95% believed the health reforms would increase inequalities. 97% believed that competition would undermine the provision of high quality integrated care.

The present reforms are likely to fragment services, reduce the effectiveness and increase inequalities in outcomes.

Simon Lenton, Chair of the British Association for Community Child Health said:

This poll demonstrates the strength of feeling from doctors providing services for children and families. We urge professional membership organisations to join us, the RCGP, the BMA, the RCN, the RCM and the FPH to speak out about the impact of the Bill in the interests of patients. We need to stand together to protect the NHS for them.

97% thought that the upheaval caused by the Bill would distract the NHS from the huge task of meeting the current financial challenges facing the service.

I’m a lead member of the Assembly’s Planning & Housing Committee, and we recently conducted an investigation into poor housing conditions in the private rented sector, I was surprised at some of the arguments that were put forward against reforms.

1. People are choosing to rent privately
The Mayor describes private renting as “the first choice” for people who move to London , but for most it’s their only option, and far from their favourite. The Hills review found that 72% of private tenants would rather own their own home, while only 8% would continue renting privately as their first choice. Other research suggests that many more people might prefer to rent if the sector guaranteed a decent home, security and stability, and freedom to change and improve their home , the guarantees that social tenants and home owners enjoy.

2. Most private tenants are happy with their home
The Government and the Mayor like to cite a very general statistic, that “eighty five per cent of private renters are satisfied with their accommodation” . But the British Social Attitudes survey looked in more depth, and found that only a third of private tenants thought they usually enjoy a good standard of housing, compared to almost two-thirds of housing association tenants and over half of council tenants .

3. Tenants like the flexibility
One of the Government’s two cited benefits for private renting is flexibility, which is undoubtedly valued by many who choose not to buy. But you can give people longer and more secure tenancies and still have the flexibility to move at a couple of months’ notice, for those who don’t want to buy. With 28% of private tenant households across the UK in 2008 having children , it seems perverse to leave them exposed to the threat of eviction without cause every 6 months in the name of flexibility.

4. The sector offers affordability in London
The Government’s other argument is that the sector is affordable for those who can’t buy . But London’s rents are twice the national average, the average income is only 40% more than the national average, and the minimum wage is the same. Last year rents for new lettings rose between 6 and 14% while wages only rose 2%. In most London boroughs, the average rent takes up more than half the average income . Too many are trapped, unable to save for a deposit or to find a cheaper rented home.

5. It’s just a problem of rogue landlords
Rogue or slum landlords are undoubtedly the most urgent problem to tackle, but the London Assembly heard that poor conditions, inflation-busting rent rises and a lack of security commonly affect tenants across the board – rich and poor. Landlords’ organisations also recognise the problems faced by “well meaning but ill informed” landlords , who are often reluctantly renting because they can’t sell their home .

6. Landlords don’t want tenancy reform
The Rugg review found that landlords often favour longer tenancies , but that the short insecure tenancies are favoured because of the risk of bad tenants not paying rent or damaging the home. Lettings agents have also called for more regulation . Smart reform that favoured responsible tenants and responsible landlords would surely be better for London than keeping the status quo just because of a few rogue tenants?

7. Any tenancy reforms would be harmful
The Minister for Housing thinks any extra regulation “would have pushed up rents and reduced choice” . But other European countries where more people rent all offer longer, more secure tenancies with more affordable rents in a more tightly regulated sector. The Mayor also often points to the decline in private renting following the introduction of rent controls, but fails to mention that people were moving into the millions of new council homes or buying a home with tax relief. The Irish government introduced smart reforms in 2004, including more secure tenancies and the right for tenants who have lived in their home for 6 months to stay for another 3.5 years.

8. Costs are driven up by benefits
Ministers have tried to turn private renters against each other by suggesting that benefits are driving rents up. This is total myth, something I’ve covered in more detail in a separate report. Most recently, the Prime Minister claimed rents were falling as a result of the caps introduced in April 2011. But landlords and housing experts dismissed this claim, and a snap survey by Inside Housing found that only one in eleven councils asked had negotiated lower rents as a result of the reforms .

9. Institutional investors will save the day
The Mayor has been pinning high hopes on pension funds and other institutional investors since early 2009 . But they only supply small amounts of housing in other countries that lack our housing associations and council homes. Without grants or cheap land, they will offer the same high rents as everyone else, albeit probably with better quality homes and possibly a bit more security . But they aren’t an excuse to leave the rest of the sector alone.

10. The only answer is build more
The Mayor likes to tell me that “we all agree” on this one, but I don’t. Of course we need to build more housing in London to cope with a growing population and a backlog of low delivery, but it isn’t the only answer. It’s also unlikely to work – we’d need to build 44,700 homes per year to stabilise prices , and the Mayor’s ambition is only for 32,210 per year. Even if that were possible, his sustainability advisors have cautioned that current building levels adopting the most green technology could still bust his climate change targets . Other possible answers could include smart reforms of tenancies, landlords, letting and managing agents, and reforms to our taxation system, as the London Assembly has recommended.

—
The arguments in this briefing form the basis for my scrutiny of the Mayor of London’s Housing Strategy and his delivery on his promises. I am interested in your views and comments, so please get in touch.
This report sets out my individual views as an Assembly Member and not the agreed views of the full Assembly

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.

1. Morality is weak against power. If there is any moral truth at all, it is that the mass murder of innocent civilians is wrong. But when it happens, the “international community” does nothing to stop it. Stalin’s famous sneer - “The Pope! How many divisions has he got?” is true.

On a more prosaic level, a similar thing is true of bosses’ pay. A periodical fit of morality might stop one or two individuals from taking their bonuses. But a serious and systemic reduction in bosses’ pay requires a shift in the balance of class power.

2. Policies are often a mix of morals. Take for example the welfare cap. Is this moral, because it stops feckless scroungers fleecing the tax-payer? Or is it immoral because it threatens to make children homeless? Morality alone does not adjudicate. The issue is about the facts of the policy or about how the issue is framed.

3. Morality can distract us from structural explanations, and hence serve a conservative function. Take for example someone who doesn’t want to work. He might look like one of the undeserving poor. But is he? It could be that his “laziness” is an endogenous preference. Surrounded by mass unemployment – and perhaps brought up amidst it – he believes there’s no chance of work and so he adapts his wants to his circumstances. Is he undeserving or not? Again, morality does not adjudicate.

4. “Morality” just poses unresolved questions. Take high pay. Is this unfair because it betokens inequality, or is it fair because it represents (in the unsubsidized economy) a free and voluntary exchange between individuals? Adjudication is a matter of moral debate; those leftists who think it isn‘t miss the point.

But as Alasdair MacIntyre pointed out, we have lost the faculty for such debate with the result that our moral judgments are little more than emotivist spasms. 

There is, though, an alternative here.

The left should appeal more to efficiency. For example, the problem with bosses’ pay and bonuses is not that they are unfair, but that they are economically inefficient and the product of power, not merit.

And, I’d add, the structure of capitalism – at its current juncture – is inefficient, not (just) unfair.

In this sense, Emma is missing something. She’s right to want an alternative to a managerialism which tries, feebly and ineffectively, to work within the confines of capitalism. But the alternative is not a moralism which threatens to keep the left within a ghetto of impotent self-righteousness. There is a third possibility – Marxism.

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.

The right-wing columnist Iain Martin blogs:

Anway, Janan Ganesh of the Economist tweeted that Miliband winning on health doesn’t matter, as it is an issue where people expect Labour to be ahead. To really have an impact Labour needs to be making the running where the party is traditionally weak. I know what Janan means, but I’m not sure that he’s right on this one.

This NHS row is fast becoming a quite basic argument about competence, or government incompetence. That has broader potential significance because in time it could erode Cameron’s reputation.

Yes indeed: incompetence in dealing with the NHS and incompetence in growing the economy & reducing unemployment is how Labour need to define this government. Not ‘out of touch’ but just ‘incompetent’.

But for that to happen properly, Labour has to ensure this massive shake-up of the NHS is firmly etched in the public’s brain. Remember, most people don’t pay attention to Westminster debates.

The row has already scared some voters. At the election, 33% of voters felt Tories could best handle the NHS. That has declined by nearly 10pts since then.

Health is now the third most important issue rated by voters as important to them.

The problem for the govt is when things do start to go wrong – and they absolutely will – voters will automatically blame Cameron. In fact, even if it’s not directly his fault they will blame him because they will vaguely remember this big fight.

This is why Labour need to keep loudly attacking the Conservatives on the NHS bill (to their credit, they are). They need to make as much noise as possible so that voters associate this massive NHS upheaval with the Tories.

At the last election, approval of the NHS was at its highest for a generation. If that decreases then the Conservatives have to be associated with that. That is the only way to ensure they pay the political price for the human cost.

Here’s the 1930′s Fred Astaire homage to Fred Goodwin.

Their website is here – www.kissandtellcabaret.com

Performed by Melinda Hughes and Jeremy Limb; written by Melinda Hughes, Jeremy Limb & Lloyd Evans.

Well, the Labour ones have all come out . . . As soon as Blair got in, if you came out as lesbian or gay you immediately got a job. It was wonderful . . . you just knew the Tory party was riddled with it like everywhere else is.

Now “riddled” does jump out from the page as an odd word to use, with its connotation of disease. But the key point is that Livingstone didn’t put it in a page – he said it in an interview.

I suspect what is happening here – though it is impossible to know absolutely in the absence of a verbatim transcript/audio recording – is that Livingstone is trying, as a rhetorical device, to ”speak with the voice” of the type of hypocritical Tory that he has only just referred to in the interview, who “denounc[es] homosexuality while they are indulging in it”.<

This type of rhetorical device is very common amongst politicians, who most often use it to try and display empathy with the voting public, (though Livingstone here is using it as a means of scorn).

Indeed I pointed out recently how David Cameron used it to show how touch he is with real people, but suggested – given that he used it with a wholly inaccurate term – that he was probably telling a lie.

Now clearly Livingstone’s team is not going to get into this kind of linguistic defence, and sticks with a straight “look at my record” statement.

So as I’ve got a book on my shelves that not many others are sad enough to have, I’ll just help out by quoting from another Livingstone interview – this from 1984 – which provides documentary evidence of the ridiculousness of the “homophobe” barbs now being chucked his way:

The removal of empire, plus great achievements in the liberalisation of censorship, divorce and gay rights, meant that the issues that dominated the 1950s tended largely to be resolved in the 1960s. (Boddy M & Fudge C, Local Socialism, 1984, Basingstoke: Macmillan, p.262-3).

For Livingstone, the matter of gay rights was clearly sorted a very long time ago.

You can read it here.

Earlier in the week I revealed that the Risk Register reported that costs could not be controlled as GPs inexperience in Commissioning as well as Private Providers not offering competitive rates meant that costs could ‘surge’. You can read my report here.

I have selected 3 screen prints from the report to save you slogging your way through it. See below for the first one.

London NHS’s Risk Register categorically warns that the ‘deteriorations in the financial positions of one or more NHS organisations’.  

That jargon is put simply is saying that Practices could go bust or require central intervention to prop up their financial position.  The screen print from the Risk Report also warns of economic ‘slippage’ & ‘cost pressures’ arising.

This is quite explicit that the financial viability of the Tory NHS bill is seriously questionable.

This screen dump from the London NHS risk report categorically states that Commissioning groups (GPs) may ‘not be able to secure [services] [...] within the running cost range’.

The potential consequences raised by the London report are that ‘quality’ of health care may be ‘poor’. The London report also says that there may be a ‘skills deficit’ among commissioners (GPs). This chimes with my report that GPs did not have the required experience.

Now the government needs to publish the full risk register so that we can see the true horror of the damage their bill will cause to our NHS.

Please ask your MP to sign this EDM calling for the Risk Register to be published (here).

The government of whichever hue convinced isd still trying to deport him back to Jordan, with those few on the other side quietly pointing out that we could have avoided all this palaver had we attempted to put him on trial here in the first place, rather than sending him back into the welcoming arms of the authoritarian state he fled from.

We did after all grant him asylum back in the care-free 90s, unconcerned as we were then of the phantom of exploding Muslims.

It doesn’t seem to matter that the danger from Qatada, such as it is, isn’t that he will personally launch an attack: it’s rather than he’s provided theological guidance and motivation to jihadists in the past, and given the opportunity possibly will again.

This makes the threat he poses under a 22 hour curfew, accompanied by surveillance, a tag and a ban on anyone visiting him who doesn’t receive Home Office approval almost negligible.

If anything he probably poses more of one where he currently is in HMP Long Lartin, where he can at least mix with the other detainees in the special immigration unit being held in similar circumstances to his.

It’s been a well established point of law for a long time now that you cannot deport someone back to a country where they will face the threat of mistreatment or a trial where the evidence is likely to be based on mistreatment; the House of Lords surprisingly overturned Qatada’s successful court of appeal bid on that score, so it was always likely that his subsequent appeal to the European Court would succeed.

Distasteful as it is that we should have dedicated such efforts and expense in protecting the rights of a man who would presumably like to see the imposition of Sharia law, this is exactly what makes us democracies.

To steal wholesale from a comment posted by GuyStevenson on Eric Metcalfe’s piece at the Graun, quoting Aharon Barak, former head of the Supreme Court of Israel:

This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual’s liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and its strength and allow it to overcome its difficulties.

It might save some time to remember this when we do have to put Qatada under that less strict regime. Except, of course, we won’t.

—
a longer version is here

Last year Ken said if elected he would create the first ever ‘Victims of Crime Commissioner for London’ – to improve support for the victims of crime.

Yesterday, Ken launched his policing pledge promising to reverse Boris Johnson’s cuts to 1700 police officers.

Ken’s team have started advertising the campaign on the Evening Standard too.

It would also raise revenue to combat poverty and climate change at home and abroad, and help re-balance the economy by making long-term investment more worthwhile than short-term, high frequency trading.

This new report by noted economists Prof Avinash Persaud and Prof Stephany Griffith-Jones comes on top of revised estimates from the European Commission who originally produced some of the data that fat cat financiers pounced upon.

The Commission’s original assessment was based on a flawed model which shows all taxes as harming growth, whatever the revenues are used for.

Welcoming the new report, Socialist MEP Anni Podimata, who will draft the European Parliament’s report on the Commission’s proposed FTT, said:

“This study confirms what we have been saying all along. The financial markets have to make a fair contribution to the crisis they provoked. An FTT will reduce the fragmentation of the internal market. Put together with other tools, it will act as a disincentive to high frequency trading and other practices which increase risk without ensuring liquidity.

This would contribute to a better financing of the real economy, encourage investment and job creation in the EU. The S&D Group is against putting the entire burden on ordinary taxpayers, and calls for measures to boost growth. In this sense, an FTT is an integral part of this approach.”

The Commission’s new approach was set out last week in a combative article in several national newspapers around Europe by EU Tax Commissioner Semeta – only a year ago an FTT-sceptic – who wrote:

The more the financial transaction tax approaches implementation, the shriller – hardly by chance – the rhetoric of its opponents. They twist the Commission’s official data and thereby invent apocalyptic scenarios concerning the impacts of the tax on growth, employment and competitiveness.

The FTT will neither damage growth and competitiveness nor lead to more unemployment.

The paper also disproves the suggestion that an FTT would hit pension funds or pensions.

—
A longer version of this post is at Touchstone blog

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

.

@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?

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.

News curation
Anthony De Rosa at Reuters makes this important point:

The idea here at Reuters when it comes to social media is to be the beacon for all news, which makes us the go-to source, no matter what the source may be, after being put through our own filters of verification.

Agreed – but I think there’s an assumption here that people will only follow Reuters for their news and want a wide spectrum of news from that source. I don’t think that model of news is sustainable for long.

On Twitter and on Liberal Conspiracy I sometimes echo others on news or opinion if I find it significant, but rarely see the point in replicating others. If LabourList and/or The Staggers blog have already posted something I’m more likely to link than post the same content. If someone at Guardian CIF has taken a highly visible position on an issue, I usually pass on similar comment pieces. I know other left-wing bloggers take a similar approach.

Newspapers still cling to an era when they ran similar content on the basis that readers will only buy one newspaper. But most people surf at least 2-5 websites of a particular genre, including news. I check about 10 every day, in addition to news aggregators and news tweets.

Sooner or later newspapers and broadcasters with shrinking budgets will have to start specialising their online content. So I don’t think Sky News will lose much by not having its journalists act as curators for other content.

Reputation problem
The ban on RTs also makes sense if you acknowledge their worry that disputed links or info by their journalists could reflect on Sky News itself.

Put this in a political context. The other day Matt Zarb-Cousin got ambushed by the media for calling the Queen a scrounger, even though his Twitter biog says his opinions do not reflect his boss.

And didn’t most people think the Tory Cllr criticising disabled protesters reflected on the Conservative party?

The common Twitter disclaimer: ‘opinions are mine alone, not those of my employer‘ now offers little protection, ironically as journalists themselves have jumped on controversial tweets to get at employers (MZ-B a case in point).

Is it any surprise editors at Sky News feel that a RT not meant as an endorsement could be interpreted in that way anyway? After all, people still attack me for publishing editorials on LC even if I disagree with those views. Once a Twitter mob gets going it’s very difficult to calm it down.

Of course this also implies Sky News editors don’t want to give their own journalists too much leeway in using their judgement. But all the broadcasters have hefty rule books for journalists (I expect the BBC will follow Sky), so this isn’t that surprising.

—
Disclaimer – I’ve not had contact with a Sky News editor or journalist over this blog-post.

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.

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?

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…

The city receives an extraordinary amount of attention for such a small sector. According to the Times last week the City of London was worth only 2.8% of our GDP. Conservatives pander to the City because bankers fund their party; some Labour MPs do it because they’re afraid of the City or don’t know how to handle it.

But pandering to the City is also hurting our economy. Not only does it get subsidies and support to an extent other industries don’t, but also has great potential to disrupt other sectors.

The credit crunch happened because normal lending to small business or medium sized businesses dried up. Banks had severe liquidity problems and their first priority became their own survival not that of other firms. Even Quantitative Easing, designed to deal with this problem, has dealt with this.

So is there any good reason why private banks, who get to borrow from governments at extremely cheap rates, shouldn’t be even more tightly regulated to ensure that even if their investments fail – a repeat of the credit crunch cannot happen?

Why is the normal task of ensuring liquidity flows easily through the economy tightly meshed with other riskier operations? By riskier operations I don’t just mean investment banking, but also lending to other riskier banks.

Just as consumer deposits are guaranteed by central banks, why isn’t lending to businesses also guaranteed in a sense, to ensure such disruption as the Credit Crunch is not repeated?

Without bashing bankers and demanding that regulation go further to untangle this complicated sector, we’ll never get to a stage where they are held accountable for the support their receive and power they are handed on a plate.

Recession looms, unemployment touches a 17-year high. But 101 Tory MPs want David Cameron to shackle the UK’s wind industry, which now employs over 10,000 people.

Their call will feed the predominant anti-renewables line in some media. The MPs want cuts in “taxpayer subsidies” for onshore wind and stronger rights for planning objectors.

In January alone, 2,700 wind industry jobs were either created or reinforced with new contracts, including Samsung in Fife teaming up with Huddersfield-based David Brown Gear Systems; Vestas in Sheerness; and wind turbine tower manufacturer Mabey Bridge, Chepstow. What is it about renewables with some MPs and the media?

First to January’s industrial news. According to RenewableUK, Samsung announced a £100 million project at Fife Energy Park to develop a 7 megawatt offshore turbine, employing 500 people.

It’s the company’s first venture of this type in Europe. Huddersfield-based David Brown Gear Systems will design and manufacture the gearboxes, a coup for a British manufacturer. Meanwhile, Vestas submitted a planning application to build a factory at Sheerness in Kent which will create 2,000 jobs when it opens in 2015.

And also in January, in the small wind sector, Leicestershire-based Evance Wind Turbines announced its sales had grown 200% in 12 months, leading to a 25% increase in its workforce and a doubling in the size of its manufacturing facility.

The Tory MPs claim, in their letter to Cameron, of a huge ”taxpayer subsidy” is plain wrong.

It’s a levy on consumer bills, and as a new DECC study shows, renewable energy policies add just 2% (£19) a year to consumer energy bills last year.

Media bias against renewables would be funny if it wasn’t damaging jobs and skills opportunities.

A Pirc study shows that in the Daily Mail 46% of all articles mentioning renewables were negative, while only 15% were positive. Of articles centrally concerned with renewables in the Daily Mail, 75% were negative.

The Sun likewise was broadly more negative than positive in its coverage. But jobs and employment tended to be associated with much more positive coverage, especially in the Daily Mail.

—
Philip Pearson is a Senior Policy Officer at the TUC.

Yesterday, the minister for disabled people, Maria Miller, said there are no shortage of jobs and blamed unemployment on people’s unwillingness to apply for work.

Every month I report on the latest unemployment data, the number of people claiming JSA and the number of vacancies in each Local Authority.

The last set of data showed that there are as many as 20 people chasing the one vacancy in some areas, in Lewisham there are almost thirty five dole claimants chasing each vacancy.

Download full analysis

This is using the claimant count only; the number of people unemployed is significantly higher if we used the ILO definition of unemployment, as many unemployed people are not claiming JSA.

Currently there are 2.68 million people unemployed using this definition, and there are 463,000 vacancies, and around 6 people chasing every vacancy.

If we look at the same areas pre- recession, what do we see? Significantly lower levels of unemployment and higher number of vacancies.

So what has caused the change in numbers? Not unwillingness to apply for jobs but the deepest recession we have had since the 1930′s, which has not just affected unemployment in the UK but globally.

There are one million more unemployed people than there was 4 years ago. It is time for the Government to stop blaming the unemployed for their situation and to start taking responsibility for creating jobs.

—
A longer version is at Touchstone blog.

A video of the camera in action, taken by LC blogger Jim Jepps, was posted here over the weekend.

National newspapers followed up the story, forcing the council to backtrack rather abruptly.

Jim Jepps was interviewed by the Guardian yesterday

In a statement the council said:

All flash cameras have the capacity to deliver voice messages when activated but in this instance it appears that voice messages were inadvertently activated when the camera batteries were replaced four to five weeks ago.
…
We do not want to stop residents from enjoying their open spaces and communal areas and under no circumstances would we want voice messages to be used in areas where they may be disturbed. The voice messages will be deactivated as soon as possible.

Original video

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.

She says:

Betting shops are causing problems in Peckham. My constituents tell me that they take the most from the poorest. They complain that they are a source of anti social behaviour and recorded violence. They say they cluster on the poorest high streets, and put off other businesses.

The problem is that as a councillor, I can’t do anything about it. Current planning laws mean that local councils have no meaningful way of controlling the number of betting shops in their area.

The government is currently consulting on whether to give local councils the powers to take control, so there is a real opportunity for influencing the government.

Is this a massive issue? I would suggest it is, in several ways. High streets are the commercial and social life-blood of local areas. They can make people feel more connected to the area or feel like they should leave.

They can also trigger vicious cycles – if the quality of local shops in an area declines then people stop coming into the area, local businesses go bust, house prices fall and people move out. The whole area suffers.

Allowing betting shops to proliferate also betrays how far local governments let ‘the market decide’ on what shops and services should be on offer.

High Streets should be public spaces for all. That councils don’t have this power (while being allowed to spy on residents) illustrates the skewed the priorities of central governments.

Sign the petition

1. Do you think the creation of “Free Schools” – new state schools set up by parents, teachers or voluntary groups which are outside the control of local authorities – will make education standards better or worse, or will it make no difference?
Will make standards better 23%
Will make standards worse 33%
Will make no difference 23%
Don’t know 21%

2. The founders who set up “Free Schools” are not able to make a profit from running them but they are allowed to commission private companies to provide services to the schools. In principle are you in favour or against allowing free schools to commission private companies to manage their school?
In favour 28%
Against 44%
Don’t know 28%

We don’t want private companies in our education system, says the public!

3. One free school has recently announced that it is commissioning an education company, which runs schools in Sweden, to manage their school. Supporters say that this company has an
excellent reputation for running schools and this is a practical way of providing new school places in the area. Opponents say that private companies should not be allowed to profit from running publically funded schools.
Do you support or oppose allowing this free school to commission a private company to manage their school?
Support 30%
Oppose 41%
Don’t know 29%

As more horror stories come out of private companies profiting from education, expect support to fall even more.

Their well paid commentators should pay a bit more attention to public opinion. A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times yesterday found the public had lots of appetite for more banker bashing.

» Asked if it was right to strip Fred Goodwin of his knighthood – 67% of people said it was right, while only 18% said it was the wrong decision.

» And what about others? Should other senior executives of banks that needed to be bailed out also be stripped of honours?

YES, said the public, enthusiastically. 63% agreed while only 19% disagreed (that includes 61% of Tory voters too).

» Was the government right to pressure Hester into not accepting his bonus? (Actually that was Labour, not the govt…) – 72% said yes. Only 20% disagreed.

» Would all this damage the business environment in Britain, asked YouGov. Only 25% said it would damage UK’s business environment while 56% said it wouldn’t (incl a majority of Tories).

Neither was the public convinced it would discourage foreign companies from coming here.

So much for the likes of Toby Young and other Tories being in touch with public opinion on this issue.

This is because the Syrian army may not be able to carry on much longer. This estimation has not been made by a pundit or hack, but by General Mustafa al-Sheikh, who has left the country and has taken refuge in neighbouring Turkey.

The General has asserted that no more than a third of the army is now at combat readiness, with defection and absenteeism rife. That limits the amount of time for which it can maintain its effectiveness.

This assessment comes on the back of Colonel Riyad al-As’ad of the Syrian Free Army telling that half the country is no longer under Government control.

Put those two views together and the conclusion has to be that, despite the failure at the UN, the Assad regime is not long for this world, and some thought has to be given to what will happen when – not if – it falls.

And that thought has been applied by the Government of Israel, which is no surprise, given that the two countries share a border. Here, there are grounds for optimism: deputy PM Moshe Ya’alon was talking to Army Radio about the situation and told that “relatively moderate” elements from the Sunni Muslim community could well be brought into power.

Moreover, Ya’alon is clearly hopeful of any new order in Damascus being less close to the Iranians. He said the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a major power in Egypt, was not a significant force in Syria, and hence his conclusion that there would be a “relatively moderate Sunni regime based on an intellectual middle class”.

But it is entirely possible that if a civil war breaks out following the collapse of the Assad regime, regaining control will be difficult, even in the longer term.

Because, as I pointed out in November, the situation in Syria has passed the point of no return, that point where Assad could have saved his regime or handed over power peacefully.

That he is on his way is not in doubt: whether the country he leaves behind can be salvaged without serious further bloodshed certainly is. Everything could change by the end of the month.

Emma Harrison told BBC 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics that the government was chasing positive headlines and poll ratings at the expense of poor families.

Harrison is founder and chairwoman of A4e – which is one of the companies running the back-to-work scheme.

There are going to be people who are going to be trapped, and I think we need to be really, really careful we don’t catch the wrong people in these big reforms?…?Let’s not harm the most vulnerable people in this country

The FT reports tonight that the comments will be a blow to David Cameron.

You can listen to the programme from here for the next seven days.

First, Saturday Night Live and then the Daily Show skewer him.