By design, not by accident

bill

I entirely agree with his analysis. As for those who prefer cock up to conspiracy, I say there are none so blind who will not see. If only the Tories would call things as they are but I won't hold my breath with the Cameroons in control.

Kevyn Bodman

I agree with a lot of Mr. Heffer's analysis.
NuLab have created 'client voters'.
Public sector employees, citizens in receipt of state handouts and minority groups who are pandered to all have an interest in voting NuLab.

Were anyone to stand on my preferred policies of:

widening the gap between work and benefits by a)raising the minimum wage and b) reducing and restricting benefits to able bodied adults and eliminating child benefit for all children conceived after the announcement of the new child benefit policy

an immediate halt to all immigration, including family reunification, to be reviewed every year and eased only for highly skilled candidates

a reduction, within one year of 15% of civil servant numbers

then no NuLab client voters would offer support, irrespective of other policies on offer.

Nu Lab has cynically, deliberately offered what are effectively bribes, not for the national good but for the 'good' of keeping people voting for them.

TimJ

Although quite what a 'hecatomb of foreigners' is is a bit of a mystery - given that hecatomb means the slaughter of 100 cattle.

Dave B

I thought it was one of Mr Heffer's better efforts.

"When one applies the doctrine on non-incompetence more widely, one hears other echoes. We have lived beyond our means not because economic growth has not, or will not, live up to its earlier billing, but because Mr Brown's priority was to create a client state of feather-bedded Labour voters.

Knowing it would harm economic stability, he set about printing money and borrowing excessively to put people on the public payroll, and to cushion hordes of the undeserving, Labour-voting poor with welfare benefits. This was not incompetent, however it might look: it was deliberate and stunning in its calculation."

Very much on the ball.

Ian C

I'll buy into this. What has finally been uncovered as populist incompetence was in fact ideologically driven madness. No wonder it has been so difficult to fight by an opposition with the guts knocked out of it by the landslide defeats taht ere always going to follow the incompetent Toty years of 1989 to 97. Nor to be able to adapt themselves to deal with the barefaced deception of it becaus etheir credibility was so damaged. Time to call it what is right. It is long overdue but maybe the Tories have the confidence now. Many outside politics have known this in their waters for a very long time but just as the west heads into economic downturn at best, everyone is waking up to what has been going on while they thought they were having a good time (and some were). Plus ca change.

TrevorH

I see no reason to suppose that there cannot be both cock up and conspiracy.

It is of course now quite clear (and has been for a few years) that Browns economic targets and boasts have only been possible due to mass immigration. Migrationwatch have been pointing out for years that growth per head has been static - ie as individuals we are no better off because of immigration.

EyeSee

I think the area where Simon is wrong is when he mentions ideology. This suggests New Labour have some underlying thread of ideas and are pursuing objectives. They aren't. They have ideas like you do, first thing in the morning, about what to have for dinner that evening. The only planning was how to get elected. They decided to say what you wanted to hear and that meant lying pretty much all of the time. The clear fact that NL have never forseen the consequences of their actions suggests incompetence. If you were not an electrician and you decided to take the job, it would be no wonder you get your fingers burnt. Particularly when you also cannot take advice. Blair etc didn't set out to wreck the country, they just never gave it a thought. What Labour politician has ever taken the trouble to get on top of their brief (apart from Frank Field, obviously)? They are barbarians who want to enjoy the fruits of civilisation without knowing how it came about or how to recreate it. Instance: because the Northern Rock debacle has embarrassed the government they are encouraging 'whistle blowers' from within the Financial Services industry. However they sack civil servants who blow the whistle (in fact almost the only way a civil servant can lose their job).

Nick Kaplan

Kevyn; If we were to increase the minimum wage to ‘widen the gap between work and benefits’ I’m afraid the result would almost certainly be the opposite of what you desire, it would increase unemployment rather than decrease it. What is in fact needed is an overall reduction in benefits payment combined with new thinking about how we should award them. Presently the combination of having to pay tax and loosing benefits as one moves into full time work can actually make people marginally worse off, hence the system encourages people to stay out of work, this will get worse with Labour’s abolition of the 10% tax rate. What we need is a system that is linked to earnings, such that when one goes back into work, ones benefits are sustained at a level that ensures one becomes significantly better off by accepting a job. If we try and address this issue, as you suggest, through increasing the minimum wage, you will distort the market and the result will be even more unemployment. It will become too expensive to employ those in the labour force who are unskilled (particularly the young) and the result will be forcing a new generation onto benefits. The reason why, despite record levels of growth over the last 15 years, we have such high levels of NEETs, is purely because of the current minimum wage which means it simply makes no economic sense for a company to employ teenagers. As Milton Freidman once said, “I cannot understand why it is better to be unemployed at $5.00 an hour, then employed at $4.50.”

Verity

Trevor H - No. It was not a cock-up. It was planned with low cunning to look like a series of mistakes - mistakes which, oddly enough, always contributed to a further loss of liberty, a further unwanted wash through of unwanted and unneeded (except as voters - although I have never figured out how non-citizens got the right to vote), the destruction of the family, paedophiles seeded through the education system keen on introducing children at younger and younger ages to "sex education", removing this sesnsitive responsibility from the family, all day drinking, enormous welfare class not required to even bother to attend the occasional job interview - everything destructive to civil society. It wasn't a cock-up. It was brilliant.

Unfortunately Cameron isn't the man to sort it out. I'm sorry Ann Widdecomb's retiring. Could David Davis reverse the terrible wrong that has been perpetrated on our country? Perhaps. William Hague? Yes, he could do it because he has seen through Blair from Day One. Patrick Mercer, perhaps? David Cameron? No. He is not instinctive enough and he's too much of a slippery opportunist himself.

The Laughing Cavalier

Anything that dilutes or damages the natural small 'c' conservatism and small 'l' liberalism of the English public is all to the good in their minds. Note that I write ‘English’, they have the Celts in their pockets. This has been the chance for Labour to embed its values" into the system and bring England to its knees so as to make it the natural party of government - as it is inclined, vaingloriously, to call itself boastfully in times of hubris. The forcing of multi-culturalism upon us has been the principal avenue to this end during the last eleven years, with disastrous results that even some on the left are now beginning to see.

But not McBroon and his inner circle who have dismissed the Lords report out of hand, reasserted the old mantra and suggested that British workers retrain as curry chefs - the McBean version of "let then eat cake".

Add to all that the undoubted incompetence of a group of apparatchiks who had never run so much as a whelk stall before entering politics and the result is the truly sorry state we're in.

Tiberius

Verity, the man to sort it out has to get past the very voters who bought into New Labour. They are generally bright enough to spot a con from a door-to-door salesman, but not from a man with a big grin and white teeth who talks fantasy politics. In political terms, they need to be courted, not lectured, and that is why Old Tories (to borrow from Donald Rumsfeld) will not do.

Kevyn Bodman

Nick Kaplan: Thank you.
First of all let me say that I don't know much more economics than what I learned as part of an A-level course in 1973; I'm happy to learn more, and to be corrected if I'm in error in what comes next.

During the debates about 10 years ago on the minimum wage didn't the Conservatives say it would cost jobs, didn't Labour say the reverse and weren't Labour correct?
This is what Blair and Brown have often claimed.

Raising the minimum wage is a distortion of the market, of course. But the market isn't allowed to work at the lower end.
If hotel cleaners can't be found at 5 pounds an hour, the rate for the job doesn't go up to 6, or 7 or 8 pounds an hour until the jobs are filled. A new pool of workers is brought in.
It isn't true that there are jobs that British people won't do so we must have foreign workers; there are jobs that British workers won't do at low wages, and employers avoid raising the wages by manipulating the market by increasing the labour supply available to them.

Increasing the minimum wage increases purchasing power at the lower end of the economy, a good thing.

I'll be in a London hotel next week; if chambermaid pay rates were increased the hotel would charge me more; I'd pay it and adjust by drinking less expensive wine, or not taking taxis or by putting a fiver rather than a tenner in the box when I go to view 'my' paintings at the National Gallery.

My spending decisions, multiplied by tens of thousands, would lead to the market in goods and services adjusting itself following the manipulation imposed by increasing the minmum wage.
I concede that I am advocating interfering with the market; I suggest that markets are fixed in other ways too, and I think it would recover from my manipulation.
One of the possible outcomes, using my example, is fewer people staying in hotels. Bad for hotels, bad for hotel workers, but wouldn't the increased purchasing power of people at the lower end send that money into other areas, leading to jobs in those areas?

We've got to get rid of the tax credit system too.Adjust tax rates so less is taken in the first place, don't take it then rebate it.

Not simple, and I'm not an expert.
Thanks again for your thoughts.

Somehow we need to incentivise work, more than it is at the moment.
We must, indeed, cut benefits but we mustn't condemn the genuinely needy to penury.

mark

I just don't buy the conspiracy theory on this -

Are we seriously suggesting that the NL clique in the 1990's set out to do all this damage? Why?

No - I think it's more around perceptions of electability and lack of foresight/understanding. In any event much of the damage (to education for example) had been in play long before this lot came to "power".

Not to downplay the results and the need to get rid of this madness - but I can't buy they deliberately set out with this intent.

Verity

Tiberius - I take your point. I would still say anyone but Cameron as he is, in a sense, one of them, but without the cunning.

I do take your point, but I just don't think he has a clear understanding of the assault that has been committed against our society. Of course, it's difficult to say what he is thinking because if he verbalises a good conservative idea, and the New Labour malignancy sees that voters are responding to it, they will slide it out from under him and take temporary ownership of it - and disgard it later when the fuss has died down, and get back to the programme.

I despair of a political solution. I can't see shifting this toxic destructiveness without massive civil disorder. For the moment at least, our Armed Forces are answerable to HM. Would she order them out against the British? (And if she did, would they go?)

Verity

Mark writes: "Are we seriously suggesting that the NL clique in the 1990's set out to do all this damage? Why?"

I can only answer in the singular but, yes, that is what I am seriously suggesting - as surreal as it is.

Why? They're One Worlders. Who knows what motivates such madness? The Blairs were keen CNDers when they were a young married couple.

That record was expunged when he ran for PM the first time round - as far as I can see. CNDers are not patriots. They're part of the One Worlder movement.

Kevyn Bodman

Verity:
I, too, despair.
I would like to think many people would be in broad agreement with where the country should get to, but I can't see a way of getting there.
The government sees all the people as suspects (ID cards, number-plate tracking, CCTV, fingerprinting) and probably views people like us as the enemy.
Debate among people who have the power to effect change is in a very narrow spectrum.
And the recent disgraceful performance of our leaders over the Lisbon Treaty referendum make it clear that that the political class views the future of our country as none of our business.

Massive civil disorder is, I fear, a tragic inevitability.
The uncertainty is when.

mark

I remember the early '70's where there was "chatter" about a military solution (I was a young officer at the time). Are we in a similar position now? I think in terms of infringement of civil liberty we are much worse off.

And yes, the military swear an oath of allegiance to HMQ, not the government. And of course the military do come out "in aid of the civil power" against their countrymen (remember N.Ireland....).

Interesting to theorise but I can see no circumstance where the sovereign would bring out the troops against the elected government. The troops being deployed BY the government - different matter - this has happened on several occasions.

But I thimk that we have a LONG way to go to get to mass civil disobediance. The last time "we" got angry we managed to get a few roadblocks around some fuel depots and organised some slow convoys (fuel price protests) - hardly enough to bring down the government.

mark

oh - and another thing -

what really ticks me off is the constant use of the term "citizens" in the media to describe the people of the United Kingdon - we are of course all "subjects" - citizens live in a Republic........

Verity

Kevyn Bodman writes: "The government sees all the people as suspects (ID cards, number-plate tracking, CCTV, fingerprinting)...".

I don't agree. These things you have mentioned are means of wresting control and privacy away from the citizen and handing it to the state. It doesn't see us as suspects at all. Control. The British have had their civil liberties quietly picked away at for 11 years, and now there aren't that many left. A measure of how embedded this control over the electorate is, is that I was surprised that the Taxpayers' Alliance managed to force a review of McGuinness's wife's taxi fares.

People underestimate how malign the "New Labour" movement is.

Verity

Mark - on the official page with my photograph and date of birth, my British passport states that I am a "British citizen".

They announced doing away with the word "subject" around 10 years ago ...

PeterA

Where is this "massive" civil unrest going to come from? NL are more incompetent than conspiritorial.
A. massive influx of foreign workers on low pay
B. 100,000's school-leavers not going to work, why should they?
C. Brown raises school-leaving age to 18
D. Teachers go on strike
E. All those who can threaten strike action for more money, eg SW Train drivers basic pay £40k+
F.What happens when foreign workers leave, or fed-up home-grown talent for that matter?

mark

Verity - thanks for the update on subject v citizen - guess I am just a dinosaur!!

Danielle

Heffer at his best! I totally agree with him, just wish Cameron would.

Danielle

Heffer is spot on how else do you explain the sacking of Frank Field early on when he 'thought the unthinkable' on welfare and totally ignoring him on immigration. The state we are in now has been planned all along but until the tories bring the electorate to its senses, something Cameron seems unwilling or unable to do, it will carry on. Although not just Cameron all of us on the centre right have also failed to take on the left effectively.

Max Kaye

Verity, I don't doubt that NL's motives may indeed be as nefarious you suspect (though probably mostly subliminal - even to themselves). I do doubt, however, that they have the competence to plot and manifest such an arch, all-encompassing conspiracy: they are the most incompetent bunch since the Three Stooges. No, I believe that this mendacious lot have stumbled from one 'progressive' idea to another and that we, the British people - through apathy or incredulity - have now awakened 10 years later to find that we've been sleepwalking along the road to serfdom.

Question: is the encouragement of civil disobedience against the law? I'd love to see someone organise a mass rising and destruction of all publicly-owned CCTVs - including traffic cameras nationwide.

Nicholas

Verity, it may seem a quibble but to refer to our civil liberties makes them sound like something we have never had but merely espouse to. They are really our ancient freedoms and rights, attacked not just in the last 11 years (although the assault accelerated and became more blatent with New Labour), but for more than one hundred years. The rot set in with the establishment of the Metropolitan Police. Until that time Englishmen had never envisaged surrendering themselves to the "European" idea of police control. It has gradually encroached ever since, aggrandising power in encouragement of and as a tool of successive governments seeking more and more to busybody their way into our lives.

Even in the mid-19th Century the view was widely held in parliament that English people had the right to bear arms in order to use them against oppressive government and to defend themselves against tyranny. Now faced with that grim reality we are powerless to shift for ourselves, cowed, subservient, our riddled communities unable to exercise the most basic will.

The latest manifestation of a thoroughly politicised police, working in chummy collaboration with a government repressive by inclination, making public political statements (e.g. the DNA register) and inviting the media to intrude into investigations and prosecutions that ought to be strictly confidential and sub-judice, is appalling.

Seeing Harriet Harmthenation walking flak-jacketed in the street with a squad of police really brought home to me the way the government/police are now operating to mutual benefit and blatently parading a direct relationship that only a very few years ago would have been seen as a shocking conflict of interest.

The supreme irony is the more legislation, the more control, the more nannying, the worse the crime and disorder situation has become.

Verity

Peter A - "NL are more incompetent than conspiritorial." This is what you are encouraged to believe. It all happened by mistake - although all the pieces click in with curious efficiency to form a perfect picture. When they take away yet another liberty, such as freedom of speech, you are encouraged to believe they were really doing something else and didn't foresee the consequences. They want you to shake your head over a pint and mutter " Couldn't run a bleedin' whelk stall".

Oh yes they can. And they've done it under the radar.

Verity

Nicholas, that was certainly not my intention and I apologise if I wasn't clear. As far as civil liberties are concerned, it should be the right of every citizen to own and bear arms, provided they pass a background test of not being a howling loon. Our ancient civil liberties include the right of self-defence. That means the liberty to shoot someone who threatens your life.

I lived in Texas. Trust me. I am clear on this point. And as they say, "an armed society is a polite society". Works in Texas. You don't rudely cut into someone's lane on the freeway. She may have a gun.

(Just kidding. Yes, she'd be arrested for unlawful killing, but you'd be dead. Who wants to take that chance?)

mark

hmm - to the Texas issue - I live there now and it is true that old style politeness is still the norm - "sir" and "ma'am" used routinely and whilst at first this sounds odd to English ears it is actually quite nice and not "folksy" at all. And maybe a measure of how far we have sunk is that we find being polite and respectful sounding odd...........