We're just showing the government how to do it, says Cameron

1:34pm

Team Osborne get in touch in relation to my last post. Yes it is an old idea, they say, but Labour is pussyfooting around. They would implement it properly. Cameron has just walked into the room... Let's see how he does.

Update: At his speech in Euston, Cameron has just sought to make a virtue of this. Labour has only now given details about the funding and timetable of their financial advice centres. We have made the government's decision for them, says Cameron. Show them how it can be done.

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comment

The Tory answer to the credit crunch should be less tax not pinching more Brown ideas

12:19pm

The other day I blogged how the Tories are engaging in a “fool’s game” of trying to work out what the government will announce, beating them to it, and then claiming they were the first mover, They appear to be at it again today with a proposal for independent financial advice centres.

Downing Street is already pointing out that the Tory idea looks walks, talks, sounds and smells pretty much like the National Money Guidance Service proposed by Otto Thoresen in a Treasury review a few weeks back. He suggested the cost should be split between the banks and the government – the Tories say the banks should fund the whole thing.

The Tory proposal would be funded by a ridiculously-named “social responsibility levy”. If anything, this is more anti-capitalist as it is based on the idea of a wicked (and irresponsible) financial services industry atoning for its sins. And, of course, it seeks breathes life into my least favourite Cameroon slogan. The “social responsibility” idea may successfully be sold to gullible oil companies but is not a model for government. Yet every time I think it’s dead, it jumps up again.

One might argue that perception matters most: that people are more willing to believe that a good idea comes from the Tories than from a jinxed Brown administration. People are asking “well, Cameron, what would you do about the financial mess” – and the Tories have no answer, having signed up to Brown’s tax and spend module. Perhaps this is their attempt to answer the problem: ape another Brown idea.

It says much about the lack of clear blue/red/yellow water in politics nowadays that policies are so quickly aped by other parties. Often, such burglary serves Labour right – such as Darling’s calamitous decision to nick Osborne’s non-dom proposal. I hope the financial adviser proposal will not be the centrepiece of Cameron’s speech at 1pm on poverty. It’s an important topic to get right.

When he was campaigning in Cardiff, Cameron said they should vote Tory to “keep the bills down.” Precisely so. As the SNP is finding in Scotland, this is a simple, powerful and popular solution to the credit crunch. Less tax - this is the policy the Tories are searching for. Let’s hope they find it before too long.

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (7)

Boris leads by 11 in final YouGov poll

11:09am

The last Monday YouGov poll for the Evening Standard has Boris on 46 percent to Ken’s 35. Once the second preferences are factored in, Boris leads Ken 55 to 45. If you still haven’t decided who to vote for, do read Matt’s piece in the magazine on why Boris is the right man for London.  

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (7)

Jump-starting social mobility

10:56am

Gary Duncan has an important piece in this morning’s Times keying off Reform’s report on social mobility. As Gary writes,

“The realities behind Mr Brown's rhetoric on poverty are a lot less impressive than his boasts of being the best friend of the disadvantaged imply. The stark truth is that after a decade of Labour Government, Britain is a nation of greater income inequality, in which the plight of the very poor has worsened. True, Labour has succeeded in lifting half a million children out of poverty since 1998. Yet the Government's figures are based on a poverty line drawn at 60 per cent of average incomes. If it is placed, instead, at 40 per cent - officially defined as “severe poverty” - the picture looks much bleaker, with the numbers of children in such dire straits no lower than in 1997.”

Any party that aspires to government, must have policies to address this problem. Brown is right that the waste of talent in this country is tragic. But sadly his policies have failed on this front. What is needed, as Gary argues, is radical reform of the education and welfare systems and a refashioning of the tax system to reward work. 

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comment

Just in case you missed them...

10:02am

Here are some of the posts made over the weekend:

Matthew d’Ancona reflects on how the Carole Capln story could so easily have been about Tony not Cherie.

Boris Johnson should urge his supporters to give their second preferences to Brian Paddick argues James Forsyth.

A new poll of battleground seats has the Tories on course for a comfortable majority reports Fraser Nelson.

And on The Spectator’s 180th anniversary blog, Pete Hoskin fishes an article by Siôn Simon, now a Labour MP, out of the archive which calls on Tony Blair to sack Gordon Brown. 

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comment

Brown's poll position

8:39am

Jackie Ashley’s column this morning makes the good point that by this time next week the commentariat could be praising Gordon Brown’s resilience and fighting qualities. The silver lining to the current spate of bad news stories for the Prime Minister is that expectations for Labour’s performance in the elections this week are now so low that if Labour just holds the London Mayoralty and the Tories fail to cross the 40 percent threshold, Brown will be boosted. Like Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, mere survival will be enough to win Brown good headlines.  He will be able to reassure Labour backbenchers that the polls are not all knowing and that they should not pay too much attention to the shifts in metropolitan opinion. By contrast, if Labour lose London and the Tories poll comfortably more than 40 percent it is hard to see how Brown would come back.

What Brown, though, should pay most heed to in Ashley’s column is her lament that

“He has retreated again to his personal comfort zone of macho, tribal men who love to tussle and hate to listen. This is suicidal. He spoke once of a more open, collegial cabinet, bringing in a bigger range of voices. This means really listening to backbenchers, encouraging ministers to talk freely in your presence, and forgetting the whole dysfunctional history of who was a Blairite and who was a Brownite. Even the Hillary effect did not happen without some brutal self-assessment, including the firing of a much loved and trusted adviser.”

This is what prompts some to think that ultimately the worst result for Brown could be to do just well enough on May1st and be persuaded that all is well when it is not. They think that only a drubbing can make Brown actually confront his problems.

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (2)

60 years of Israeli independence

12:43am

I've just touched down in Jerusalem, ahead of the sixtieth anniversary of Israeli independence next week.  Over the next three days, I and a few other journos will be ferried around Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Sderot - meeting with various political and military types along the way.  

It's a timely visit.  Quite aside from the anniversary celebrations, a number of issues are reaching boiling point - the impact of the Annapolis summit; how prime minister Olmert will deal with Syria and Iran; the humanitarian situation in Gaza, etc. etc.  I'll be looking to get the lowdown on these, and will blog as much as my itinerary and connectivity allow.  If there's anything else you'd like to hear about - maybe what people think of Blair in his role as Middle East peace envoy? - just let me know in the comments section.

In the meantime, there are some interesting articles on the anniversary knocking around.  I'd recommend you read this one from the Observer and this one from the New York Times.  David Rubinger's powerful photo-journal is also well worth a look.

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (15)

Postcard from Scotland

11:09pm

I’ve just arrived back from a visit to Scotland (stag party in Feshiebridge) and in my sober moments picked up these few observations….

1. No Tolls: On my drive there and back I whizzed past the Forth Road Bridge with no tolls – better for traffic and my pocket. Motorists (including one driving G Brown) do this 12 million times a year, and many will be thinking “Thank-you Alex Salmond.” It is a fairly powerful propaganda tool. A unionist administration in Edinburgh would not have done this, as the idea had been to be discreet about the English subsidy. Those days are gone, supplanted by the new era of stirring things up. 

2. Plenty petrol:  When I heard No10 saying there was no need for anyone in Scotland to “panic buy” petrol, I went to fill up immediately. My local station turned out to be the Shell nearest Gordon Brown’s house in North Queensferry. No queue, no quota and 108p a litre – the national average. Shame the Dear Leader doesn’t drive. 

3. Resurgent SNP: The SNP are on their uppers. I was handed a leaflet saying “vision” and almost threw it away thinking it was a flyer from a firm of opticians. Instead it was an SNP freesheet (pdf). “The money in your pocket edition” it said. It’s focusing on the credit crunch, and how it claims the SNP is making people better-off – “to put more money in their pockets” says its advert. English money, that is (25p in every pound Salmond spends is English subsidy). Freezing council tax, abolishing university tuition fees, increasing money for care for the elderly, boasting about how prescription charges now cost more in England. This is good old fashioned tax-and-spend – but framed in a credit crunch way. A clever device. “While fuel and food prices rise… the SNP is working for Scots to ease the burden where it can,” runs the advert. This is precisely what Brown should be saying. But to do that, he’d have to admit there is a problem – and that inflation is not at a record low as he says. He’s still on the “you ungrateful lot, don’t you know you’ve never had it so good” approach. 

4. Independence: A Sunday Herald poll recently had support for independence at 41% v 40% against. Salmond is motoring quickly towards his goal and his standing in the Westminster polls is rising ever-higher (though still behind Labour). There is a de facto Tory-SNP alliance here – united against a common enemy and in trying to loosen the unionist voting system in Westminster. Above all, Salmond wants a Tory government in May2010 so that he can say “vote yes in my independence referendum to get rid of the Tories forever”. 

5. Final thought: The most terrifying words in the English language are no longer “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” They are a British Airways employee saying “sorry, sir, you can’t take that as hand-luggage.” I wangled it, though (at the expense of some shampoo), and found Terminal Five not so bad if you cling onto your bags for dear life.

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (7)

Has anyone endorsed Ken enthusiastically?

4:05pm

The three press endorsements of Ken Livingstone that have appeared in recent days have one overarching theme in common:  a complete lack of enthusiasm for Livingstone. The Observer even urges its readers to withhold their first preference votes from Ken to send him a message. Its backing comes with heavy caveats. Indeed, one would not expect to read this kind of paragraph in an endorsement editorial:

“But Ken's able choice of words is matched by an appalling choice in friends. He has let himself be wooed - and in one case bankrolled - by property developers with much to gain from access to City Hall. When faced with allegations of corruption involving Lee Jasper, one of his advisers, Mr Livingstone's response was abrasive, petulant and dishonest: he accused Mr Jasper's critics of racism. 

Most damaging to Ken's credentials as leader of a cosmopolitan city, he publicly embraced Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a religious zealot and apologist for suicide bombers.”

The Guardian cannot muster much more enthusiasm for the task. It declares that “the choice facing London is not a happy one” and warns that the Mayor should not take victory as “an endorsement of his efforts to turn City Hall into a personal fiefdom”. Like The Observer, The Guardian is disappointed that the Lib Dems did not field a stronger candidate.

Despite the pertinent criticisms of Livingstone made by Martin Bright, the magazine’s political editor, The New Statesman does encourage its readers to vote Livingstone. But only after criticising Livingstone for “his overpaid cronies, his lack of accountability, his disdain for the Assembly, his dalliance with radical Islam and his involvement (for which he has no electoral mandate) in Latin American politics.” 

Reading these editorials, one can’t help but be reminded of the equally hedged and grudging endorsements that the Tories received prior to their 1997 drubbing. When even those who are ideologically sympathetic to you are so unenthusiastic about your candidacy then something is very wrong.    

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (16)

A sharpened Tory message

1:41pm

David Cameron’s appearance on Andrew Marr has not made much news but it was, to my mind, one of Cameron’s most impressive performances to date. Two of the most common criticisms you hear of Cameron in Tory circles is that he doesn’t show enough passion and that he doesn’t offer voters enough concrete reasons to vote for the party. This morning, Cameron passed both of these tests—just take a look at this part of the transcript: 

I think something did change last week which is I think people on low pay, families who struggle often to make ends meet, who are seeing the cost of living rising and they're seeing their tax bill go up from Labour, I think those people who often thought you know the Labour Party's for me, I think they feel desperately let down. And what I want to say to people like that is that you know we are there for you. I will try and keep your taxes down.
I'll, if you do the right thing and save I will try and help you. I'll make sure the benefits system you know pays couples to stay together rather than to separate. We'll try and give you the good school that you ought to have. I think those people have been let down by Labour and .. 

ANDREW MARR: Yeah .. 

DAVID CAMERON: .. those are the people actually I want to stand up for.

Now, this might be longer than the sentence that Fraser thought that the Tories were missing last summer but it does the job. (On both benefits and education the policy is in place to make these changes real, on tax their remains much worked to be done.)  The Tories are positioning themselves to fully capitalise on Labour’s problems.

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (12)