Upon joining the rest of the Epsom commuter class on the 8.33 train to
Anyway, back to the point. When I turned back to the start of the paper to make my way through the news pages, I was surprised to be met with a huge, full-spread Government advert for the Backing Young Britain programme. As many have pointed out, it seems clear that the Labour government will not need to worry about the poor levels of party funding they have raised through the Unions or their other donors, they can just get us to pay for their electioneering by way of departmental advertising spend.
The Spectator has detailed how the advertising budget for central government has soared from £13m in December to £30m in January and £34m in February of this year. It seems likely that the budget will be retained at this level, or may even be increased as polling day nears. I have yet to look at advertising spends for other election years, but I imagine the pattern will be fairly similar.
Similar to the Communications Allowance, then, this seems to be another in-built advantage that sitting Governments can enjoy at the expense of the taxpayer. The Conservatives are committed to removing the Communications Allowance. Let’s hope they abolish this kind of practice as well.
Although spoiled rather by politicians continually talking over oneanother, last night’s Newsnight education special was an important one. In these times of budget cuts our schools look set to be a key electoral battleground in a way that perhaps they haven’t been since Tony Blair’s famous ‘education, education, education’ pledge in 1997.
It’s a pledge that continues to haunt Labour today. The BBC’s poll for last night’s programme shows that only 25% think Labour have delivered on his promise. A similar number said they believe Labour have used the money it has spent on schooling wisely.
Here lies the key problem for the Government. The last 13 years have certainly seen some improvements in certain areas, but those improvements are completely out of step with the huge amounts of money that have been spent. Not enough has gone on front-line teachers and school funding, but instead into targets, additional tests, nonsensical initiatives, and a huge increase in regional beurocracy. Just ask my mother, a special-needs teaching specialist, who has moved further and further away from the classroom and now spends the majority of her time in a
The challenge for the other parties is to show they would spend the money more wisely. Gove did a reasonable job of this last night, aided by a mother from
Perhaps this is the way for the Conservatives to overcome the difficulty people have in clearly understanding their plans (the BBC poll showed that only 25% think that the Conservatives have the best education policies, a 10% drop from 2009 largely explained by a huge increase in the ‘don’t knows’). Get more people like Lesley to put the simple facts in front of the electorate. Labour has failed on education in some areas. When schools are closing, or are not good enough to stay open, rather than asking LEAs to sort out the problem it is far better to leave education in the hands of those with the greatest vested interest in seeing their children succeed, the parents.
p.s. I realise that I haven’t said much about the Liberal Democrat plans. As with so many of their policies, I find they seem completely uncosted. An increase in funding for schools to take on ‘difficult’ pupils is laudable, but they are ringfencing education spending, NHS spending – as David Laws seemed to indicate last night – and spending approx. £10bn taking the lowest earners out of income tax. They are also promising no tax increases. You have to wonder what kind of calculator they are using…
£60,000
Estimated annual revenue from charging disabled and pensioners to park in Epsom Council car parks.
£60,000
Annual cost of chauffeur, running costs, and garage for Epsom Mayor’s Rolls Royce.
Affecting news in today’s Evening Standard as it marks the fifth day of its ‘Dispossessed’ report, on those living below the poverty line in
The series has elicited much comment, hundreds of e-mails and letters, as well as a great deal of chest-beating from all three Party Leaders in yesterday’s edition. Each Party has much to say on how to take the most disadvantaged members of our society out of poverty, but not enough of this is couched in practical terms. It’s the old Blairite soundbite politics – aspirational sentences without verbs, without the actual ‘doing’ piece of the equation.
The case of Vincent, the eighteen year-old who cannot apply to University due to the lack of £19 to pay for his UCAS application seems particularly difficult to understand. This is a young man with a decent education (five GCSEs at A-C level) and realistic, defined aspirations who is being denied the right to attain his goals through extreme poverty.
Vincent, however, is fortunate. ‘Cam and Carole Spence from Walthamstow’ have taken it upon themselves to sponsor him – paying for his UCAS application, and offering stationary and book vouchers to help him on his way. All very noble, but we cannot expect every poverty-stricken student to get in touch with the press to further their educational aims. It is essential that young people such as Vincent be given the hand-up they need to excel.
Far be it from me to offer up unfunded spending promises (I AM a Conservative after all), but offering to pay the application fees to UCAS for people on Income Support would seem to make sense, particularly when the £19 is set against years of benefits that would potentially need to be paid out to such individuals. As a policy, it seems small fry as I sit here typing, but who knows what even one of the people helped under such a scheme could achieve.
So there you have it – a progressive, Conservative education pledge. If you want to apply to University and have decent grades, but cannot afford it then we will help pay your way. Are you listening Ken Clarke?
Gordon Brown goes up before the Chilcot enquiry on
On second thoughts, though, it seems like a canny move. By arranging things this way Brown’s evidence will be split from next week’s sessions by a few extra days. In addition, the weekly gauntlet of Newsnight and Question Time has already been run. By next week there is the suspicion that these programmes will not run today’s session because it is ‘old news’. Admittedly there is still Marr and the Politics Show on Sunday, but these are in no way seen as threatening as Paxman and Dimbleby.
Regardless of the wherefores and whys, it is an important and challenging day for Brown. When defence questions come up in the House, he is able to hide behind spending on ‘urgent operational requirements’ to cover up the huge lack of planned defence expenditure. In the Enquiry room, however, such obfuscation will cut no ice. I would expect a good deal of questioning on the ‘guillotining’ of the defence budget, on helicopters and on Snatch Land Rovers. Sadly, the enquiry’s scope only extends to the run up to the Iraq war, so there will be no time to discuss the ruinous procurement and purchasing policies that this (and, indeed, former) governments have implemented that so increase the cost of our most basic defence needs.
We shall see what transpires. Incidentally, I am sure the Conservatives are more than happy for Chilcot to dominate the weekend news agenda. Whether it is getting through to the electorate or not (and I would still argue not), any break from coverage of Lord Ashcroft will be very welcome…
The TaxPayer’s
There has been uproar here recently due to our Borough Council voting to scrap free parking for Blue Badge holders in the town’s car parks. Groups of residents and political parties alike have put together petitions to get this decision overturned, stating everything from the necessity to look after disadvantaged members of our society to the sheer impracticality of disabled drivers reaching the ticket machines. The Council has hit back, pointing to the difficulties of balancing the books, and the other difficult decisions that have been made to cut costs including all Council staff taking a pay freeze in 2010.
A quick look at the accounts, however, seems to belie the Council’s talk of doom and gloom. Yes, reserves are down - £7.3m in March 09 vs. £8.6m in March 08 – but at least there still are reserves. What, then, has the Council so worried? Could it be their huge black hole of a pension pot?
According to their accounts, Council pensions in
And what pensions they are! A 15.5% pension contribution from the Council for every employee…every year! Compared with an average of a mere 6.5% employer contribution in the private sector. One year tax freeze or not, our public servants in Epsom have never had it better. Perhaps the Council officials would do well to read the TPA report, and act on some of their suggestions so that rather than having to cut services for the most at-risk members of our society, they can do some belt-tightening elsewhere…
+++UPDATE+++
Well well well! An interesting little nugget of information has just dropped into the DadForChange inbox. It seems that it's not only Council employees getting a great deal on their pension, but there is also at least one Councillor who is signed up to the scheme. I really hope that they declared an interest and did not vote on the budget. The idea that one of our elected representatives voted in measures to cut local services to pay for their own pension really is beyond a joke.
+++UPDATE+++
And another! DadForChange's Town Hall source has estimated that the blue badge payment proposal is only expected to bring in £60,000 revenue to the Council. This figure doesn't even include the cost of adapting all the town's ticket machines for disabled use. Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to the point?
Gordon Brown wasn’t at PMQs today, so Harriet Harman filled in. Rather than answering questions on his Government’s policies in the House, the Prime Minister was away ‘welcoming’ the President of South Africa to our shores. The point was made on the Daily Politics that he could have quite easily pushed this meeting back, and it is a fair one. Brown has missed twice as many PMQs in his two and a half years as Tony Blair missed in his ten years, and it simply isn’t good enough.
It was an extremely noisy session, with insults flying back and forth – mainly about Lord Ashcroft. Harman worked hard at the insults but often lacked the substance to back them up, frequently looking out of her depth on the economic and defence questions Hague threw at her today. In such a rowdy environment mistakes were frequent: Harman referring to Hague as Foreign Secretary was matched by the Tory backbencher forgetting to ask his question, and the Leader of the House not bothering to listen to one from her own back-benches.
As to Lord Ashcroft, Harman got a dig in on the subject during most of her answers but anything she offered up to Hague on the subject was thrown back in her face with relish, particularly with a reference to Harman’s own husband’s selection as PPC for Ladywood – “she doesn't’ want to recognize marriage in the tax system, but she sure does in the political system”. Vintage.
In all I can’t help feeling that this Ashcroft saga is becoming a bit of a
On another note, I was impressed with the Speaker today. Bercow tried to keep order during the Leaders’ questions with little success, but lost it properly when the noise continued into backbench questions – well done!
One name was on everyone’s lips this weekend...No, not David Cameron...No, not even George Osborne...William Hague?...Of course not. No, the name that appeared at least once in every speech at this year’s Conference was Gordon Brown. It seems the electoral ploy this time around is to ignore the Labour Party, or the Cabinet, and place every failure of the last few years solely at the door of a so-called weak, dithering, bullying Prime Minister.
I can understand the reasoning. Public opinion definitely supports the idea that Gordon Brown is an unpopular leader, and when voters cast their votes on May 6 (or whenever polling day is) the thought of five more years with him at the helm will sway a good number of undecideds. I'm not sure, however, that they need it rammed down their throats with quite so much force.
The danger with all of this Brown bashing is that the Conservatives slip back into the being seen as the ‘nasty party’ and play to fears of the more right-wing, strident Conservativism of the past. Modernising and softening the Tory message has always been the hardest part of ‘Project Cameron’, but it has been achieved with some success. The challenge is now to enlighten an electorate who still aren’t quite sure what his Party now stands for, and at the same time to allay those ‘same old Tory’ fears. To lead with personal attacks on the Prime Minister won't help achieve this aim, particularly if we are truly to sell the Conservatives as the party to mend the country’s ‘Broken Politics’ in the coming election.
Talking about Gordon Brown might stop people marking an ‘X’ next to Labour at the election, but will it make them want to put it next to the Conservative tree? This is the second half of the equation we need to solve come May. I would argue that driving home attractive policy messages with a decent level of detail is the way to do it.
Marketeers and head-hunters alike always talk about push and pull factors. It’s all very good pushing voters away from Brown and the Labour party, but without a matching pull to the Conservatives we’ll never get the election result we want, and the country needs.
I have just returned from a fantastic weekend at the Conservative Spring Conference in
It was great to reconnect with old acquaintances and to make new friends over an Azerbaijani glass of wine or three (they know how to throw a party!), but more than anything else it was a pleasure to be able to hear Conservative policy from the people who have developed and will be responsible for implementing it.
What the Party Conference always drives home to me is the sheer depth of talent that we have on our team in the Shadow Cabinet. You really do get a sense of a strong, unified team all pulling in the same direction and working hard to bring the improvements our country needs so desperately at the moment.
I think it is this as much as the forthcoming General Election that has made me want to start blogging again. Previously, I mainly blogged about music…infrequently (you can view my previous efforts here). This time it’s going to be mainly political. I hope you find it interesting. Comment always welcome, clean comment even more so.
Enjoy,
James
