plan could be wiped out by the cost to local authorities of rehousing families who can no longer afford to pay for their accommodation. Far from contributing towards the Government’s deficit reduction programme, the scheme could end up generating a “net cost” to the Exchequer, it says. And it warns that the welfare cuts will put at risk at least half of the 56,000 affordable homes to rent which the Government hopes will be built by 2015, as contractors doubt whether they will be able to recoup their costs from tenants. – Daily Telegraph

In case you did not remember (27.02.2011)

The Tories have a new policy on homelessness: make it illegal. That is the extraordinary intention of a Conservative flagship council. Worse, they want to ban Salvation Army soup kitchens. Westminster city council, the richest and most powerful council in the UK, is proposing a new bye-law to ban rough sleeping and “soup runs” in the Victoria area of London. The proposed new bye-law will make it an offence punishable by a fine to “sleep or lie down”, “deposit materials used as bedding” and to “give out, or permit another to give out, food for free”. If these proposals are passed, they will also prohibit companies with a proud record of corporate social responsibility from doing good things. Companies like Pret a Manger, who have, very quietly, for many years, given away their unsold food to London’s homeless. If the Tories get their way, companies like Pret will be forced to throw the food in the bin. Remember, this is the council of Lady Porter. – Labour Uncut

Jog on jobsworths

Misguided “jobsworths” are preventing children from enjoying traditional playground games through the over-zealous application of health and safety laws, says the watchdog for the legislation. Judith Hackitt, head of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), accusedschools and councils of using health and safety rules to avoid providing activities that might cost money or expose them to being sued. She said children’s play and education had been damaged, with some playgrounds becoming joyless no-go areas, while science lessons had been hampered by bans on practical experiments. Hackitt warned the HSE would challenge bureaucrats who attribute “daft decisions” to ban innocuous activities to safety rules. Warning that “the gloves are off”, she said the rules were wrongly blamed for decisions to make children wear goggles when playing conkers and ban running at a pancake race. “The creeping culture of risk aversion and fear of litigation … puts at risk our children’s education and preparation for adult life,” she told the Telegraph. “Children today are denied – often on spurious health and safety grounds – many of the formative experiences that shaped my generation. Playgrounds have become joyless, for fear of a few cuts and bruises. Science in the classroom is becoming sterile and uninspiring.” – the Guardian

Education Secretary Michael Gove will today reveal a streamlining of guidance which has hit children’s chances of enjoying activities from science experiments to pancake races. The shake-up, with rules cut from 150 pages to just eight, means teachers will no longer have to fill in lengthy “risk assessment” forms before school visits. Instead teachers will need only to tell parents of a planned activity and give them the chance to withdraw their child rather than fill in a consent form. “Daft” orders which compelled youngsters to wear goggles to play conkers and banned running at pancake races will also be binned. Mr Gove said: “Children should be able to go on exciting school trips that broaden their horizons. That is why we are cutting unnecessary red tape.” Judith Hackitt of the Health and Safety Executive accused schools and council officials of “daft decisions”, often as cover to cut the cost of special activities. She said: “Children are denied – often on spurious health and safety grounds – many formative experiences. Playgrounds have become joyless for fear of a few cuts and bruises. Science in the classroom is becoming sterile and uninspiring.” But teaching union NASUWT said the decision could increase legal action against teachers. – Daily Mirror

Lets find common ground

Last Christmas, I met a lady called Mary Ryan at a party and her story about her mother has haunted me ever since. Paula Ryan was widowed 50 years ago and struggled to bring up her four children as a single parent. She was far too busy to think of her old age. Her priorities were making sure she worked hard to put food on the table and teaching her children the right values. She never asked for help from the State. Mary told me that even though they were poor and entitled to free school dinners, her mother was too proud to let the children have them. In her old age, she could look back with pride on her achievements: four successful children, her own house and savings, a lifetime of doing the right thing. Tragically, this admirable woman was struck down, aged 63, by Alzheimer’s, a condition a quarter of the people reading this will probably develop. As the disease progressed, it became impossible for her to live independently and she moved into a care home. Her children found her somewhere that was nice, although expensive. She was expected to survive between four and seven years. Most people still believe a woman in these circumstances would be cared for by the State. They couldn’t be more wrong. A report published tomorrow will highlight the challenges we face. Currently, if you have housing, savings or income of more than £23,250 in total, you are charged the full cost of your care. Fortunately, Paula Ryan is made of strong stuff and has just celebrated her 80th birthday. Unfortunately, this has meant her children have used up all her savings and had to sell her house. Her care has cost the family more than £300,000. Mary told me her mother would be horrified if she knew the family had spent their inheritance but, naturally, her welfare came before any other consideration. – Emily Thornberry, Daily Mail

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June shadow cabinet league table – and where the knife may fall in future

01/07/2011, 09:27:52 AM

Murphy holds onto top spot but all eyes on the bottom as relegation comes closer

by Atul Hatwal

June saw Jim Murphy retain his position at the top of the league, albeit with a reduced lead as Douglas Alexander closed the gap between first and second. But the real interest lay in what was happening at the bottom following the news that the leadership intends to scrap shadow cabinet elections.

Assuming Ed Miliband’s writ runs, the prospect of relegation this year for shadow cabinet under-performers has suddenly become a real possibility.

It’s something that Uncut readers backed overwhelmingly last month with over 70% voting in favour of relegation before the next shadow cabinet elections. And it would certainly be peculiar for Miliband to fight for this change and then not use his new power.

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