Standard’s City Editor eviscerates Osbornomics

by Sunny Hundal    
June 2, 2011 at 8:08 pm

The Evening Standard’s City Editor Anthony Hilton wrote a prominent and remarkable opinion piece for the paper today.

It was remarkable in that it basically rejected and dismissed the key economic claims made by Chancellor George Osborne, and said he needed a plan to grow the economy, and fast.

Anthony Hilton says that Osborne has exaggerated the extent of the debt ‘crisis’:

In fact, the whole saga shows up our politicians at their worst. Listen to Chancellor George Osborne and you could easily believe government debt was invented by Gordon Brown. In fact, he made a pretty big reduction in the debt levels he inherited from his Conservative predecessor John Major – fixing the roof while the sun was shining, to coin a phrase – until he was knocked hopelessly off course by the financial crisis and the need to bail out banks.

There are many things to criticise Brown over but debt management before the crisis is not really one of them. It does rather underline the pettiness behind the refusal of Osborne and David Cameron to put Brown forward as a potential head of the International Monetary Fund. But that’s another story.
…
On current projections, debt is expected to stabilise at around 70 per cent of GDP or, shedding the jargon, it will be the equivalent of just over two- thirds of all the output generated by the entire nation in one year. However, if things turned out much worse than that and debt rose to 100 per cent of GDP, the interest would still only be about five per cent or 5p for every £1 earned in the country. Eminently affordable, so why the panic?

He ends by saying that Osborne needs to talk about growing the economy, not just getting financial markets on side:

It would be wrong to say debt does not matter but we need a sense of proportion – and having made the point, the Government must move on. Talking tough on cuts may keep financial markets onside, but the Government’s priority should be to restore economic growth, not fixate about the deficit. Get growth right and the deficit will take care of itself; but a government which defines itself by cuts stands a very good chance of making things worse.

That the Standard’s City Editor is saying this is unusual, given the City cheered on Osborne’s cuts.

Perhaps they’re finally waking up to the fact that while Osborne was always happy to cut spending, he never had any idea how to grow the economy.

Simon Hughes ‘misleads’ voters on housing cuts

by Sunny Hundal    
June 2, 2011 at 5:08 pm

A fractious war of words has broken out in the London borough of Southwark, where Libdem MP Simon Hughes is accused of “misleading” voters over his stance on cuts to housing benefits.

Southwark has the highest concentration of social housing in the country and Simon Hughes has said he was against government plans to end secure tenancies in council housing.

Hughes kicked off the furore by accusing Southwark Labour councillors of “lying” in a letter sent to constituents.

Last year the Prime Minster floated the idea that future council tenancies should be flexible and not secure for life. Simon made clear his opposition to this policy.

As a result of expressing his very strong views to government, Simon made sure that there would be no change from secure to flexible tenancies on a national basis and that all decisions would be left to individual local councils.

The letter by Simon Hughes adds that the Localism Bill did not have a vote to end secure tenancies in Southwark and if there had been he would have voted against it.

Not true, say Southwark Labour.

They say housing associations can now bring in flexible tenancies, beyond the control of the council. And there were two votes to stop this.

Amendment 13 – proposal to remove flexible tenancies from the bill;

Amendment 271 – guaranteed that tenants with security of tenure can’t have that taken away if they need to move homes (and would apply to council and housing associations)

This was ignored by Simon Hughes but not other Libdem MPs. Hughes spoke in the debate but did not vote on either of these amendments.

The Chair of Southwark’s Housing Scrutiny Committee, Labour Councillor Gavin Edwards told Liberal Conspiracy:

Simon Hughes appears to think nobody will notice if he misleads people in this way. The facts are that there was a vote on this issue and he failed to turn up.

For the umpteenth time since the formation of the coalition he has put the interests of his mates in Westminster ahead of the interests of Southwark residents. He can’t expect to square the circle by pretending votes didn’t take place.

Over to you Simon Hughes.

Who should Labour’s next General Secretary be?

by Don Paskini    
June 2, 2011 at 3:40 pm

Labour is currently recruiting for a new General Secretary.

This is the person who will be responsible for employing staff; campaign and media strategies; running the Party’s organisational, constitutional and policy committees; organising the Party Conference; ensuring legal and constitutional propriety; preparing literature etc. A tough job, but a crucial one.

So, what are the key qualities which Labour should be looking for?
continue reading… »

A bad apple? No, Southern Cross is the model for NHS privatisation

by Richard Murphy    
June 2, 2011 at 1:40 pm

The controversy over Southern Cross is not an aberration. Of course people will like to say it’s a bad apple, but it’s not. It is the model for the privatisation of the NHS.

How? Simple. Capture an income stream from the state – in this case fees for looking after the elderly.

Capture physical assets used for their supply. In Southern Cross’ case it is old people’s homes. In the future it will be hospitals and other care facilities.
continue reading… »

LC at Compass conf.: who should be speaking?

by Sunny Hundal    
June 2, 2011 at 11:20 am

Liberal Conspiracy will be hosting a debate at the annual Compass conference. Hurrah!

But now we need your input. The title of the debate will be: ‘From Discussion to Strategy: which debates does the Left need to win over the next 5 years?‘

Rather than a discussion focused session, as is the case for most events at the Compass conference, I’d like to host one that focuses on strategy.

But which topics would you throw in the mix? Which are the big debates? Who would you like to hear?

For example, I could choose three areas: tax avoidance, the environment and abortion rights. Then we would have three speakers talking about what a strategy to win debates on those issues would look like. A discussion would then follow.

Does that sound possible? What topics do you think should feature? And who would be a good speaker?

The Compass annual conference is on 25th June.

Here’s how Boris will lose the London Mayoral election

by Sunny Hundal    
June 2, 2011 at 10:45 am

The answer to one key question has so far evaded Mayor Boris Johnson’s London opposition: how do we define him? Several attempts have been made, including ‘horrible racist’ and ‘buffoon’ but none really stuck. Boris went out of his way to avoid the labels by courting London’s minorities and having the media on his side.

I said last week that transport fare rises could be his Achilles Heel. No longer. The perfect narrative to to attack Boris with has now revealed itself, and I’m staggered more hasn’t been made of it already.
continue reading… »

Lansley pushes rubbish ’5000 lives’ claim again

by Sunny Hundal    
June 2, 2011 at 9:10 am

In a last-ditch attempt to save his NHS plans, health-secretary Andrew Lansley has today written an article for the Daily Telegraph.

He says the NHS has to change.

And then, like Cameron, he makes already-discredited claims to justify his plans.

This is why the NHS must not only work better, but work smarter. We know that some of our outcomes for common conditions like cancer and strokes are not as good as they should be in comparison to the rest of Europe.

For example, if our cancer survival rates were at the European average, we know we would save 5,000 extra lives a year.

The media rarely bother to fact-check such claims out of laziness.

But thankfully Ben Goldacre already has:

As I pointed out on the 15th April, a month ago, this figure is from TEN YEARS AGO. It is not evidence that we’re still getting better, and it tells us nothing about how far we have to go. Wheeling out this figure again is staggering. This is the behaviour of people who don’t care whether their figures are accurate, current, or relevant.

Even Conservatives who support Lansley’s bill should own up to the fact that his plans are based on a web of discredit claims.

The government won’t reduce emissions, it will just outsource them

by Guest    
June 2, 2011 at 8:55 am

contribution by Guy Shrubsole and Alex Randall

The news that global emissions continue to skyrocket is a solemn reminder that climate change, though absent from the headlines of late, remains the world’s most intractable and urgent problem.

One might think, given the government’s recent announcement of targets to cut Britain’s emissions in half by 2025, that we have our own house fully in order. Think again – the new targets contain a major loophole allowing our emissions to carry on going up, even while the government claim they are going down.
continue reading… »

Support for Palestinian voices on campus are now called ‘extremism’

by Ben White    
June 1, 2011 at 4:55 pm

Over the last decade, Palestine solidarity activism on campus has grown in size and impact, perhaps exemplified by the wave of occupations in 2009 protesting the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip.

In response, there has been pushback, in the name of combating ‘hate speech’ and antisemitism, led by the Union of Jewish Students (UJS).

One of the main tools UJS has been using is a draft “working definition” of antisemitism produced in 2005 by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC, now the FRA). This has been adopted by the NUS and pushed on a number of individual campuses.
continue reading… »

GPs charged £800 just to hear Lansley’s plans

by Sunny Hundal    
June 1, 2011 at 3:35 pm

The Commissiong is a conference being held in London on 15-16th June.

Their website says:

Wherever you stand on the debate about the future of GP commissioning, one thing seems certain: significant change is on the way. But how resolutely will Prime Minister, David Cameron, and Health Secretary , Andrew Lansley, cling to their original vision? And how far will they have been persuaded by the arguments of the BMA Chair, Dr Hamish Meldrum and other healthcare experts about the need for major revisions to the White Paper?

The answer to these and many other urgent and practical questions crucial to the future of GP practices like yours will be found at Commissioning 2011…

Who is the keynote speaker? Oh look, it’s health secretary Andrew Lansley.

And who will be exhibiting?

Accountants
Associations and charities
Banks and financial institutions
Consultancies

It’s nice that Lansley is speaking directly to GPs about his plans but at what cost?

The price of a full ticket is £800.

Who wants to bet this will be passed on to the cost of the NHS or patients themselves?
(hat-tip @FalseEcon)

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