What If… There Was No News?

With thanks to Boing Boing for the discovery. The music is Ben Frost’s Theory of Machines.

What If Gordon Brown Is Telling The Truth?

Listening to John Humphrys interviewing Gordon Brown on Radio’s 4 Today programme this morning, I was reminded why I don’t like Brown’s style of Government and management.

Let’s start with one simple assumption. That he’s not being a typical politician. That what he is saying is true. The presumptions and predictions from the economy to public and private life in the UK and abroad are generally promising and uplifting.

But I don’t want that in a leader - not in a group, a business, or running the country. I believe that if you are in charge of anything, the most frequent question you should be asking yourself if “what if this is wrong? And if so, what will I be able to do?” There should be multiple ways forward at every point in the decision making process. Given the choice between a plan that has 100% good effects, but has absolutely no flexibility if conditions deviate from the expected, or a plan that has (say) 60% good effects if everything works as expected but can accommodate changing conditions to reduce any negative effects when it (inevitably) goes tits up, I want someone who chooses the later option.

Listening to Brown (and the members of his Cabinet) I hear zero evidence that they actually plan for the bad things to happen. The 10p income tax band doubling situation is evidence of that. Again, taking the Chancellor at his word, there was absolutely zero slack in the Budget to allow any adjustments to be made without ringing up 2.7 billion pounds of debt. More to the point, if the call on the 10p tax was really triggered by the changing international economic conditions, then the Chancellor is not even taking a short term view of ten weeks of what could go wrong and to make provisions in case of things not working out perfectly.

And the reserve cash before we hit the self imposed rule is only £100 million… which isn’t a reserve at all; it’s a single chip to tip the croupier after your gamble in Las Vegas fails. Remember I’m going on the assumption that we’re not being lied to; pop in the money in Northern Rock and the PFI’s and we’d be well over the 40% ‘maximum.’

I want a Government that believes in policies that have less reward, but that also carry less risk. There’s no replay option in real life. I want to know you’ve considered and planned for the worst case scenarios, and not just crossing your fingers that the best predictions are going to come true. I don’t get that vibe from the words or the actions of Gordon Brown and his government.

…For Everything Else Under Labour, There’s Mastercard

Worth highlighting the maths on show today, highlighted to my eyes first in a comment over on Iain Dale’s site, although it’s plain for all to see.

Note One:

• Cost of scrapping the 10p tax band in April… £700 million
• Cost of increasing the personal allowance by £600 for basic rate payers in May… £2.7 billion

Note Two:

• People affected negatively by scrapping the 10p tax band in April… 5.1 million
• People affected negatively by increasing the personal allowance in May… 1 million
• People affected positively by increasing the personal allowance in May… 22 million

Tax and Spend the New Labour way: it’s all spend, spend, spend at the moment, and the tax is paid by the lowest income earners.

Alistair Darling’s “I’m Alright Jack” Bribe to the Middle Class

So let me get this right, we can’t re-open the Budget, we’ll look at it next year, it’s too complicated to go messing about with - but we can! Let’s just lift the personal allowance by £600, which should make up for the doubling of the basic rate of income tax for everyone… well, at least 80% of those that it made worse off.

All of a sudden we can find 2.7 billion pounds to fund a raising of the personal allowance, because thats the easiest way to get to some of the people affected by this. Yes of the 5.2 million hit by the doubling of the 10p tax band, 4.1 million will not loose out. And the other 18 odd million people who are in the £12,000 to around £40,000 annual earnings, what are we to make of the £120 going into their pocket? An early christmas present? A chance to buy an iPod?

If there was an election on the horizon, then this budget would look like a blatant come-on. I mean a General election, not jsut Crewe and Nantwich, although this may (may) act as a firebreak for Labour’s core supporters. But with the first stage of the refund, the lump sum of £60, not hitting anyone’s wage packet until September, and the likelihood that if Gordon Brown is to make way for a new Labour leader, then any post-conference bounce in the opinion polls could mean an election at the start of October. Just as everyone sees a bulge in the wage packet… Naw, it could never be that well planned.

This was a cock up. It was wrong last year when announced, it was wrong this year when it was let through, and the compromise is fatally flawed, misses the worst affected by the changes, and leaves some of the most vulnerable people in society significantly worse off (those on roughly £6,600 to around £8,000 per annum) while the middle classes get enough money to buy a posh meal and a night out.

This from a Labour government? From a government that would shout down any hint of an unfunded tax cut? Obvioulsy borrowing £2.7 billion to do this one off tweak isn’t unfunded. It’s just being paid for on the never-never. It’s tax and spend without the tax.

The double speak of “…the remaining 1.1 million households will see their loss at least halved. In other words, 80 per cent of households are fully compensated with the remaining 20 per cent compensated by at least half” is clear to the public. Over a million of the lowest paid people in the UK, at the very bottom of the income tax scale, are loosing money, while the rich are getting the full benefit of a tax cut.

PS: With roughly 600,00 households lifted out of income tax altogether, how long till this gets rounded up to “New Labour took one million households out of paying income tax altogether?”

Oliver Letwin Questions “10p Tax” and Electoral Law

I’ll post up some more thoughts on Alistair Darling’s statement to the House of Commons regarding the change in personal allowances (to cover the mess of the doubling of the 10p tax band) later on, but for now, I want to echo Oliver Letwin’s comment in the house. Does the announcement of this change in the run up to the Crewe and Nantwich by election breech any part of electoral law?

Certainly in the run up to the Local and General Elections there is a period of Purdah, but I’m not aware of any special arrangements for by-elections. It would be silly to shut down everything just because of a by-election (think how much fun you could have in the run up to key legislation), but this announcement could be seen as blatant electioneering - which is of course what the ‘tax cutting budget’ was intended to do in the first place.

Anyone more versed in this issue care to comment?

Where is Gordon Brown’s Website?

So with all the upheaval going on, the laying out of a new vision (and this would be which version of the vision?) I thought I’d have a look at Gordon Brown’s website to find out what he actually thought. Except, ehrm, I’m struggling to find one.

The obvious address of www.gordonbrown.co.uk opens up with “this is an unofficial site run independently and has no connections with any political party.” Going dot com doesn’t help either, as www.gordonbrown.com leads to a re-direct towards a Blogger based site posting up the occasional barbed attack on the man. The final format used by many MP’s is to suffix the name. Okay then… www.gordonbrownmp.co.uk is a good start, as it’s not attacking him, but it’s also popping up a 403 error - I’m not allowed to access the content.

I’m assuming that something was resident at gordonbrownmp.co.uk as the Wikipedia article for his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency points to it as his constituency website.

Final role of the dice - a general Google search on his name. Which points me to the Number Ten Downing Street, a wikipedia biography, and three estate agents trading under the name Gordon Brown. And of course the blogosphere discovered the delights of http://www.gordonbrownforbritain.com/ earlier this spring.

If Brown wants to have a national conversation, if he wants to listen to the country, then he could at least make it a little bit easier. Thankfully I am no longer his constituent, but I must ask my Mum and Dad (who still live in Cowdenbeath) how well advertised his surgeries are…

For fairness, I hit other party leaders to see where their first offical page was:
First Google result for David Cameron… http://www.davidcameronmp.com/ (Official Site)
First Google result for Nick Clegg… http://www.nickclegg.org.uk/ (Official Site)
Third result for Alex Salmond… http://members.snp.org/people/alex (Offical, but 502 error report)
First result for Wendy Alexander… http://www.wendyalexander.co.uk/ (Offical site)

Poor show for the SNP leader there - I wonder if Wendy Alexander can use this web fangled nonsense as a new line of attack on the SNP leader… which will naturally embarrass her London chiefs in the process?

Scottish Conservative MPs After the Next Election

Yes that’s plural. In all the fun of the Scottish Parliamentary Labour Party vs The Labour Party (which does sound like a divorce decree nee The War of the Roses), it’s worthwhile considering who the main beneficiary will be at the upcoming General Election. On a UK level, it’s looking more and more likely that this will be portrayed as a ‘how many seats can Cameron’s Conservatives win?’ contest, and if (a) this will get them to a majority, and (b) how big that majority will be.

The scottish view of the party is going to be very interesting. I don’t yet think that the Tories are in any place well suited for a revival across the country. Political wounds specifically from The Poll Tax and The Miner’s Strike still occupy prominent places in the Scottish mind, especially in the central belt, and as the people who were deeply affected by those policies reach the age group where they are more likely to vote, the likelihood of them switching to a Conservative for a ‘protest’ vote is minimal.

In my mind, the SNP will pick up most of the protesting voters. But that doesn’t leave the Conservatives out for the count. The short answer, I think they’ll reach 20% of the votes and I think there are a handful of potential constituencies that are worth watching in the run up to polling day.

Dumfries and Galloway - (Labour majority 2,992)
If any inroads are made, even a whisper, then it will be in this seat. As far south geographically as possible, this is a straight fight against Labour.

Stirling - (Labour Majority 4,767)
Michael Forsythe’s old seat (and he can still cause a chill to run down our spines) is another straight fight against Labour, with the total Labour vote holding at around 15,000 in the last two elections. The depth of the collapse of Labour in the central belt will determine if this stays red or goes blue. A seat that also declares quite early on Election night, so a good indicator to fortunes.

Edinburgh South - (Labour majority 405 to the Liberals, 3897 to the Conservatives)
A pretty ugly fight in 2005, with dodgy bar graphs, claim and counter claim from the opposition parties eventually allowed Nigel Griffiths to sneak through the middle and win a wafer thin majority over the Liberal Democrats. I’ll be interested to see just how much effort is put into this seat by the respective campaigns.

Edinburgh North and Leith - Labour majority 2153 to the Liberals, 6628 to the Conservatives).
Adjoining Edinburgh South, this constituency presents the Liberal Democrats with a question - it’s 6th on their list of target seats, and the Conservative candidate is some distance back. But Edinburgh South is well within reach, albeit as part of a three way fight. A collapse on the Labour vote hands this to the Liberals, a Conservative resurgence turns it blue.

Perth and North Perthshire - (SNP majority 1521)
Here’;s a might interesting constituency, and one of the few direct SNP/Conservative match ups in the electoral landscape, with Labour out the fight. If the vote holds up here, it’s going to be a good ight for the Conservatives, but I think we’ll see a swing to the SNP and a hold.

Ochil and South Perthshire - (Labour majority 688 to the SNP, 4624 to the Conservatives).
This should be out of reach for the Conservatives, I’ve got it flagged up as a firewall. I very much doubt that this would become blue, but if it does then Labour would be looking at a very long time out of office. This is more likely to return to SNP hands, which is still pretty damaging to Labour both in Westminster and in the knock on effect in Holyrood.

Want me to put a number on it? They’ll win Dumfries, Stirling and one of Edinburgh South or Edinburgh North (depending on how the Liberals campaign in those Edinburgh seats). To take the Perthshire seats would mean a genuine liking of the Scottish Tories, as opposed to a Get Gordon Out vote, so I think that’s unlikely.

Final tally, three or four seats.

Added 10pm, May 12th:
Welcome to readers from Iain Dale’s Daley Dozen post (and thanks Iain, for the link). You can stay up to date with The Scottish Sketch by subscribing to the RSS feed or bookmaring the site (scottishsketch.wordpress.com). Thanks for your time, hope to see you around in the near future.