Cameron faces post-election loss blues

Tags

Baz Poulton, Coalition, Conservative, David Cameron, election, Europe, general, government, Graeme Beard, Helen Owens, Karlie Marvel, Michael Gove, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Parliament, Richard Tait, Tories, Tory, UKIP, Vox Political, win

Political news seems to be in a slump after the excitement of last week’s elections, so let’s look at the damage – starting with the Conservatives and David Cameron.

Amazingly, Cameron was insisting that the Conservative Party could win next year’s general election, despite being pushed into third place for the first time in more than a century, by UKIP last Thursday.

A BBC report told us he “appreciated people were ‘disillusioned’ with the EU and he ‘absolutely understood and received the message’.”

Clearly he had not. The message was that people were SO disillusioned with the mainstream political parties – particularly the Conservatives and Cameron himself – that they were prepared to take a punt on a bunch of extremists rather than put up with more of the same.

Not only that, but Cameron and the Tories have not changed direction by one single degree since the result came through. They are still claiming that their referendum in 2017 will solve everything.

I posted up the link to the BBC report on the Vox Political Facebook page, to see what response it would provoke. Some of them defied belief but several are publishable.

Here’s Baz Poulton, who supplied the image (above): “The Tories have no chance at all, but considering how many fools voted for UKIP without the slightest clue about their actual motivations, plus the fact that Farage has already agreed publicly to support the Tories in the next election, means that the fake ‘alternative’ that the media is constantly pushing in their attempt to bring fascism to Britain, is actually getting votes!

“The Tories know that they are hated by the public. This is why UKIP exist, to take votes that the stupid believe are being denied to the establishment parties, and give them right back to the establishment.”

The man has a point. It has already been said on this blog that the Tories and UKIP are in coalition talks, because Michael Gove has denied it.

One of our younger readers, Karlie Marvel, also sounded a note of warning: “Complacency by the electorate and misguided protest votes for UKIP will allow these dangerous crooks back in. A much increased turnout at the General Election and some real opposition in the next year from Labour is desperately needed.”

The other comments were almost entirely negative. Richard Tait suggested: “Mr Cameron is being quite realistic about his chances and rather than sign on the dole to collect unemployment benefit, he is sounding out the possibility of a new career as a Stand Up Comedian.”

Appropriately, Helen Owens commented: “Go on, tell us another.”

But Graeme Beard, despite finding humour in the possibility, said he could not rule out a Conservative win because the stupidity of the electorate cannot be overestimated.

Looking at the European results, it is impossible to argue with that viewpoint.

He told us: “Win the next general election? Ha Ha Ha! Well actually yes they can! Frightens me but the great British public still believe in giving themselves a thoroughly good thrashing (remember the days of the Thatcher tyranny – elected time and again) and this lot loves dishing out the whip.

“Don’t underestimate stupidity, it’s all too common!”

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Searching for silver linings in the Euro election’s purple cloud

Tags

BBC, business, Caroline Lucas, Catherine Bearder, company, Conservative, corporation, country, David Cameron, Democrat, Ed Miliband, election, Europe, European Parliament, Eurosceptic, far right, federal, firm, general, Green Party, immigrant, immigration, Investment Partnership, Labour, law, Lib Dem, Liberal, migrant, multinational, Natalie Bennett, nation, National Health Service, NHS, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, private, privatisation, privatise, ransom, referendum, right-wing, sovereign, state, Tories, Tory, Transatlantic Trade, TTIP, UK, UKIP, Westminster

No cause for celebration: This man is now the leader of the largest British political organisation in the European Parliament.

Could the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership be sunk off the coast of a new, anti-federalist Europe?

It seems like a natural consequence of the election victories enjoyed by Eurosceptic and far-right parties across the continent – and one of the few reasons to be optimistic about the result.

We don’t have all the information yet, so it is impossible to be sure, but it does seem likely that people who won popular support by emphasising national sovereignty against that of the EU will be against a trade agreement that suppresses nations’ rights to make their own laws, and puts multinational corporations above countries.

Unfortunately UKIP, the British Eurosceptic party that has won 23 seats (so far), seems more likely to support the agreement that would force British workers into lowest-common-denominator working conditions and pay deals, in a betrayal of the populist promises it made to get elected.

Nigel Farage’s campaign took a leaf out of the Conservative Party’s book by hiding some of UKIP’s most unpalatable plans from the electorate; now that he has what he wants, will we see UKIP working to ensure, for example, that National Health Service privatisation is locked into British law? That would require support for TTIP.

If Farage’s party doesn’t support the controversial plan, they’ll probably stay away from the vote (as they do in most matters; UKIP has one of the worst attendance records in the European Parliament).

Of course the European Parliament doesn’t work the same way as the UK Parliament; UKIP may have won the most seats but this does not automatically hand it power – 23 UK seats is only one-third of those available, not a majority, and it will have to join a larger grouping in order to make its voice heard.

UKIP’s choices over the next few days and weeks will be crucial, as they will allow us to form opinions about how the party’s victory will affect life here in the UK.

The Eurosceptic party’s victory – the first time in more than 100 years that an election has been won by someone other than Labour or the Conservatives – means the other British political parties have more soul-searching to do.

Labour came second, defying right-wing pundits on the BBC and elsewhere who were hoping to see “weird” Ed Miliband suffer. But his lead over the Tories is just 1.5 per cent – hardly a ringing endorsement.

Clearly the British people were not convinced by his offer and Labour must revise its position on Europe or prepare to lose the next general election.

A good starting-place for the Party of the Workers would be a promise to halt the flow of migrant workers from EU countries with weaker economies by pushing for a change to the rule allowing free movement between countries – ensuring that this only happens between states that have comparable economies.

This would put an end to the economic opportunism that has caused the perceived flood of migrants from the poorer countries of eastern Europe, and make it possible for British people to get better jobs, offering more working hours – and negotiate for higher pay.

It isn’t rocket science, but Labour has failed to grasp this concept. One has to wonder why. Maybe Labour is still a bit too fond of Conservative-style neoliberalism. Is that it, Ed?

Labour’s problems are nothing compared with those of the Conservative Party. David Cameron wagered that his promise of an in/out referendum on the EU, to take place in 2017, would win him the next UK general election – but this result has shown that the British people don’t believe a word of it.

Rather than be held to ransom by an over-privileged nob, they have turned to an untried party of even more hard-line right-wingers who would probably create worse problems for working Britons than even the Tories, if they were ever elected into office in Westminster.

That is the message David Cameron has to swallow today: We don’t believe him. We don’t trust him. We don’t want him.

Yet his party seems unrepentant. Prominent members have already rejected calls to strengthen the referendum offer, for example.

The loss will make Cameron more likely to seek a deal with UKIP – and one is already in the offing, if we are to believe the denials coming from other leading Tories. This would be to UKIP’s disadvantage as Farage only needs to look at Nick Clegg to see what will happen.

Clegg should be a broken man. Not only have the Liberal Democrats haemorrhaged local councillors, but now he also has to face up to the fact that he has lost all but one of his party’s MEPs.

The BBC said the survival of Catherine Bearder in the South East region prevented a “humiliating wipe-out” – but isn’t the loss of no less than nine MEPs humiliating enough?

Clegg is already facing calls for his resignation amid claims that nobody wants to listen to him any more. This means the turnabout from “I agree with Nick” in 2010 is now complete. Anyone considering going into coalition with the Conservatives (Farage) should pay close attention. The British voter hates traitors.

There is one more matter arising from this result; a fact that you are not likely to hear on the mainstream media, but one that seems increasingly important, considering the demise of the Liberal Democrats.

The Green Party was fourth-placed in this election. Its 1,244,475 (so far) voters mean it had two-sevenths of UKIP’s support, while the Conservative Party – the party in power here in the UK – had only three times as many supporters.

Expect Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas to capitalise on this for all they’re worth.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

UKIP uncovered: More hidden policies revealed (part one of a possible series)

Tags

bank, Bank of England, Bristol Airport, economy, election, general, Gordon Brown, Green Belt, Green Party, house, housing, image, immigration, local, manifesto, meme, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Nigel Farage, policies, policy, politics, regulation, The Yorker, UKIP, University of York, Vox Political

[Image: alecshelbrookeblog.com]

Yesterday’s article (UKIP: They don’t like it up ’em) delved into the facts behind a controversial meme that has been doing the rounds on the social media.

The image claims to be publicising UKIP policies, and seven out of the 10 policies claimed for the party have been verified, as demonstrated in the VP article.

Vox Political has been doing a little digging into the others.

The claim that UKIP wants to cancel all planned house-building on Green Belt land appears to have been based on the party’s 2010 general election and 2013 local election manifestos, which are no longer available to the public. Party members have stated many times, recently, that Nigel Farage has rubbished the 2010 document and its contents are not to be taken as UKIP policy. The party’s attitude to its manifesto from last year is less clear.

The relevant line, as quoted in this Property Newshound blog, is: “by controlling immigration, large areas of British countryside will not need to be destroyed by house building.” The rest of the article is well worth reading too.

UKIP’s South Buckinghamshire website discusses plans to build on the Green Belt, with a reply to a summary document by the Conservative Party:

“Conservatives say: ‘So we need to find places to build more homes…’ (page 2)

“UKIP reply: Not on green belt land!”

The strange thing is that preventing development of Green Belt land should not be a controversial issue, yet I have just – as I have been writing this blog – received a comment from a UKIP supporter stating: “Every bullet point [on the meme] is a fiction, written by a Green Party activist.”

Where does that leave UKIP policy? Does the party now want to build on Green Belt land, because the Green Party (apparently) opposes it?

Personally, I’m against that. My former home in Bristol was on the edge of the city, next to Green Belt land which became threatened by the South Western regional assembly (whatever it was called). Residents had a terrible time fighting off the proposed development, which seemed to be motivated solely by a desire to build a new road to Bristol Airport, enabling faster journeys from it to the city and back.

Building on the Green Belt – of any kind other than what is absolutely necessary for agricultural purposes – should be banned, in the opinion of this writer. It is land that has been set aside in the national interest, and proposals to develop it should be seen for what they are – money-grubbing by disinterested corporates who live in mansions on estates that will never be disturbed by such environmentally-damaging raids.

The claim that UKIP wants to cancel bank regulations “to make banks safer” was a commitment on the party’s policy website, according to this article in The Yorker (which is simply the first I found in a Google search). The Yorker is a student-run media site, based at the University of York, which claims no political affiliations at all.

It states: “According to their policy website UKIP… wants [to] further de-regulate the city… Indeed their primary reasons for leaving the EU relate to the need to cut such rights and regulations in the name of The City and big business.”

This would appear to be corroborated by Nigel Farage himself, who wrote in an Independent article in January this year: “And let’s look closer to home for where the fault lies with the banking crisis. I know it might still be trendy to “bash the bankers” but this crash was entirely predictable. It was Gordon Brown handing over regulation of the banking industry from the Bank of England who, since 1694 has done a pretty good job, and handed it over to the tick-box bureaucrats in Canary Wharf.”

It seems the case for UKIP wanting bank deregulation is also proven.

Unlike the Green Belt issue, bank deregulation would be a huge mistake for the UK. Farage is wrong in his claim that Gordon Brown was at fault for re-introducing regulation to the banking sector; it is the fact that he didn’t introduce enough regulation that let us down. The banks all told him that they were perfectly capable of policing themselves, and he took them at face value. Meanwhile the Conservatives, who have been blaming Labour for being too loose with regulation ever since they got back into office, despite doing nothing about the issue themselves, were calling for even less regulation at the time of the banking crash.

The UK requires more banking regulation, not less. Less regulation would encourage further abuses of the banking system and would inevitably lead to another disaster. This time the consequences could be appalling, for millions of low-paid British citizens. Farage does not clarify why he wants to court this.

More revelations may follow.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

The Tories have run out of momentum, ideas and even arguments

Tags

bank, banker, charge, Co-op, company, Conservative, crash, Credit Crunch, Ed Miliband, edict, election, energy, Europe, finances, firm, Fraser Nelson, free enterprise, general, George Osborne, government, green, ideological, ideology, inequality, interference, investment, Labour, lloyds, long term economic plan, market, neoliberal, predator, price freeze, privatisation, public, purse, raid, recovery, regulation, regulator, Reverend Flowers, rip-off, Scandinavia, Spain, Square Mile, teacher, The North, The Spectator, Tories, Tory, Tory Democrat

Old Labour: Oversaw the longest periods of economic growth in British history and DIDN’T cause the biggest crash (that was neoliberalism, beloved of Conservatives). There is nothing wrong with it.

Dear old Fraser Nelson has been trying to generate some momentum against Ed Miliband’s plans for a Labour government.

But, bless ‘im, not only did he hit the nail on the head when he wrote (in The Spectator), “Tories seem to have lost interest in ideas”, he might just as well have been talking about the Tory press because – other than the parts in which he praises Miliband for his political acumen and perception, Fraser has nothing new to say at all.

“Why, if he is such a joke, has Labour led in the opinion polls for three years solidly? And why has he been the bookmakers’ favourite to win the next general election for even longer?” These are the questions Fraser asks, and then goes on to answer in the most glowing terms possible.

“His agenda is clear, radical, populist and … popular. His speeches are intellectually coherent, and clearly address the new problems of inequality,” writes Fraser.

“His analysis is potent because he correctly identifies the problem. There is [a] major problem with the recovery, he says, in that the spoils are going to the richest, and it’s time to act… George Osborne does not talk about this. He prefers to avoid the wider issue of inequality. This leaves one of the most interesting debates of our times entirely open to Miliband.”

All of the above is a gift to the Labour leadership. Fraser has scored a huge own-goal by admitting the Labour leader – far from being “a joke”, has correctly identified the problem and can say what he likes because the Tories won’t even discuss it!

Worse still (for Fraser), he seems to think that telling us Ed Miliband is mining Labour’s past policies to get future success will put us off.

Hasn’t anybody told Fraser – yet – that it is current neoliberal policies, as practised by both Labour and the Tories, that caused the crash of 2007 onwards? With that as our context, why not go back and resurrect policies that offer a plausible alternative?

As a Conservative, Fraser should appreciate the irony that it is Labour who are now looking at the past to create the future.

“The philosophical underpinning is rehabilitated: that the free enterprise system does not work, and should be put under greater government control,” writes Fraser. “That companies, bankers and markets have buggered up Britain — and it’s time for people, through Big Government, to fight back.” Who could argue with that?

Then Fraser goes into some of those policies, like the plan to revive the 50 per cent tax rate. “But Miliband isn’t taxing for revenue. He’s taxing for the applause of the electorate and he calculates that the more he beats up on bankers and the rich, the louder the masses will cheer.” The answer to that is yes! What’s wrong with that? The Coalition came into office on a ticket that said bankers would pay for the damage they caused, and yet bankers have been among the principal beneficiaries of the ongoing raid on the public finances that the Coalition calls its “long-term economic plan”. In the face of dishonesty on that scale, Fraser should be more surprised that the North hasn’t invaded the Square Mile and strung anybody in a suit up on a lamppost – yet.

Next up, Fraser tries to attack Miliband’s proposed revival of a Kinnock plan for a state-run ‘British Investment Bank’ and two new high street bank chains. To this writer, the prospect of two new, state-run and regulated, banks is a brilliant idea! No more rip-off charges for services that should be free! Investment in growth, rather than short-term profit! And all run the way banks should be run – prudently and with the interests of the customer – rather than the shareholder – at heart. How can Fraser (bless ‘im) argue with that?

Argue he does. He writes: “As Simon Walker, head of the Institute of Directors, put it: ‘The last time the government told a bank what to do, Lloyds was ordered to sell branches to the Co-op’s Reverend Flowers. And we all know how that ended.’ Wrong. European regulators ordered the government (then principle shareholder in Lloyds) to sell the branches, and it happened on the Coalition government’s watch. In fact, George Osborne welcomed the deal. That’s an argument against Conservative mismanagement.

Fraser goes on to claim that Miliband doesn’t care how his bank project will work out – he just wants it done. He’s on an ideological crusade. Again, this provokes comparisons with the Tories that are (for the Tories) extremely uncomfortable. The Tories (and their little yellow Tory Democrat friends) have spent the last four years on an ideological crusade that has robbed the poorest people in the UK of almost everything they have, and are now starting to attack people who are better off (but still not posh enough) – they can hardly criticise Labour for having an ideology of its own.

The line about green policies which cost nine jobs for every four created – in Spain – is risible. Fraser has chosen a country where green policies have not worked well. How are they managing in Scandinavia?

Fraser says Labour’s energy price freeze “magically” makes good a 1983 pledge for everyone to afford adequate heat and light at home – without commenting on the fact that energy companies have been ripping us all off for many years and failing to invest in the future of power generation; they are an example of the worst kind of industrial privatisation.

Fraser says Labour has revived a 1983 demand for “a supply of appropriately qualified teachers” as though that is a bad idea (it isn’t. Bringing in unqualified people to act as teachers in Michael Gove’s silly ‘free schools’ sandpit was the bad idea). Note he says Labour wants “union-approved” qualified teachers – depending on mention of the unions to get a knee-jerk reaction from his readers, no doubt.

Fraser says Miliband attacks “predator” companies – moneylenders who offer short-term loans; people who make fixed-odds betting machines; landowners who stand accused of hoarding and thwarting housebuilding. “When Miliband talks about the future, he says very little about what he’d do with government. He talks about what he’d do to British business. All this amounts to a blitz of regulation, edicts and interference,” he writes.

This is to suggest that “regulation” is a dirty word – a synonym for “interference”. Let’s help Fraser out by suggesting a word he can use instead of “regulation” or “interference”.

That word is “help” – and it exemplifies what regulation is, in fact, about – helping companies to provide the best service possible, with the least possible corruption or profiteering, to ensure that customers get what they want and are happy to come back – boosting prosperity for everybody.

Substitute that word for the others and Fraser’s remaining rhetoric looks very different:

“All this amounts to a blitz of help” evokes the response, about time too!

“[Tristram] Hunt does not pretend that help at this level is being attempted in any free country” begs the question, why not?

While Fraser may have set out to write an assassination piece on Ed Miliband’s Labour, there can be no doubt that he ended up doing the exact opposite. It wasn’t his intention – look at his final few lines: “Miliband is bold enough to think that, in a country midway through the worst recovery in history, there may be a market for all this now. And most terrifyingly of all, he might be right.”

This botched attempt at scaremongering only exposes right-wing ideology for what it is: Out-argued, outclassed and badly out-of-step with the thoughts of the British people.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Don’t lose your right to vote because of apathy

Tags

agent provocateur, apathy, commission, election, electoral, fraud, general, individual, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, propaganda, register, registration, Stephen Twigg, suffrage, universal, vote, Vox Political

Individual voter registration will replace the current system in time for the general election in 2015, according to a government minister.

It will replace the current system in which households are asked to declare the identities of everyone living there who is qualified to vote.

Instead, it will be up to the individual elector to ensure that his or her name remains on the electoral register.

The Electoral Commission has welcomed the announcement, claiming that the measure will cut fraud and “lead to a more secure electoral register” – but Labour has raised concerns that some voters will be left out.

This is a genuine fear – that pressure of other commitments will push electoral registration out of mind. Most working people, along with the unemployed, are confronted with a multitude of matters that fight for their attention every day; registering for an event that won’t take place for several months is likely to slip their minds. There is also the threat of creeping apathy; the feeling that voting won’t change anything, that has been carefully promoted by right-wing propaganda and agents-provocateurs in the social media.

There is a very deep concern that this is exactly why Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are bringing in the new system.

Tory voters are well-regimented. They will make sure they stay on the register, and they will vote according to their instructions, on a regular basis. It is a gross generalisation, but they are generally less stressed than other voters, with fewer commitments. Liberal Democrats could face electoral annihilation in 2015, so this will add urgency to their attitude.

Labour voters – supporting the main opposition to the two Coalition parties – are often less committed to the process. It can be hard to motivate them to come out and vote, and individual voter registration adds a new layer to this difficulty.

It seems likely that people who have not registered under the new system will still be able to cast a ballot in the 2015 general election, under transitional arrangements – but the Shadow minister for constitutional reform, Stephen Twigg, has warned that 8.7 million voters are “on course” to fall off the register because of the way the government is rushing the change through.

Here at Vox Political, we believe that everyone in the UK should continue to enjoy – and exercise – the right to vote. In fact, ever since universal suffrage was introduced (as recently as the 20th century), it should be the duty of the government to ensure that this happens. Nobody should be turned away from a polling station.

This measure does not ensure that – in fact it makes such a situation less likely. That is why this blog will endeavour to ensure that all our readers are made aware of when the arrangement changes and what they need to do – and we will issue reminders, to ensure that you do not lose the right that your forebears suffered and died to win for you.

Vox Political needs your donations more than ever before! The site is funded entirely by donations and book sales.
This site needs YOUR support to continue.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Are landlord councillors resorting to illegal antics to enforce Bedroom Tax evictions?

Tags

bedroom tax, benefit, benefits, block, Brecon, corrupt, council, county, dispensation, financial, general, House of Commons, housing, housing benefit, human right, Interest, Labour, landlord, Landlord Subsidy, library, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, motion, no eviction, particular, pecuniary, people, politics, Powys, Radnorshire, Raquel Rolnik, Shires Independent Group, social security, special, special rapporteur, Standards Committee, un, united nations, Vox Political, welfare

Taking no notice: Councillors appear to be breaking the law in order to enforce Bedroom Tax evictions. [Picture: The Guardian}

It seems the ruling group of Powys County Council, here in Mid Wales, has challenged the law in its attempts to block a ‘no-eviction’ motion on the Bedroom Tax.

The Labour motion was put forward at a meeting of the full council on October 24. It called on councillors to note the comments of Raquel Rolnik, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Housing, who said that the Bedroom Tax policy could constitute a violation of the human right to adequate housing, and asked them to pledge that Powys will not evict tenants who fail to pay their rent because of it.

Councillors who are also private landlords were forbidden from speaking or voting on the motion. They have a financial (or pecuniary) interest in the matter as they stand to benefit if social housing tenants are forced to seek accommodation with them as a result of the policy. This meant around 30 councillors had to leave the chamber.

It seems that members of the ruling Shires Independent Group, realising that there was a real possibility that the motion would be carried, then called for any members who are themselves social housing tenants – or have friends or family who are social housing tenants – should also be barred from taking part.

This made it impossible to continue the debate. The matter has been passed to the council’s Standards Committee, whose members have been asked to judge whether landlord councillors should receive special dispensation in order to debate the motion.

It seems that this decision is wrong in law.

According to Essential Local Government, a journalistic textbook from the Vox Political vaults, “In some cases, the Secretary of State for the Environment or Secretary of State for Wales can issue either a general or particular dispensation entitling members with declared interests to take part in debates and to vote. An example of this is that councillors who are council tenants may take part in debates on, and vote on, matters relating to council housing.”

That book was published in 1993 but there is no reason to expect such a general dispensation to have been removed and therefore it seems that any call for councillors who are tenants – or who know tenants – not to be able to take part in a debate can have no basis in law.

The motion should have been debated by councillor-tenants and members with no interest, and a decision made on the day, nearly a month ago. The delay means social housing tenants in Powys (and VP knows of 686 affected households in the Brecon and Radnorshire constituency alone) may have been subjected to an unnecessary month of evictions or threats of eviction.

It has been suggested that the decision to block the motion may have been prompted by figures from the House of Commons library which suggest that as a result of the Bedroom Tax the amount of Housing Benefit paid to private landlords (remember, HB is a landlord subsidy and does not enrich tenants at all) will rise from £7.9 billion to £9.4 billion.

If the Standards Committee decides to allow them to debate the motion, it is likely that the decision will therefore be corrupt.

The matter went unreported by the local press because none of the newspapers had sent any reporters to cover the meeting.

How many other councils, across the UK, have voted on ‘no evictions’ motions under a false understanding of who can take part? VP knows that Bristol City Council has debated the matter with a controversial result.

Meanwhile, for tenants up and down the country, the agony goes on.

Jobseekers and the self-employment trap

Tags

benefit, bounty, budget, business, commission, Conservative, Democrat, Department, DWP, election, esther mcvey, firm, fund, general, insolvent, jobseeker, Jobseeker's Allowance, Labour, Lib Dem, Liberal, loan, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Pensions, self employ, social security, tax relief, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, welfare, work

Yesterday’s outburst against Esther McVey and her innovative way of interpreting the benefit claimant statistics proved very popular as readers clamoured to suggest alternative reasons why people who deserve benefits are no longer getting them.

One of these deserves an article of its own, because it really is ‘The One That Got Away’ – and doesn’t deserve to. As the commenter who raised it pointed out, it could be a huge scandal.

We refer, of course, to the fact that people on Jobseekers’ Allowance are being, let’s call it, ‘persuaded’ to go self-employed and start new businesses.

How are these businesses funded? Do these people get a share of a different DWP budget? Do they get loans? Do they get tax relief to support them while they are setting up these firms?

Meanwhile, some believe the DWP officers who force jobseekers to go self-employed get a commission for doing so – an extra payment on top of their salaries. Or is it a bounty, for taking one more name off the books?

Can anyone shed light on this? Do they get paid for creating, in effect, fake jobs?

Some of these new firms will succeed. Current statistics mean around 10-20 per cent of new small businesses last more than three years. But this means at least 80 per cent will go under.

Our commenter who mentioned the issue raised fears that funding will be withdrawn, right around the time of the 2015 general election.

Wouldn’t that be shocking – if Labour took office only to be faced with headlines that the new government was sending businesses to the wall and unemployment through the roof in its first year of government?

My commenter wondered if this was “another Tory elephant-trap for Labour”. Good question.

If so, it will be time to remind everyone that, since the Coalition came into office, 52,701 firms have been declared insolvent and 379,968 individuals.

Even with ‘help’ from the Coalition, it would take a lot of effort for Labour to equal that dismal record.

Jeremy Clarkson: Politician?

Tags

BBC, candidate, Chipping Norton, Conservative, David Cameron, Doncaster North, Ed Miliband, election, general, Independent, Jeremy Clarkson, John Prescott, Labour, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, petrolhead, split, Top Gear, Tories, Tory, vote, Vox Political, Witney

Will 2015 be the Hour for this Man? Jeremy Clarkson is weighing up the possibilities of a career in politics. [Picture: The Independent]

Start the week with a snigger: Jeremy Clarkson reckons he might try his hand at politics.

He tweeted that he might stand for Parliament as an independent candidate for Doncaster North – Ed Miliband’s seat.

Nobody should need to be told that Clarkson is a huge supporter of the Conservative Party, and is believed to be a friend of David Cameron, who is a neighbour of his in Chipping Norton. Yes, Clarkson is one of the famous ‘Chipping Norton set’.

The tweet reads: “I’m thinking I might stand in the next election as an independent for Doncaster North, which is where I’m from. Thoughts?”

All right, Jeremy, since you ask.

You are known around the world as one of the “three idiots” on the BBC’s Top Gear, which has become a comedy show about petrolheads, rather than a serious motoring show (and extremely watchable as a result). Every week, there is a feature in which you, Hammond and Captain Slow are set tasks and every week you manage to screw everything up somehow with your dunderheaded ideas. Now, I know that it’s just a TV show, but this is the public perception. Why on earth would anyone vote for you, based on that evidence?

Having said that, you are also known as a supporter of the Conservative Party. Standing as an independent would not disguise this fact, so Tories in Doncaster North would be presented with a choice between supporting the Conservative candidate or supporting you – a high-profile Tory. The law of averages suggests some of them would vote for you, so that means you would split the right-wing vote and give Ed Miliband an even greater majority.

On balance, therefore, this left-wing blog tends to support your idea. Go for it.

Better still, why not follow John Prescott’s advice and stand in Chipping Norton, your current home? I believe the Parliamentary seat is Witney. If you split the right-wing vote there, it might give a left-wing candidate a reasonable chance of gaining the seat and giving your friends and neighbours a halfway-decent MP, for a change!

Is the Attorney-General rebelling against Legal Aid changes in letter to barristers?

Tags

attorney, Bar Council, barrister, Chris Grayling, Coalition, collapse, committee, Commons, Conservative, consult, Dominic Grieve, edifice, general, government, Jack of Kent, Justice, lawyer, legal aid, lord chancellor, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, people, politics, secretary, solicitor, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

It seems the Secretary of State for Justice – Chris Grayling – cannot rely on the support of his own Attorney-General over his plans to stop people who need Legal Aid from getting it.

Dominic Grieve (for it is he) has written to barristers concerned about the Ministry of Justice’s proposals. In this letter, it appears clear that he is entirely unenthusiastic about the proposals – inconsistent with his membership of the same government as Grayling.

I am grateful to Jack of Kent for the following analysis.

The letter notably contains no words that could be described as an endorsement of the proposals. He accepts that opposition to the proposals cannot be explained away by self-interest, acknowledging that there is serious and principled opposition to the proposals which cannot be attributed to mere selfishness.

And the last sentence suggests that the Attorney-General is not personally confident that the Lord Chancellor is capable of making a fully informed decision, indicating that the government’s own senior law officer does not believe that the Ministry of Justice will make a policy decision on an appropriate evidential basis.

Here is the text of the letter in full (it can be found on the Internet here).

“A number of you wrote to me on 4th June drawing to my attention concerns about the Ministry of Justice proposals for the reform of legal aid. From regular attendance at Bar Council meetings I am well aware of the deeply and sincerely held concerns the Bar has on the effect these proposals, if implemented, will have. I recognise that those concerns go beyond the personal, financial implications to individual members of the Bar – serious though those may be – but extend to the potential impact on the quality of the justice system this country is rightly proud of.

“The Consultation paper meeting was one of the main topics for consideration at the Bar Council meeting of 20th April. I was asked to speak at the close of the Council’s debate. I emphasised that this was a consultation exercise carried out by the Lord Chancellor [Mr Grayling]. He, like other Ministers, had savings that his department had to absorb and where savings are to be made depends on where priorities lay. I said that on the whole, the service provided by the legal profession is taken for granted and that there was a general view that whilst lawyers complained about every financial cut imposed, the edifice will continue to function as it has in the past. I said that it was apparent now, from listening to what had been said at the meeting, that many present took the view that these proposals would cause the edifice to collapse. In my view, it was vital that the Bar use the consultation exercise to explain why these proposals will damage the justice system and what the overall impact will be.

“I know the Bar Council has provided a thoughtful yet powerful response to the consultation – one of many from the Bar. It was important that the consultation was responded to and I am grateful to all who have taken time to write to me and provide me with the particular insights of those who carry out Government work through membership of the Panels.

“Policy in this area is owned by the Lord Chancellor and not me. But I have already spoken to the Lord Chancellor and will continue to draw to his attention the concerns that have been expressed to me. I will endeavour to ensure, as far as I can, that the decision he reaches in due course is a fully informed one.”

These proposals would cause the edifice to collapse. That’s what some of us have been saying all along.

What do you think of the Attorney-General’s letter?

Whatever conclusions Grayling reaches, they may become apparent on July 3, when the Commons Justice Committee questions him about his proposals.

Hopefully, these questions will take into account not only the plans themselves, but the Attorney-General’s letter and the concerns which led him to write it, and also news stories demonising legal aid barristers and solicitors as “cashing in” (such as a Sun story last week), featuring supporting comments from Grayling himself.

Iain Duncan Smith has committed contempt of Parliament and should be expelled

Tags

advance, andrew dilnot, anecdotal, anecdote, benefits, budget, cap, change.org, committee, contempt, data, Debbie Sayers, debt, deliberate, Department, DWP, expel, Frances O'Grady, general, Guardian, Iain Duncan Smith, Jayne Linney, Katherine Trebeck, Media, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Mirror, mislead, national, NHS, Oxfam, Parliament, Pensions, petition, secretary, share, sharing, suspend, TUC, uk statistics authority, Vox Political, work

It’s a whopper: How big do you think Iain Duncan Smith’s next Parliamentary exaggeration of the truth will be?

Why is Iain Duncan Smith still a member of Parliament?

Apparently there is an offence, here in the UK, known as Contempt of Parliament. An MP is guilty of this if he or she deliberately misleads Parliament, and any MP accused of the offence may be suspended or expelled.

Our odious Work and Pensions secretary is a repeat offender. It is one thing to be “economical with the truth”, as the euphemism goes; it is entirely different to present known falsehoods to the House of Commons as though they were accurate.

Smith’s latest wheeze involves a press release released by his Department of Work and Pensions last month, in which he is quoted as follows: “Already we’ve seen 8,000 people who would have been affected by the [benefits] cap move into jobs. This clearly demonstrates that the cap is having the desired impact.”

There is no evidence to support the claim. This has been made clear by Andrew Dilnot, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, who said in an open letter yesterday (Thursday) that it was “unsupported by the official statistics published by the department”.

He added that an explicit caution had made it clear that the statistics used by Smith to support his claim were “not intended to show the additional numbers entering work as a direct result of the contact”.

In addition, figures released alongside the statement do not comply with the UK’s codes and practices on statistical releases, and concerns have been raised about the methodology and sourcing, along with possible advance sharing of the data with some – sympathetic? – media outlets.

As an aside, it seems unlikely that Mr Dilnot realised, when he accepted his role at the statistics authority, that it would be such a high-profile role. How many people had even heard of it before the Tory-led Coalition government came into power? Precious few, one suspects.

Yet it has now become a household name, due to the Tories’ continued and persistent use of faked statistics.

They claimed the NHS budget was rising when it had fallen – and only yesterday we saw one consequence of this; the critical strain facing accident and emergency units. Remember, many hospitals are having their A&E units closed, adding to the strain on those that are left. Why is this happening, if not to save money?

They also claimed – in a party political broadcast, no less – that the national debt was falling when in fact it has risen massively over the course of this Parliament.

And now this.

Smith is, as mentioned above, a repeat offender: He also stated recently that around a million people have been stuck on benefits for at least three of the last four years, “despite being judged capable of preparing or looking for work”. These figures were, of course, inaccurate – they included single mothers, the seriously ill, and people awaiting testing.

Oxfam’s Katherine Trebeck, policy and advocacy manager for its UK poverty programme, said in The Mirror that this was “beyond the pale”.

She said: “The vast majority of people who are out of work would jump at the chance to take a job that paid them a wage they can afford to live on.”

And the TUC’s general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said in The Guardian: “Only people with weak arguments need to make up statistics.

“The secretary of state needs to apologise – not just to Parliament, but to the many who cannot find jobs, for misusing his department’s statistics in this way.”

The DWP has issued a statement supporting Smith, but its argument is extremely weak. It said anecdotal responses of staff and claimants supported what he had said: “DWP staff and claimants are telling us the cap is impacting behaviour and leading to those affected finally entering the world of work.”

Anecdotal evidence is not fact and cannot be presented as such. Our good friend Wikipedia describes it in these terms: “Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise non-representative samples of typical cases.Anecdotal evidence is considered dubious support of a claim; it is accepted only in lieu of more solid evidence. This is true regardless of the veracity of individual claims.^“

Manipulation of statistics by the DWP and its secretary of state prompted Debbie Sayers and fellow blogger Jayne Linney – who has supported Vox Political articles many times – to launch a petition on the change.org website, calling on Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee to hold Smith to account for his habitual offences against government statistics.

The petition is here, and at the time of writing has more than 76,500 signatures. Please sign it if you haven’t already done so.

It’s time for Iain Duncan Smith – who remains, let’s all remember, Vox Political‘s Monster of the Year for 2012 – to put up or shut up. He must either admit that he lied to Parliament and to the people in order to justify his despicable treatment of the most vulnerable people in the country…

… or he must be expelled from Parliament like the disgrace that he is.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy Vox Political books!
The second – Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

The first, Strong Words and Hard Times
is still available in either print or eBook format here: