Thank Labour For Ken Clarke

Even that is allowed in prisons. Wot a libertarian he is!

A thought occurred to me earlier while I was pondering the very interesting news regarding the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke’s plans to reform the prison system.

Ken Clarke is the Justice Secretary. A role created by Labour because they wanted to divide the Home Office into more manageable chunks. This was a good thing. As the pressures of political office grow, it does make sense to try to make unwieldy portfolios into something a little less impossible.

This left the Home Office as a sort of “Ministry for the Interior”. Very continental.

The Home Office is now occupied by that bastion of liberalism, Teresa May. One of my customers, days after her appointment, told me he’d written a letter to her, telling her to be “strong” and “bold”. He said he knew her when he was a member of her constituency association, and that she would have grave problems with the Home Office because she’s “too weak for the job”. I digress…

Taking prisons and sentencing policy away from the Home Office was a very good idea. It means, now, that someone wholly separate, someone who doesn’t really have to look tough and beat prisoners into pulps to win votes can make the office their own.

Step forward Ken Clarke.

Today’s news, that the coalition couldn’t be further from the “prison works” line of the 90s, is music to my ears. There is probably no one else in the Tory Party I’d rather see in the role of Justice Secretary, as a man who has clearly recognised that locking minor criminals up has no effect on how likely they are to reoffend.

But the fact is, there is no way Ken Clarke would have been in the position to put today’s words into action had Labour not split the Home Office in two. Because the Tory part of the coalition would not have been able to put anyone too weak and liberal in that department. It would have had the Bill Cash’s of this world spinning in their graves. Oh, hang on, Bill Cash MP is still very much alive.

Let’s hope Ken Clarke can work away, quietly, in the shadows, and make some genuine steps towards reforming the way prisons work, or rather don’t work, in this country.

Protecting The “Frontline”?

This kind of "front line" removes parasitic fleas and ticks from the system. How... ironic.

In recent times we’ve been told that cuts would be “compassionate” – if that even means anything. The idea behind it being that cuts would be very careful, and avoid damaging the front-line.

Then the government unveiled its Spending Challenge, hoping to crowd-source ideas for saving money by asking six million public sector workers who “work on the frontline” (quote from the Spending Challenge website).

Putting that in the context of the Budget, which estimated cuts of 25% will be needed in each unprotected department, there’s something not adding up here.

From what I know, the Spending Challenge has gone out to a large number of people who we very definitely would not consider to be working on “the frontline” of public services. They are administrators, or other back-office support staff. When Joe Public thinks of the term “front line” in the context of the public sector, they probably mean doctors, nurses, teachers, maybe social workers, etc…

With that in mind, the coalition government can’t have it both ways. It is fantasy politics to pretend that these 6m public sector workers being consulted are not going to be affected. Yet that is what’s happening. After all, those compassionate cuts are going to avoid the “front line”. And David Cameron and Nick Clegg have called them all “front line”.

More likely then, they are engaging in a rather amusing exercise of self-destruction. They are asking the public sector workers to think of ways they can make themselves obsolete. Clever.

The real problem, as ever, is politicians not being able to say what they really want to say. Without a doubt they want to tell millions of public sector workers that their jobs no longer exist, but they probably want to win the next election, after all.

So, instead, they’ll craftily redefine what it means by “the frontline” when it suits them. You can be sure when the 25% cuts bite, and redundancies are announced (which they will be), we will be told that our government at least has protected the jobs “on the frontline”, and these are the sacrifices we will have to make if we want to keep teachers and police officers in their jobs.

Yes, people are going to be asked to commit hara-kiri for the sake of our betters. Even though, in June 2010, those people laying down their jobs were very probably being asked by David Cameron and Nick Clegg to share their most radical thoughts. Because they, on the “frontline”, had the best vantage point to see what was going wrong.

Politics, eh.

One Year On

In a post of mind-numbing boredom, today The Futility Monster opted to take a break from his usual posting regime merely to say thank you to the small and ever dwindling number of visitors to this blog, many of whom arrive here by searching for pictures of fireworks.

The diversion, entitled Operation Diversion, was craftily constructed so that he didn’t have to write a political post on a day in which he couldn’t think of anything interesting, relevant, or even tedious, to say. Observers quipped that such limitations had never stopped him before.

Commenting further, the Futility Monster said:

It’s been a fun year, and as long as I can keep finding things to write about, there is no reason why a series of posts can’t stretch from here into eternity. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?

ENDS

Notes to editors

• The Futility Monster received 11,671 views for the search term “fireworks” in the last 365 days.

A Balls Examination

Won't be seeing him with one of these for a while. If ever...

In government, Ed Balls was always one of my least favourite ministers. He was patronising, dictatorial and a little bit shifty.

In Opposition, Ed Balls seems to have found his perfect niche.

That’s the thing about a lot of these Labour figures we’ve known and loved for many years now. A lot of them have known nothing other than government. Until very recently, none of us actually had any idea what the likes of the Milibands and the “Blair’s Babes” generation were going to be like on the other side of the House. Whoever made that transition to the very different skillset of Opposition was always going to be able to get their nose in front…

And, to me, the man who has done that most effectively, and impressed on every opportunity, is Ed Balls.

He is helped too by his sheer opportunism. Such language is invariably pejorative, but in these days of democracy, it is a plus point. Ed Balls has wasted no time in executing an impressive series of u-turns on immigration, on schools and is now also looking very strongly at the idea of a graduate tax instead of up-front tuition fees. I like it. There is no better time than straight after electoral defeat to jettison dodgy policy areas or retune to the opinions of the mass market; the defeat is the perfect cover, and the post-election melee means it’s soon forgotten anyway.

The best aspect of him seems to have been his attitude to the coalition. He is always talking about the “risks” they are taking, and is taking that aspect of his attacks to extreme levels. It is a risky strategy in itself, but it is important to plant the seed of doubt in people’s minds. If the cuts do falter, Balls will reap the harvest.

Like it or not, he is also the one succeeding most in making himself seem the most “normal”. He has shed his wonkery of years past, and always looks suitably embarrassed whenever one of those nasty journos try to blame him for “Neo Endogenous Growth Theory”. He has a neutral accent without too many silly quirks or weird pronunciations (see Gordon Brown). He doesn’t have that “other wordly” look and sound of the Milibands, and his delivery and diction put him streets ahead of Andy Burnham.

Better still, he seems to be developing a good sense of humour. It doesn’t win you elections, as William Hague proved, but it’s important not to take yourself too seriously in the job of Leader of the Opposition. Witty barbs at PMQs keep the troops fired up, as does being able to think up smooth retorts in the heat of a debate. And, yes, it does make you appear normal.

Labour don’t really have a very good choice ahead of them. But they could do a lot worse than Ed Balls.

A Budget With Balls

The battered old Budget box keeps on going...

No, not the Ed kind of Balls – though more on him tomorrow – but the other kind.

Though the Budget has annoyed me in more ways than one, it has been very interesting, and very good, for another reason.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote this post imploring the government to just get on with it as far as cuts are concerned. At the time, I was fed up with the pussy-footing around, the idea that maybe cuts were going to be quick, or slow, and might exclude certain things too politically sensitive.

In the end, I got exactly what I wished for, and for that I am actually quite pleased.

The reason I am happy about this is simple. Politics doesn’t seem to be about anything these days; the three parties are increasingly close to each other. But this Budget really will set the cat amongst the pigeons. Labour, whoever their new leader is, are drawing a very clear line in the sand. They are, naturally, going to stand up for their record in power, and are going to snipe from the sidelines, but will be ready to say, “I told you so” if the worst predictions for this Budget do happen.

That is good. It feels like there is a real division between the coalition government and the Opposition, and that’s because, at last, there actually is. So many times politics is all about an imaginary distance between the two parties. So many times we have to suffer the tedium of centrist politicians fighting between themselves to out manoeuvre each other.

Naturally, I am under no illusion that Labour would also have been making cuts. But there is a stark difference between the parties. One is for cutting all the deficit within the next five years. The other had made half of that ambition. One is taking its ideological belief in a small state right to its logical conclusion. The other would have reluctantly made cuts, but only out of fiscal necessity, on a small and slower time scale in order to protect the state apparatus they genuine believe in.

OK, maybe when it’s put like that I might be exaggerating just how exciting this apparently yawning gap between the parties is. But in today’s catch-all politics, we have to be grateful for small mercies.

The coalition will either live by the cuts, or it’ll die by the cuts. Its whole reputation has been staked on this gamble.

As a person, I am deeply worried that we’re heading down the wrong path.

But as a political observer, the coalition government is the gift that keeps on giving.

It’s A Good Job We Don’t Need Newborns!

Hilarious!

In the latest in a string of attacks on the youth, and the whole concept of having children in the first place, the older generations are going to keep pulling that ladder up:

The government is to speed up plans to raise the state pension age for men to 66, possibly by as early as 2016.

Ministers will also raise the option of extending it further, perhaps to 70 and beyond in the following decades.

The default retirement age of 65 – at which workers can be legally axed by employers – is also set to be axed.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said this would stop people being “cast on the scrap heap” and would help “reinvigorate what retirement means”.

One of the benefits of a compulsory retirement age is that it allows for labour market turnover. When youth unemployment is in a bit of a pickle, combining with how difficult it is for young people to differentiate themselves from their peers, it doesn’t seem to make sense to make it even harder for them to get a start in life.

Most employers are generally happy to keep on using current staff when they retire, and with that option now going to be encouraged so the state doesn’t have to pay out its pension just yet, it’s going to lead to a very pissed off younger generation…

We young’uns (and I’m, for now, still one of ’em) are more than a little tired of being asked to bear the brunt of the decisions of our betters. We have been shit on by the state for the last decade, being experimented on with dodgy A-Level reforms; asked to suffer a diluting of the education we’ve been undertaking, and then, to cap it all, had to foot the bill: not only with massive student debt, but with unachievable house prices, a disastrous jobs market and a national debt burden that will cost us much higher taxes from here into eternity.

There’s something perverse about the way we treat the youngest and all future generations. We ask them to bear the burden of the current society’s failings. Long after the older generations have gone, it is future generations, who do not yet exist, who are asked to solve all our problems, whether financial, technological, biological and now environmental.

But why should we even bother bringing new people into the world? Given the mess that they’re going to inherit, and  we’re not even going to give them a chance to get a job – as we’ll all be too busy working until we drop dead on the shop floor, or slumped in front of our office computers – it seems wholly selfish, self-indulgent and cruel.

There’s just one little problem with this plan…

We’re All In This Together… Unless You’re A Business

Aren't they a happy lot?

We’ve had many pro-business budgets in the past, but this one truly went out of its way to suck it up to them. After all, when was the last time you heard the CBI gush with such force about a government:

The Chancellor has achieved his twin objectives of setting out a credible plan for the public finances and producing a convincing growth strategy for the longer-term

Oh, yes, George! And all this before anything has actually changed yet.

It’s simple. There isn’t a single thing in the Budget that would have any negative impact on the business community. What’s that about VAT, you say? But most businesses, certainly the ones that employ people, claim back all input VAT anyway. And giving them till next January to plan for it eases the burden even further.

It’s those businesses that are more than one-man bands that are going to revel most in the plan to cut small companies’ corporation tax to 20%. And those medium and bigger businesses will also benefit from the year on year falls in corporation tax.

Then there is the changes to NI, which included a minor change to the thresholds, a reversing of Labour’s planned NI rise on employers, and an incentive scheme to encourage businesses to employ people outside the South East and London by reducing employers’ NI to zero on the first ten employees.

Meanwhile, the Capital Gains Tax rise on those who enjoy these kind of things was much less than it should have been, and George Osborne greatly improved an allowance for “entrepreneurs”, now allowing them to dispose of businesses at a very generous CGT rate of 10% below £5m.

Yes, banks are being hit… but even they didn’t seem too bothered. Very small ones will be exempted, and to them it may be a small price worth paying for the fact that they wouldn’t be in existence today but for the government. Furthermore, many of them are likely to play ball, keeping their powder dry for the bigger battle regarding breaking them up into smaller entities.

In other words, the totality of this package is the coalition saying to the private sector: we’ve done our bit, now get us out of this mess.

The question really is whether private sector growth is going to come roaring back to such an extent that it will make up for the withdrawal of 25% of the budget in all departments bar health and international development. It is also whether those cuts, which will affect public sector jobs, public sector wages and many private sector contracted-out jobs which rely on the public sector, will affect people’s spending and consumption. Coupled with the VAT rise, it simply has to.

George Osborne’s gamble appears to be that the public and private sector are in a zero-sum game. That’s a big enough risk on its own, without even considering the fact that the private sector is really not ready, willing or even able to prop up this stagnant economy.

Hold onto your hats…

It’s The Changes That Worry Me

Don't we look stupid now?

Today’s Budget has… irritated me. Just a little.

I don’t buy any of this rubbish that the Coalition are spinning: “it’s worse than we thought”.

Frankly, it can’t possibly be worse than they thought, considering the budget deficit is smaller than Labour had predicted, by almost £20bn compared to Labour’s first estimate.

Meanwhile, inflation is stubbornly high. Inflation, disastrous in large quantities, but very helpful in the short term it stays above target. And hiking up VAT is only going to add more to inflation. A crafty way to inflate away the debt, perhaps? All on the Q. T. – you understand.

No. “Worse than we thought” is spin, pure and simple. It’s a way to say “Not me guv!” all the while delivering the ideological love for cuts that is becoming apparent.

So if we ignore this spin, what other explanations could stand up?

The current Lib Dem line, which is being used as an excuse to tear up the manifesto, and make us a total laughing stock considering we stuck it to the Tories thusly, is that the “crisis” in Europe has made us reverse our whole economic doctrine. Yes, Vince Cable really has gone from centre-left neo-Keynesian to Thatcherite neo-liberalism. Or maybe it was just the Bank of England that persuaded him.

Never mind the voters. Never mind everything you told them, promised them and went all round the country trying to convince them of. Never mind your own principles either. There are others, after all.

It just doesn’t stack up to me. Look at the kind of thing Vince Cable was writing last year. And yes, events have changed. But after going through the most turbulent period in our economy’s history since the 1920s and 30s, can anyone claim with a straight face, like Danny Alexander and Nick Clegg do, that the last month in Europe has been even more dramatic that we’ve had to change almost everything we stood for?

It is an insult to people’s intelligence to pretend otherwise. Government has meant we’ve had to close down major chunks of our manifesto, which have been sold out to ensure the coalition’s agenda.

It’s grist to the mill of the opposition, naturally. After all, haven’t they been crowing since the dawn of time that you “cannot trust the Liberals/Lib Dems”? Say one thing in opposition, do another in power. We’ve only gone and proved it.

There was no mandate for a VAT rise. Everyone said they weren’t planning one. The Lib Dems even tried to make political capital out of it. Now, tainted by this decision, we will never hear the end of it.

More Budgety fun tomorrow, perhaps…

ConLibLab

Curious...

The coalition is clearly making hay while the sun is still shining regarding all these external appointments.

First it was leftie economist Will Hutton, asked to head an investigation into closing the pay gap between the top and the bottom.

Then it was Frank Field, asked to investigate welfare.

Now it’s John Hutton, who’s going to lead a review into public sector pensions. And no stone will be left unturned, given his previous reputation.

Add into that the fact that the government is already a coalition, and you can see why John Prescott is getting very angry.

If I was Labour, I don’t think I’d be getting angry though. I’d be absolutely terrified.

Terrified because if this Big Tent, centrist mushiness works, in the sense that it delivers the goods for a sufficient proportion of the voting electorate, and those same voters are happy with it, it could be disastrous for the Labour Party.

Previous attempts at a hegemonic centrist government have been tried by both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But, inevitably, they were doomed to failure because, in both their cases, they were eventually backed off from it because of the opposition within their own parties, and the nature of their leadership styles.

This time, however, where we have two parties mutually dependent on each other for survival, the tent is the biggest it could possibly be, commanding the largest combined share of the vote for a British government since Gladstone in 1868.

On top of all that, it’s faced with an economic challenge the size of which the country has not faced in decades. And that kind of thing has an amazing ability to bring people together for the “common good”.

It seems a lot of Labour people are being drawn into that. John Hutton was no rebel, but he was always an honest minister. A thorn in the side for the Brownites. So too Frank Field, who has bided his time on the backbenches, and sees this maybe as his own last chance to influence government. In spite of being on the other side of the House.

In short, everyone wants a piece of it. A chance to bask in the reflected glory of the first piece of true consensus politics the British government has experienced in generations. A chance to revel in the Coalition’s honeymoon, which is showing evidence of continuing in spite of the minor slip-ups and scandals we’ve had so far, and massive expectations management regarding the huge amount of cuts on the way.

Yes. If I was Labour I’d be starting to worry just how long this is going to go on for, and whether it’s representing a public desire to see the end of the bitter partisan hackery portrayed so beautifully by Prezza, and his nasty accusations of “collaboration”.

Don’t think that lengthy leadership election timetable looks such a good idea now…

The Strains Of Coalition

Stolen from ConservativeHome.com, but drawn in 2007! Prophetic...

In recent days I’ve been troubled by the cover the Lib Dems are being forced to give to the Tories for the “cuts now” agenda. In truth, I’m probably deeply unsure myself, having argued in the past that we do need to make mega cuts in budgets all over the place, before then saying that those very cuts would do serious damage.

But now I feel quite certain. The economy is still in the tank. Cuts now are definitely going to create the W shaped recession we were all afraid of. The private sector is not sitting on its hands, waiting for the moment 20% is cut off all government department budgets to spring into action. The concept is laughable.

The consequence is that inbetween the cutting and the beginnings of genuine recovery in the private sector, there simply is going to be more of an economic decline.

The seriously worrying part of this, as a Liberal Democrat, is that the party is backing it 100%, and is completely tied into it with its Man in the Treasury, and coalition agreement pledging to be pretty radical with the scissors.

Last night, a Liberal Democrat MP, never mind a Cabinet minister, wouldn’t even appear on Newsnight to defend the agenda. Instead, it was left to former MP Susan Kramer, who was tied up in knots by Gavin Esler and even Ed Miliband over the pre-election opposition to “cuts now” compared with our new position of “why haven’t we started cutting yet?”.

There are some mutterings of discontent on the Lib Dem backbenches, but that’s no surprise. And though there’s still five years till the next election (apparently) early Lib Dem poll ratings are very poor indeed relative to our election performance, and considering all the pollsters massively overstated us in the run up to May 6.

If I’m wrong, and the government is right, and it manages to cut carefully without stoking another recession, and without punishing the poorest in society, then I’ll hold my hands up and admit it.

But right now, with the ideological love of a smaller state on the Tory benches, combining with the libertarian economist streak that is emerging from the Orange Bookers in the Lib Dems, it seems to be creating the perfect storm for a groupthink mentality, coalescing around a slash-and-burn programme.

And that may be exactly like standing on the grasping fingers of a man clinging for dear life on the cliff precipice.

Oh, the next 12 months will be worth watching…