ConservativeHome shoots Andrew Lansley
When three cabinet ministers want to take out Andrew Lansley and shoot him, the NHS bill is pretty much dead.
Today ConservativeHome makes the argument I made only yesterday:
Only 25% of voters think it’s one of the top three issues facing the country. But the state of public opinion today isn’t the issue. The issue is public opinion next winter and in the winter of 2013/14 and beyond.
…
The NHS Bill is not just a distraction from all of this but potentially fatal to the Conservative Party’s electoral prospects. It must be stopped before it’s too late.
It will take some almighty miracle to get the NHS bill passed now.
Barclays was also bailed out – Diamond doesn’t deserve a bonus
Barclays chief Bob Diamond is due for a bonus of up to £10m today, on expected profits of over £6bn. Already there are calls for him to waive his bonus. The Daily Mail says there is “pressure” on him to do so.
Ed Miliband said last night:
By defending an unreformed bonus culture, this Government confuses the interests of the economy as a whole with the interests of an irresponsible few.
This is exactly right. Plus, the argument that Barclays is a private company so should have a right to set its bonus doesn’t really fly.
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Cameron: tax-breaks for butlers & nannies!
David Cameron has a new idea to help poor people – tax-breaks!
Cameron instockholm also looking at Swedish idea of tax breaks for cleaners to help working mothers
— glenoglazaSky (@glenoglazaSky) February 9, 2012
Most cleaners don’t earn enough to qualify for tax-breaks. You can raise their tax-threshold but you can’t give them tax breaks.
So that above is the spin.
I’ve been told by another source that Cameron is actually proposing tax-breaks for companies employing cleaners. His view is that that will trickle down to cleaners themselves, but of course there’s no guarantee that it will.
Most cleaners would benefit more from a living wage, not ‘tax-breaks’. And this doesn’t help most mums either.
@rhian82 @sunny_hundal I agree. The cost of childcare is pure extortion. For a lot of women the cost outweighs the benefit of working.
— Kelly Kaye (@Lobmeister165) February 9, 2012
The Mirror’s James Lyons puts it more starkly
Is David Cameron really proposing tax breaks for employing butlers? labour.org.uk/camerons-tax-b…
— JamesLyons (@MirrorJames) February 9, 2012
You couldn’t make it up.
The NHS bill could be a Waterloo moment for the govt
Yesterday evening the government suffered its first defeat on the NHS bill, with Peers narrowly winning on an amendment that called for greater emphasis on mental health provision. No doubt this will only be the first in a long series of setbacks for them.
There’s little point in calling for Andrew Lansley to go, frankly, even now. Cameron knows that firing him would almost certainly kill the bill and be a serious setback to the government. He can’t afford to fire him – the media firestorm would seriously damage him. So he’s stuck in a lose-lose situation.
But some dispute that, saying the NHS bill only angers the usual suspects who would vote Labour anyway.
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Nadine Dorries reports tweet ‘libel’ to police
So you may have noticed the Tory MP Nadine Dorries is back on Twitter.
Ms Dorries’s Twitter output offers hours of fun and rage to lefties and yesterday was no exception.
It all kicked off with this…
Really disappointed with lack of trolls in response to my troll tweet. Where are you all? Come back!
— Nadine Dorries MP (@NadineDorriesMP) February 7, 2012
.
@NadineDorriesMP It’s difficult to take you seriously when you mislead about police investigations. #70%fiction
— Michael Haslam (@mrhazzers) February 7, 2012
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@mrhazzers That is libelous and an outright lie. My staff have taken a screen shot and reported your tweet to the police.
— Nadine Dorries MP (@NadineDorriesMP) February 7, 2012
Someone please tell Ms Dorries that libel isn’t a criminal offence?
What’s ironic is that this is the tweet that kicked this off:
Effect of internet trolls should not be underestimated Mineused to freak me out and made me stop Twitter. Now just make me laugh.#panorama
— Nadine Dorries MP (@NadineDorriesMP) February 7, 2012
Perhaps Ms Dorries should take her own advice?
In defence of Sky News’ re-Tweeting ban
The Guardian reported yesterday that Sky News has told its journalists not to re-tweet information from non-Sky Twitter users. That immediately sparked a barrage of criticism from Reuters, Charlie Beckett, GigaOM and lots of people on Twitter.
But from a political perspective I can see why they’re doing it. I want to briefly address this because I think it raises a broader point.
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Will Times hacking open a can of worms?
The editor of the Times newspaper told the Leveson inquiry yesterday that his newspaper had indeed hacked into the email account of blogger Nightjack.
Harding had to be recalled back to the inquiry after details of the hacking were not revealed in his last appearance at Leveson.
Blogger Nightjack was denied an injunction in 2009 to stop the Times from printing his name on the basis his privacy rights had not been breached. But it is now clear that his privacy had indeed been violated by a reporter at the Times (who faced an internal disciplinary action).
Harding said yesterday his newspaper regrettably “paid insufficient attention” to the hacking episode from 2009.
The Guardian reported last night:
Harding, returning to make his second witness appearance at the inquiry on Tuesday, also apologised to the officer, saying he “sorely regrets the intrusion into Richard Horton’s account by a journalist then in our newsroom”.
“I am sure Mr Horton and many other people expect better of the Times and so do I. So, on behalf of the paper, I apologise,” he told Lord Justice Leveson.
But this episode is far from over.
In July last year the bloggers Zoe Margolis (‘Girl with a One Track Mind’) and Brooke Magnanti (‘Belle de Jour’) both alleged that they had been sent computer viruses by journalists at the Sunday Times.
BBC Panorma u-turns on green energy claims
In November last year BBC Panorama aired a prominent documentary that claimed the government’s renewable energy programme would add £34bn to household bills.
The film was preceded by a Sunday Times story that week citing the same £34bn figure.
Both the Sunday Times and BBC Panorama got their figures from a KPMG report that was due to be published within days of the stories being aired.
But now it turns out the report was never published.
In fact, KPMG are saying they won’t publish the report at all.
The report claimed that Britain could meet its 2020 carbon reduction targets more cost effectively by building nuclear and gas-fired power stations instead of wind farms.
Or at least that is how the Sunday Times and BBC Panorma portrayed it.
But now Panorama have back-tracked. A quietly published clarification on their site now says:
Panorama wishes to clarify the following information regarding What’s Fuelling Your Energy Bill?, first broadcast on 7 November 2011:
While the film focussed on government energy policy going forward – and the associated costs – we feel it worth repeating that the rise in current energy bills is predominantly linked to the increase in winter gas prices.
…
We accept that it would have been helpful to our audience had this point been made more clear in the film and the website materials that accompanied it.
Should have made more clearer? Unbelievable. The entire programme was based on the premise that renewable energy was too expensive and would hit our bills hard.
And now BBC Panorama don’t have a leg to stand on because the report isn’t being published. And they admit their programme may have given the wrong impression.
World Wildlife Fund have now issued a statement criticising the BBC too.
Was @BBCPanorama audience subject of PR operation based on dodgy numbers and executed by an accounting firm in the pay of vested interests?
— Joss Garman (@jossgarman) February 7, 2012
This lax in standards at the BBC is shocking. What do they keep putting out this kind of journalism, especially on the environment?
Another reason to continue banker bashing
I have an article on the Guardian site today on why it’s important to continue banker bashing.
Firstly, banking reform has been pitifully weak so far and will not deal with the big structural reasons. Even Ed Balls is pitifully weak on this issue.
Secondly, bankers are the biggest recipients of government handouts of our time. They also have extraordinary powers over our lives. Why isn’t either of this being adequately challenged?
But there are more reasons…
continue reading… »
Letting betting shops proliferate is part of a wider problem
Southwark Councillor Rowenna Davis (who has written for LC occasionally) has launched a campaign that says betting shops are blighting local high streets across Britain.
She wants councils to be given more power to stop them from springing up everywhere.
She has a point, and I support the campaign – not just because I abhor betting shops.
continue reading… »
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» Why Quantitative Easing doesn’t make common sense
» Barclays was also bailed out – Diamond doesn’t deserve a bonus
» Ten myths about private rented housing
» Even on the left, morality has its limits
» The NHS bill could be a Waterloo moment for the govt
» Ken Livingstone and gay rights – it just isn’t an issue
» Abu Qatada deportation: what about our principles?
» New study shows a Robinhood tax would boost growth
» In defence of Sky News’ re-Tweeting ban
» Another reason to continue banker bashing
» An attack on the wind industry is an attack on UK jobs
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