Blair's prescience

10:15am

There’s a certain amount of Blair nostalgia in the Labour party at the moment as Gordon Brown struggles at Number Ten. That feeling is only going to be heightened by Rachel Sylvester’s column in the Telegraph this morning which contains this great bit of reporting: 

“When [Blair] heard his anointed successor announcing with a dramatic flourish at the end of his speech a cut in the basic rate of income tax (a cut which was to be paid for by the abolition of the 10p rate that had been slipped out earlier) his grin froze in horror.

He returned to Downing Street, complaining that the Budget was a disaster that "played into all the worst perceptions of Gordon".

Mr Brown, Mr Blair told colleagues, was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes by giving the impression that his Budget was a tax-cutting package when it was not. The whole thing would, he predicted, soon unravel.”

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Labour make up ground on the Tories

8:59am

Now this is an odd one. In spite of the 10p tax row – and the very public dissent by some Labour figures – the latest Guardian / ICM poll sees the Tory lead cut significantly. Cameron & Co. score 39 percent (down 3 on last month); Labour are on 34 percent (up 5); and the Lib Dems on 19 percent (down 2).

They're figures which may give our beleaguered Prime Minister cause for optimism. But – as Political Betting remind us – this is only one poll. The headlines remain poisonous for the Government, and if the 10p tax rebellion escalates – as well it might – then ground could be lost just as quickly.

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How the Labour government has hurt the poor

6:18pm

Why are all these Labour MPs worried about the 10p tax? It is the least of the ways in which this Labour government has hurt the poor over its years in government. Let me count the ways – well, half a dozen anyway:

1) Sink schools. By granting LEAs monopoly control over education provision, bureaucrats have keep bad schools going by forcing children there. It’s the children of the poor, however. Reform points this out in its excellent social mobility report today (pdf, p15). While 47 per cent of students achieved five decent GCSEs last year, this was true for just 20% of those eligible for free schools meals. The inequality is getting worse, not better. To paraphrase Neil Kinnock, is this because the poor kids are thick? Nope. It’s because the Labour Party is on the side of the system - and not the poorest pupils.

2) Worst Hospitals. The NHS, like all bureaucracies, responds best to those who complain loudest – the middle class. So the poorest get the worst deal. Patients in deprived areas, despite being in more need of hip replacements are much less likely to get them – as this seminal Civitas pamphlet shows.

3) Poorest getting poorer. In 2001/02 the disposable income of the poorest 10% was £91 a week. The latest data (for 2005/06) has it as £89 a week (pdf, p100). These are real-terms comparisons with a staggering truth: the poorest are now getting poorer under Labour. Why? Because Brown’s policies are focused on those just below his made-up poverty boundary of 60% of the average income. Cross this arbitrary boundary and you (and your children) can be deemed “lifted out of poverty” and inserted in a Labour Party speech. But the very poorest don’t stand a chance of crossing this boundary – so they are forgotten. Leftie disdain for the lumpenproletariat is alive and well.

4) Welfare Dependency. When Labour came to power 5.7m were on out-of-work benefits. After ten years of the economic boom it’s 5.2m – most of the new jobs have gone to or been created by immigrants on whose work ethic Brown has depended. Once, Labour referred to idleness as a “giant evil”. Now, Brown has institutionalised it.

5) Protection from crime. Those living in poor neighbourhoods are 2 times as likely to be robbed and 2.5 times as likely be a victim of violent crime than those living in rich ones, according to the Home Office (pdf, p117). Where I live in Richmond, police are now everywhere – especially fond of patrolling the crime-free towpath of a spring evening. Head into the crime-ridden estates and there’s barely a police car to be seen. You’re now more likely be shot in Lambeth than East Bronx – but people like me are safer than ever.

6) Taxation. Since Labour came to power the number of income tax payers has rocketed by 20% to 31.6m as more and more of the low-paid are being outrageously caught in the tax trap. Then asked to apply for some of their money back in tax credit and be grateful for it. A quarter of those eligible for tax credits don’t claim them, and don’t enter this labyrinth of paperwork. Result? Brown’s cunning “fiscal drag” has ensnared in his complex tax system millions of families struggling to make ends meet. (HMRC pdf, p2). These are the people hit when the starting rate of tax is doubled to 20p.

Labour’s mistake is embracing top-down government as the best means of promoting social justice. A bureaucracy will only ever serve the needs of those who complain the loudest (and, of course, serve itself). The Blairites realised this, and their battle with the Labour Party showed them to be in a minority. It is not the party of the poorest, not any more. It is now the political wing of British state bureaucracy. Brown, of course, personifies misplaced faith in this malfunctioning, parasitical machine.

Had the Blairites continued in power, and won the battle over the party, they may have done something about it. Now, only a Tory government can smash rotten education cartels by giving the poor access to new start-up independent schools. Only the Tories will make police chiefs locally (not bureaucratically) accountable. My guess is that the Tories will, closer to the election, lift many of the low-paid people out of tax altogether. And only the Tories will assess all of the 5.2m on the welfare roll for what work they can do – and compel people to do it using work as the best source of welfare. The NHS under the Tory non-policy will, alas, get even worse for everyone. But I suppose you can’t have everything.

So if the Labour MPs are serious about making life better off for the poorest, they should not waste their energies rebelling against the 10p tax now. They should keep their wrath warm until 6 May 2010 – and then vote Conservative.

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Boris leads, as another Livingstone associate comes under question

4:33pm

The latest Evening Standard / YouGov poll is in, and it records another encouraging lead for Boris. The results in full – Boris is on 44 percent (down 1 from last week); Livingstone’s on 33 percent (down 2); and Paddick’s on 12 percent (up 2). When second preferences are allocated, Boris snares 53 percent to Ken’s 47 percent. It should be remembered, though, that other polls – including one in yesterday’s Sunday Times – have things much closer.

 

If Livingstone’s going to claw back some of the lost ground, he could do without headlines like that plastered across the Standard’s front page – “Ken’s adviser is linked to terror group”. Sure enough, it turns out that Dabinderjit Singh – whom Ken has just appointed to the board of Transport for London – is a former member of the International Sikh Youth Federation. That’s a group the Home Office have described as “a threat to national security”.

 

On the back of last week’s revelation that one of Ken’s supporters would be prepared to be a suicide bomber, this latest news puts even bigger question marks over the current Mayor’s inner circle. If he expects to lord it over London for another 4 years, Ken needs to provide answers – and quick.

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Hague talks politics & faith

3:16pm

After hearing Tony Blair's first confession, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor is on a roll. He landed Blair for a speech on religion at Westminster Cathedral earlier this month, and now he's lined up William Hague for another talk.  The shadow foreign secretary's lecture on Thursday, entitled "Practical politics, principled faith", has now sold out. Is our Wilberforce biographer being primed for Tory liaison officer with God?

To fill that vast, half-finished building takes some doing - so Hague's done well. He'll presumably have to tone down his normal stand-up comedy routine. ("Have you lived here all your life?, I asked this voter. 'Not yet' he replied"). But perhaps the mark of these speeches is to make a huge howler - à la Tony Blair. "Since leaving office, I have understood better a phenomenon I understood only partially as Prime Minister," declared our ex-PM in his speech. "China has gone from a standing start to arguably the most powerful nation on the continent of Africa." A-ha! China is actually in Africa, despite what that dastardly Foreign Office says! I wonder what other revelations have struck Blair since leaving office. Iain Dale thought that was a typo and he actually said "influence". Nope, the plonker actually read the script - watch him on the Cardinal's video at 20 mins 6 seconds in.

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Kate Hoey's explanation is, well, whooey

2:11pm

Rosa Prince, who is owning this whole (non) endorsement story, has spoken to Kate Hoey about what happened and it seems she genuinely is sick. But the rest of Hoey’s explanation is hard to credit:

"Boris told me last week he was visiting the ballet school - it's a great project so I said I would try to go along, like I would for any politician who wished to see a project in my constituency.

"It never occurred to me people would consider it an endorsement.

"It really p***es me off that I am being asked if I am staying on as a Labour MP - it's stupid, stupid, stupid."

Now, come on Kate! Turning up to a campaign appearance with the Tory candidate for Mayor ten days before polling day is rather different from joining any old MP on a fact finding visit to a project in your constituency. While if Hoey really didn’t think that people would see it as an endorsement then she is incredibly, politically naïve for someone who has been an MP since 1989.

 

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The Brownites don't have the moral authority to talk about party loyalty

12:55pm

Labour are going through a wobble at the moment—which might turn into a collapse on May 1st—and the leadership desperately needs the party to close ranks and MPs to stop making critical statements, on or off record, that fan the flames of the whole government in meltdown story. But here’s the rub: having spent ten years undermining Tony Blair whenever it suited them, the Brownites don’t have the standing to call for party loyalty.

Ed Balls’s interview in The Times last week, which Charles Clarke responds to so furiously in the paper today, contained this wonderfully ironic line: "There would always be people who “have a gripe, a score to settle and disappointments from the past – it was ever thus”, said Mr Balls, the Schools Secretary." One can imagine Blair saying, 'indeed' as he read this.

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Is Kate Hoey backing Boris?

11:39am

Three Line Whip have been tracking a bit of mayoral election drama this morning.  On the way to Boris' campaign event today, Rosa Prince disclosed that a "special guest backer" would be unveiled - someone whose identity would drop a "bombshell" on Westminster.  Then Jonathan Isaby revealed both that the backer's Kate Hoey and that she's decided not to appear.  Apparently she's "really ill", although Isaby reckons it's because she could have been kicked off the Labour benches.

It's hard to know who'll win out of this.  It's a little embarrassing for Team Boris that Hoey didn't pitch.  But, then again, we now know that a prominent  Labour MP was prepared to publicly back the Tories' man.  That's hardly great news for Ken Livingstone, although - as yet another example of Labour dissent. - it's probably even worse for Gordon Brown.

UPDATE: Kate Hoey gives her side of events - she thinks her appearance wouldn't have amounted to an endorsement of Boris.

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Just in case you missed them...

10:57am

Here are some of the posts made over the weekend:

Andrew Neil thinks that the abolition of the 10p tax band could cause major problems for the Government.

Fraser Nelson points out why Brown has the ex-factor.

James Forsyth suggest that Stephen Carter's salary could exacerbate tensions, and asks what you have to do to be sacked by Gordon Brown.

And Peter Hoskin thinks that David Miliband and Ed Balls' recent calls for Labour party unity could actually cause divide.

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China is gaming the Olympic system

10:45am

The Washington Post has an important story this morning about how China is failing to live up to the promises it made on press freedom when it was awarded the Olympic games.

“Wang Wei, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, told reporters in 2001 that the news media would have "complete freedom to report on anything when they come to China." 

Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, last year signed temporary regulations to allow foreign journalists to travel domestically without advance permission until the Games are over. Reporters would still need permits to travel to Tibet, officials said, although that was not specifically mentioned in the regulations. 

But recently foreign journalists have been detained while reporting sensitive stories and escorted by police out of several provinces that border Tibet, which is closed to foreign journalists and tourists. Chinese officials say foreign journalists are being excluded from the areas for their safety. Meanwhile, government spokesmen have accused international news media of biased reporting and some foreign journalists have received death threats.” 

The Chinese are also not meeting the commitments they made on air pollution. Indeed, the air quality in Beijing during the Olympic period was actually worse in 2006 and 2007 than in 2000 and 2001.

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