The financial chickens are coming home to roost
contribution by Adam Lent
One day we might get a proper public debate about why the UK economy remains so anemic after six quarters of shrinkage. And, more worryingly, is now starting to lag badly behind some other equivalent economies.
For me there were four big mistakes made which need close investigation and which we need to work out ways of avoiding in the future. We clearly also need to take further remedial action to address the damage done.
1) the UK economy and the public finances were over-dependent on financial services for too long even though everyone not in thrall to the efficient markets hypothesis or their bonus knew this was a notoriously volatile and unreliable sector;
2) interest rates were held too high for too long in 2008 by the Bank of England even though the TUC, business groups and David Blanchflower were warning that the threat of recession was higher than the threat of inflation;
3) the Government did not seize the chance for a bigger stimulus before the Tories and the right wing press made public borrowing the big political issue;
4) the Government have not been proactive enough in preventing people losing work through interventions such as short time working subsidies which appear to have been highly effective in countries such as Germany and Netherlands in very significantly holding down unemployment. The CBI bear a big responsibility for refusing to call for this when the BCC, EEF and TUC demanded it throughout 2009.
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Adam Lent is the Head of Economic and Social Affairs at the TUC. He blogs at ToUChstone blog
Cameron to massively expand faith schools
The biggest expansion of faith schools since the 19th century would be encouraged by a Tory government, David Cameron signalled yesterday.
Senior figures in the Roman Catholic Church have already expressed a strong interest in running the ‘free schools’ proposed by the Conservatives. Under the plans, faith groups, charities and businesses could apply to operate the new schools using taxpayers’ money.
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Labour has been accused of undermining faith schools by overhauling admissions rules and robbing them of the power to select children on religious grounds.
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The Conservative plans would be in an Education Bill passed as a priority if the party wins power.
Four journos broke Parliament interests rules
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, has ruled that Martin Bright, Melissa Kite, Andrew Neil and Fraser Nelson all broke Parliamentary rules by failing to fully declare their financial interests in the Register of Journalists’ Interests.
The findings were reported by Mark Pack at LibdemVoice, who made the original complaint.
He said:
They have all been lobby journalists, giving them special access to Parliament and politicians. Given the possibility of lobbyists and interest groups paying members of the lobby to raise issues on their behalf, there is a financial register which – in theory – provides a degree of transparency and hence protection against abuse of the system. Parliament’s rules require lobby journalists to declare the sources of their income, where the income is based on their access to Parliament.
However, all four failed to enter accurate records on the register. It was not simply a matter of missing the 28 days deadline required, but the register has contained information that is out of date by months, and even in the cases of Andrew Neil and Fraser Nelson by years. As an updated version of the register is published each month, it should have been repeatedly obvious that the rules were not being followed.
Of the four, Fraser Nelson (now editor of The Spectator magazine) no longer has a lobby pass.
Mark adds that John Lyon has decided that for the other three for the next year their entry on the register will be marked to show that it has been corrected following a complaint.
Britain becoming more liberal
The 26th British Social Attitudes Survey has just been published, and has some interesting findings.
They show strong support for liberal social values, a decline in support for redistribution and traditional left-wing economic intervention to help the worse off, and overwhelming opposition to spending cuts in health and education.
It has prompted a mixture of gloating about how Britain is shifting to the right and whining about evil librulses not “tolerating” homophobia from our friends in the conservative movement, so let’s have a look at what it really says:
On social attitudes, Britain is becoming more liberal, except for when it comes to drugs:
continue reading… »
The Church Taliban get their way again
contribution by Bob Piper
When Tony Blair and his small band of ‘New’ Labour modernisers swept into power in 1997 they had all sorts of wild and wonderful plans for Britain. In one area though, Tone and the Gang were decidedly conservative in their promises.
Despite all the pledges to ‘modernise’ Britain, our democracy was still going to contain an outdated and illogical second chamber. The ‘modernisation’ of the House of Lords was simply going to remove the rights of hereditary Peers. That was it.
All the rest of the stuff on the House of Lords was the usual Blairite flim-flam about having a wide-ranging review of possible further change.
And so it came to pass, that 12 years later, an attempt to introduce measures to prevent the Church discriminating against gay and transsexual people in employment floundered in the wake of opposition from the Christian Taliban and old duffers appointed on the basis of political patronage and grace and favour appointments.
continue reading… »
Kate Silverton farce with Rod Liddle on Five Live
contribution by Scott Dryden
Whatever anyone’s views on Rod Liddle, I believe most people accept that it is reasonably significant for a man who’s in line to become editor of a national newspaper to be accused of racism.
No surprises then that Liddle should appear on a BBC radio programme (On Sunday morning) to answer the allegations. Except rather than an interrogation being conducted, a platform was provided for Liddle to put forward the case that he’s the man for the job.
Alarm bells should have started ringing, really, when it was revealed that Liddle would be interviewed by Kate Silverton, a former colleague who he worked closely with on a disastrous BBC Two political programme.
Astonishingly, at no point did Silverton offer a disclosure of their association.
continue reading… »
Graffiti attack on Stoke mosque before riot
I picked this up on the local TV news tonight, but it bears repeating for anyone who hasn’t seen it:
A mosque in Stoke-on-Trent was sprayed with graffiti referring to an upcoming English Defence League rally.
Mosque administrators discovered the daubed message at 0630 GMT on Saturday and had removed it within two hours.
Staffordshire Police said a criminal damage investigation was under way into the incident in the Normacot area.
A police spokesman said: “The community haven’t reacted to it, so it hasn’t achieved what the person who did it wanted to achieve.”
Whether the perpetrator is, in fact, associated with the EDL or linked to another far right group with a vested interest in stirring up trouble is anything but clear at this point.
What is clear, however, is that a deliberate attempt was made to draw the local Muslim community into a confrontation with EDL supporters; one that, fortunately, fell flat on its face.
Where are all the ‘Nurses’ for Reform?
This morning’s guest post by Zarathustra, of the excellent Mental Nurse blog, flagged up the existence of a right-wing campaign group calling itself ‘Nurses for Reform’, and as Lib Con’s resident data hound that naturally prompted me to ask a very pertinant question:
Just exactly how many of the people behind ‘Nurses for Reform’ are actually nurses?
Is this actually a genuine organisation that can point to a significant level of support within the nursing profession or it is, like the Taxpayers’ Alliance, just another small, well funded, right-wing front organisation with a name carefully chosen to mislead the naive and unwary into taking it for something it almost certainly isn’t?
So who, exactly, are ‘Nurses for Reform’?
Well, their director and primary mouthpiece is Dr Helen Evans RGN and she is, indeed, a nurse with 20 years experience in the NHS under her belt and a PhD in health management from Brunel University. So she’s a doctor, but not in the medical sense of the term.
As for her organisation, it claims to be a ‘growing pan-European network of nurses dedicated to consumer-oriented reform of European healthcare systems’, although evidence of any links to like-minded nurses organisations or campaign groups are a bit thin on the ground.
The other noticeable feature of the NFR website is, with the exception of a page listing members of advisory board, the marked lack of reference to anyone other than Dr Helen Evans, who appears to be the site’s sole contributor, contact point and, for all anyone knows, chief cook and bottle-washer.
Not exactly a flying start then, but there is an advisory board, so maybe we’ll find a few more nurses there…
continue reading… »
Edlington victim mother hits back at Cameron
The mother of one of the Edlington torture case victims hit back at David Cameron today for using the case to talk about a “social recession”.
In a speech given last week David Cameron said:
When parents are rewarded for splitting up, when professionals are told that it’s better to follow rules than do what they think is best, when single parents find they take home less for working more, when young people learn that it pays not to get a job, when the kind-hearted are discouraged from doing good in their community, is it any wonder our society is broken? We can’t go on like this.
He pointed pointed to the brutal attack on the nine and 11-year-old boys in Edlington, South Yorkshire, by brothers aged 10 and 11 to reinforce his case.
PA reported:
the Tory leader will point to the torture of two young boys as an extreme symptom of what he dubs Labour’s “moral failure” as he launches a raft of social policies.
But one of the mothers retorted: “It’s those boys who are broken – not us.” [via Paul Waugh]
Cameron was already under fire from Labour and some media commentators for tarring whole communities with the same brush.
Help us better the Press Complaints Commission
The PCC has often come under criticism on LibCon and elsewhere for the way it seems to regulate the press (or not). There are far too many instances to list here where it has not managed to get newspapers to correct even basic mistakes.
But rather than just complaining, a group of bloggers including yours truly are making a submission to the PCC.
A review of the newspaper industry’s Code of Practice is being conducted by the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, a separate body that operates independently of the PCC. [slightly updated, see comments]
We have come up with five suggestions for the PCC code:
1. Like-for-like placement of retractions, corrections and apologies in print and online (as standard).
2. Original or redirected URLs for retractions, corrections & apologies online (as standard).
3. The current Code contains no reference to headlines, and this loophole should be closed immediately.
4. Sources to be credited unless they do not wish to be credited or require anonymity/protection.
5. A longer and more interactive consultation period for open discussion of more fundamental issues.
continue reading… »
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» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
» How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists
» When disabled people want to work – employers can hold the back
» Revealed: the reality behind Workfare and why it doesn’t work
» Job snob? No, I’ve got the T-shirt
» Why country-by-country reporting matters to our wellbeing
» If Unions want to become stronger, they need to modernise
» Why work “reforms” in Spain are a warning for workers across Europe
» Five things you need to know about the NHS bill
» Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
» Laziness levels in Britain getting lazier, wails government
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