Swedish lessons

As one of the many conservatives who cast his vote for Sweden's centre-right Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in September 2006, I found it uplifting to read the speech he gave at the LSE on Tuesday night. It included a number of controversial but important statements. He said the root of Sweden's problems, economic and educational, is the radical 'socialist' policies which 'swept over Swedish society' in the 1970's; policies that were about 'questioning free enterprise' and 'sharp tax rises'. Unfortunately, Reinfeldt has never dared to say this in front a Swedish audience.

His government has put the brakes on the rising unemployment figures by making it more profitable to work, and improved the state of Swedish schools as well as continuing the education legacy of Carl Bildt's government, which introduced the system of independent state schools described by Fraser Nelson in this week's Spectator. But in too many other ways, Reinfeldt has allowed the 'mad quarter of a century' to continue into the 21st. His party is doing almost nothing to change the massive legislation that cripples Sweden's labour market while a recent proposal (fortunately stopped) suggested a 'roof' on private health care insurance policies. It has gone from wanting to slash petrol taxes to introducing more taxes on motorists. All of which owes more to outdated social democratic ideas than bold new thinking.

David Cameron, who was in the audience, should think very carefully about what he wants to copy from his Swedish colleague.

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Depositing pain

The decision by Lloyds TSB to stop offering mortgages to anyone who has a deposit of less the 10% opens up what could be a striking divergence in fortunes. 

Those with enough equity will not really notice the impact of the credit crunch. First Direct, for example, was recently offering a 4.75% fix to those with more than 25% equity. It is to the poorer that loan rates will shoot skywards. 

So Middle England may not notice the crunch, or any slide in its property prices. The pain will be felt, and repossessions visited, on those without a parental nest egg to deposit. And this pain may well not be picked up in national trends.

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Remembering Buckley

David Brooks, one of the finest American writers of his generation, has a lovely column paying tribute to Bill Buckley today. The whole thing is well worth reading but the start is particularly delicious.

When I was in college, William F. Buckley Jr. wrote a book called “Overdrive” in which he described his glamorous lifestyle. Since I was young and a smart-aleck, I wrote a parody of it for the school paper.

“Buckley spent most of his infancy working on his memoirs,” I wrote in my faux-biography. “By the time he had learned to talk, he had finished three volumes: ‘The World Before Buckley,’ which traced the history of the world prior to his conception; ‘The Seeds of Utopia,’ which outlined his effect on world events during the nine months of his gestation; and ‘The Glorious Dawn,’ which described the profound ramifications of his birth on the social order.”

The piece went on in this way. I noted that his ability to turn water into wine added to his popularity at prep school. I described his college memoirs: “God and Me at Yale,” “God and Me at Home” and “God at Me at the Movies.” I recounted that after college he had founded two magazines, one called The National Buckley and the other called The Buckley Review, which merged to form The Buckley Buckley. 

I wrote that his hobbies included extended bouts of name-dropping and going into rooms to make everyone else feel inferior.

Buckley came to the University of Chicago, delivered a lecture and said: “David Brooks, if you’re in the audience, I’d like to offer you a job.”

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Thinking of Afghanistan

Prince Harry’s brave service in Afghanistan should make us all think more about that country, the forgotten front in the war on terror. As Roger Cohen points out in The New York Times, Europe’s commitment to it has been pitiful. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO secretary general, concedes that the alliance is 10 percent short of its requirement. While the febrile nature of the political situation is summed up by the fact that,  “Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been getting daily calls from Afghan politicians urging him to run for president next year.”

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A litmus test for Cameron's leadership?

Iain Dale flags up a letter in today’s Telegraph written by 27 of the 2005 intake of Tory MPs.  They’re asking for the sanctions that MPs face to be tightened, and even suggest the introduction of US-style recall mechanisms:

Dale regards it as a defiant message to the Conservative old guard; and it also fits in neatly with the anti-Westminster/pro-the-people approach that Cameron peddled in PMQs, and which Guido picked-up on so superbly yesterday. 

It’s a brave move for the Tories.  If everything goes according to plan, the new approach could reinvigorate politics in this country (and be a huge vote-winner in the process).  Alternatively, it might prompt a very public split between the Tories’ tie-less young Turks and their silver-haired forebears (which could well turn the voters away). 

Will the Cameroons' "new politics" rouse the slumbering dragons?  It’s a question that’s gained even more relevance after Lord Tebbit’s letter to the Spectator this week.  And the answer should be a good litmus test for the strength of Cameron’s grip on his party.

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Going further on welfare reform

James Purnell yesterday confirmed that David Freud-style welfare reform will be implemented by the Government. And now Frank Field writes a comment piece for the Telegraph, warning his Labour compatriots not to get complacent on the issue. As usual, he's well-worth listening to:

“It is not the first time that Labour has trumpeted its credentials and objectives on welfare reform. The electorate won't be so easily beguiled this time. With an election unlikely to take place until the very end of the parliament, voters will want to see results rather than listen to brave rhetoric...

...But to match fine rhetoric the government will have to be far more radical than it has disclosed to its parliamentary supporters. Three further mini revolutions are required.

The Government's thinking on single parents is confused. In future single parents will have to seek work after their youngest child reaches not sixteen, as at present, but at 7. The truth is however that most single parents drawing benefit do so for a short period and move back into work just as soon as they know it is safe for their children.

The growing problem is of very young single parents who have never worked and who are likely to have children by different fathers. Overwhelmingly these young single mothers come from school girls who fail, and are dismally failed, by their school.

The most successful way of cutting this supply route to very young single parenthood is to raise the educational achievements of those girls who gain no qualifications whatsoever from the £40,000 taxpayers spend on each child's schooling. Here is another area that ought to be opened up to competition...

...Next, the Government should allow the Jobcentre Plus offices to turn themselves into companies to compete for this new work...

...Lastly, America's welfare revolution worked partly because benefit was time limited. In those areas where there has been a sustained increase in jobs over the past ten years, and starting with young claimants first, benefit should be time limited. The word needs to go out to every young person that living on benefit is no longer a career option.

The guy I buy my coffee from in the morning has run the franchise also for ten years. Every day during this time at least two and may be as many as five young people come in asking for a job. Not once has any of those young people been British.”

After Purnell's announcement, the question for the Tories is of how they can seize back the lead on welfare reform. I still think that Brown's centralising bent will lose it for Labour. But waiting on the Prime Minister won't do Team Cameron any good – instead, they should tread the path that Field signposts.

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What Cameron should learn from Blair's experience

When historians look back at the Blair era, one of the things that will puzzle them is the fact that Tony Blair never attempted anything truly radical when his popularity was at its height. For instance, I’m sure if he’d called a referendum on the euro—which he wanted to join—early on in his tenure, he would have won.

One of the reasons Blair was so cautious was his belief that the Tories were not dead but only sleeping. Steve Richards has a great example of how concerned the Blairites were of a Tory revival in his column today:

“I remember having a cup of tea with Blair during the first term, when he was still seen widely as the messiah walking on water and 30 points ahead in the polls. The meeting was interrupted by an entourage that rushed into the room. They were all in a state of fearful panic because Hague had changed his party's policy on rural chemists. Anyone would have thought World War Three had broken out.”

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A responsible blogosphere?

Was Fleet Street right to cover up the fact that Prince Harry is in Afghanistan? Many in cyberspace would see this as an Old Media cover up. Journalists have known about this for ages, some have great photographs ready for when the lid comes off the story. But now Matt Drudge has yanked the lid, with the BBC (and tomorrow’s papers) rushing to follow. 

My take: Harry couldn’t serve in Iraq as news that he was out there would endanger his life, and those of his troops. The same would have been true for Afghanistan. I know several bloggers knew this, and suspect Guido did too - and censored himself. 

My point: the British blogosphere is more responsible than its detractors suggest. Sometimes there is a moral case for keeping a secret – and, in my view, this was one of them. Do CoffeeHousers have any thoughts?

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520 abortions every day

I would have missed this ONS study had it not been to the very last line in the Guardian’s story about the number of over-40s giving birth. “In other findings, conceptions outside marriage increased from 47% to 56%,” it said. 

Now, I’ve blogged before about most births (amongst non-immigrants) being outside marriage this year for the first time, but it turns out it has long been true for conceptions. One figure too grim for newspapers to print: of the 866,000 conceived in Britain in 2006, just 78% made it to the maternity ward. Our abortion rate is 22%. 

The ONS study doesn’t include miscarriages or illegal abortions, thus magnifying the percentages slightly. But the fact remains: this country is performing 520 abortions every day.

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Who is Gordon Brown?

Our Prime Minister's been compared to quite a few (real and fictional) characters of late.  Lord Turnbull got the ball rolling with his "Stalin" jibe; Vince Cable observed Brown's transformation into Mr Bean; and the Spectator's own Fraser Nelson saw similarities with Del Boy.  And now David Hughes spots the parallels with Inspector Clouseau.

So, CoffeeHousers, who does Brown remind you of?  And why? 

For me, his tendency to pick people up by the lapels recalls a certain James Bond bad-guy:

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