This is the debate on Tory cuts we should be having
contribution by Alex Meikle
Now that the Con-Lib Coalition has begun making cuts in public spending, reaction on the left has been steadfast in opposition to any notion of reducing the public sector.
But is this position valid or sustainable? And is there no legitimate scope for paring back state spending?
I would say blind opposition to the cuts misses the point of why the state has expanded so much.
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A drug to ‘cure’ lesbianism?
contribution by Elly
This week Newsweek reported that a doctor at Florida International University has been experimenting with a drug to treat pregnant women, whose unborn female foetuses show signs of a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH).
This condition can result in the babies being born intersex.
The drug, Dex, is supposed to reduce the likelihood that the babies will be born with ‘ambiguous’ genitalia.
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What Nick Clegg said just before the election
Here’s a key passage:
There are no Conservative MPs or councillors as far as the eye can see in South Yorkshire. People are going to say: well who are these people telling us they are suddenly going to take our jobs away. Who are these people starting to cut our local… what mandate do they have? I didn’t vote for them. No one around here votes for them.
And I think if we want to go the direction of Greece, where you get read social and industrial unrest, that’s the guaranteed way of doing it. The old tub-thumping way of conducting politics.
It didn’t take long for Clegg to go back to the old way of doing politics then.
The curious thing is that hardly any media outlet has properly asked Clegg to justify his complete u-turn after the election.
via Steve Jones
Liverpool Libdem cllr: coalition will wipe us out
LIVERPOOL’S Liberal Democrat leader Warren Bradley has warned his party faces being wiped out by Labour in the North, due to its coalition with the Tories.
He told the Daily Post he fears the party could be completely eradicated within five years.
Cllr Bradley said a number of the 37 Lib-Dems on the city council were among thousands now considering their membership of the party.
He spoke out after the coalition pulled the plug on Building Schools for the Future, which would have delivered 26 new secondary schools in Liverpool.
Cllr Bradley said: “It’s ridiculous, the plans for BSF were so far advanced and it’s unforgivable that other funding options are not in place. I honestly felt physically sick.”
…more at the Liverpool Daily Post
Why is our new government so accident-prone?
I am quite surprised by just how badly the new government has been doing on basic administrative competence.
Let us acknowledge that David Cameron is rather good at the tonality and public perfomance aspects of “being Prime Minister”, without perhaps placing quite quite the premium on etiquette which so impresses Martin Kettle.
On policy, the record on ever the highest-profile issues has been astonishingly poor.
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Govt pretends to axe census to save money
The Telegraph reports today:
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said the Census, which takes place every 10 years, was an expensive and inaccurate way of measuring the number of people in Britain.
Instead, the Government is examining different and cheaper ways to count the population more regularly, using existing public and private databases, including credit reference agencies.
Mr Maude was looking to save the £482 million cost apparently.
But is the idea actually feasible or just an attempt to gain some favourable headlines?
The FT’s Westminster blog points out:
However, he admitted that next year’s census would still have to go ahead. He vowed instead to cancel the next official headcount – which will not occur until 2021.
To get to that point the Tories (or coalition) have to win the 2015 election and then the 2020 election. And still be in a cost-cutting mood. That’s a whole pyramid of ifs.
In other words, it’s not going to happen.
Clearly it’s an attempt to say: ‘look, things are so bad that we even have to axe the census!‘.
There’s a big downside: the public will associate the Tories will slashing everything. That alone will come with a political cost. But if the economy doesn’t recover quickly enough then they’ll also blame the Tories for the slump.
Martin Kettle, the condensed version
Despite having been prime minister for less than 2 months, David Cameron is potentially the best all-round leader of this country of the modern era.
Not based on any of the actual policies which he and the coalition are pursuing, as that might suggest otherwise, but simply because of his charm, good manners and false ingratiating behaviour at prime minister’s questions.
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Could you survive on less than £14,000 a year?
contribution by Chris Goulden
On Tuesday, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published the second annual update of CRSP’s research into “A Minimum Income Standard for the UK”.
Amidst an impending debate led by Frank Field about how we define poverty in this country, the MIS method highlights a very different way of approaching the issues.
Unlike the relative poverty line, MIS is not arbitrary and is decided on democratically by representative groups of the public reaching consensus about what makes up an adequate lifestyle, from food to clothes to bills.
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Rape crisis money cut as councillors take pay rise
Croydon’s Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre (RASASC) is having its funding cut by £27,000 a year – while the top Tories in the council are giving themselves pay rises.
This is the currently one of only two rape crisis centres in London (the new Ealing centre is already open), and it may have to close its waiting list if the funding cut goes ahead.
Via gorilerof3b.
RASASC is asking people to write direct to council leader Mike Fisher:
We need your help – urgently. A decision was made to cut the Corporate Funding Budget of Croydon Council two weeks ago and there was pressure on the Council Lead, Mike Fisher, to do some cost saving, pretty quick.
Fisher chose the easiest option as the corporate funding applications were due for ratification. So instead of cutting jobs, pensions, council staff or even not giving the third sector an inflationary rise across the board – he gave himself a rise in pay and slashed one department’s budget of £1 million!
The cuts for RASASC of £27,000 per year is the equivalent of supporting 2,700 survivors of sexual violence on our helpline, seeing 23 survivors face to face for one year specialist counselling or supporting 108 survivors through our Advocacy department from reporting their rape to the end of their trial.
We need your help to save our services! Please email mike.fisher@croydon.gov.uk to voice your disgust at these cuts and speak for the thousands of London women this will affect. It will only take 5 minutes of your time but may stop the only Rape Crisis Centre in London from having to close our waiting list.
They have put together a model letter which gorilerof3b has also posted.
cross-posted from the F Word
BNP beaten in Barking, again!
Last night the results for the Barking Goresbrook by-election came in where the great white hope Richard Barnbrook was sent packing, again, after there was an administrative cock-up on the part of Labour (standing an ineligible candidate) and the council election had to be taken again.
I thought it might be useful to give the results for May at the same time.
They need to be taken with a small pinch of salt though as people had three votes in May and the Lib Dems and Tories only stood two candidates in May.
| Vote | May result | ||
| Labour (elected) | 881 | 46.59% | (51.03%) |
| BNP | 642 | 33.95% | (29.20%) |
| Lib Dem | 136 | 7.19% | (6.86%) |
| Tory | 108 | 5.71% | (10.05%) |
| Ind | 63 | 3.33% | (2.86%) |
| UKIP | 50 | 2.64% | |
| Ind | 11 | 0.58% |
The much reduced turnout of 25% compared to 58% in May is only to be expected as the General Election boosted turnout all over. Interesting that it didn’t make a massive difference to the actual vote proportions though, apart from the dreadful result for the Tories.
This result is a real blow to the BNP who are already feeling like they are being pulled downwards, back into the sewer that they came from.
If even ‘high profile’ members like Barnbrook can’t hold onto a council seat what hope for the future? Ho hum!
One last word, well done to UKIP for standing this time, but they could have tried a bit harder to filtch some of those hard right votes couldn’t they? It could’ve made all the difference.
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