POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

Nice one Tripps. I have to admit I fell out with the so-called 'officer class' when I was put on a charge for pointing out that water didn't naturally flow uphill, insubordination of course.....
It struck me that when Osborne was telling us how much better off we'd be with the 3p duty rise postponed till January 1st that perhaps he didn't realise that if you hadn't got a car it didn't matter a damn. Same applies to inflation figures. I'd like to see an index that concentrated on the essentials that poor people buy, it would be much higher than the broader based indices.
Worrying financial figures yesterday. Tax take down over 7%, borrowing up £2billion on same month last year. Classic consequence of reducing disposable income of the lower 85% of population. Remember two things, domestic consumption accounts for 85% of consumption and therefore is the most powerful driver of the economy up or down and less than 25% of the effects of the Coalition's austerity measures have taken effect. No wonder Mervyn King looked drawn and worried yesterday when he warned of a worsening situation. All this leaves out the effects of the Eurozone debacle which have yet to hit us. The ratings agencies are alive to the possible effects, that's why they have downgraded more banks, the criteria is their exposure to the EU countries bond markets.
I still have a dilemma when I look at how Merkel and Germany are acting. The question is whether they are serious about bailing-out the failing southern countries (and Ireland!) or is there a hidden plan whereby it has already been decided that the goal is full federation and a two speed Euro. For the first time there was mention yesterday of a German referendum. No question yet but I'll bet it is basically whether Germany spends its treasure for the benefit of the ailing countries or goes flat out for two speed Europe. I am tending towards the latter conclusion, there is more to Merkel's actions than meets the eye. The bottom line is that now the pigeons have come home to roost the folly of the original single currency without a single fiscal and political policy, ie. full federation of equal states, has been accepted after turning a blind eye for all these years. Problem is of course that this is a massive task and the big question is how pressing immediate problems will affect Europe.
At home, the coalition faces external and internal problems over Lords Reform Bill. This is at the top of the agenda for political reasons, the LibDems have lost all of the reforms they entered into partnership for except this one and they are watching their poll ratings plummet. So the fear is that the Coalition could be destroyed by it. There are far more pressing problems and on the basis of priority Lords Reform should not be taking up government time. In that respect Cameron has lost control. Not good for the country.

[Bruff]

The democrat in me recoils from the notion of an unelected, appointed second chamber just as it recoils from an unelected Head of State. But on the former, I am not supportive of the proposed changes, whilst on the latter I long for the removal of the monarchy as it is currently positioned. Let me explain.

Parliament has primacy in this country and nothing that is planned for the Lords changes this. The Lords is and will remain and considerative and revising chamber, and as a check and balance to the laws proposed by Parliament this seems to me well-served by its membership being made up of business people, trade unionists, academics, charity workers, Drs, nurses, community activists, local government workers, media people and so on and so forth. It is, for all that it contains some placemen and journeymen, far more representative of the country's skill set and interests than the Commons. We could tweak a few things - not appoint for life, for one, or call them Lords or whatever (Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/Dr/Prof/Rev/Colonel etc will do surely) - but I'm wary of going the whole hog.

As for the monarchy, where do I start? Our next head of state seems to position hiomself as a pre-enlightenment sorcerer which hardly seems appropriate to the dawn of the 21st century. And I believe it simply infantilises a nation that, for example, must now bow, curtsey or otherwise show deference to a young women of no immediately evident remarkable attributes (though seemingly pleasant enough - a not rarely-found trait) simply because she bagged the right marriage last year. I recognise of course, that I am in a minority on this one.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

Richard, regarding the Lords I agree completely. Why interfere with something that is functioning well as a reviser and ameliorator of the most extreme aspects of legislation? This is a purely political move for selfish motives, completely the wrong basis for any change in our unwritten constitution. Now if the pressure was for a long-term consideration of installing a proper constitution I would be all in favour of the process.
On the Monarchy, you may be in a minority but you have at least one ally! I have nothing against a figurehead, whether it be a monarch or a President as long as my status is changed from subject to citizen. Much is made of the fact that the monarch devolves power in the shape of the Royal Prerogative, to the government. This power developed from outdated concepts like the Divine Right of Kings and the position of the monarch as head of the CofE. This gives the PM the power to appoint bishops and go to war against the will of the people, both of these should be abandoned. Disestablish the church and leave religion to the clerics. (I have no objection to bishops in the Lords, a useful balancing element) Give all the other powers back to Parliament. The PM should be the servant of the people's representatives, influencing Parliament via the Cabinet and acting as the executive once policy has been decided. We have moved too close to a presidential system minus the checks and balances of a written constitution and as we have seen in the recent past, this is dangerous and in the extreme, costs lives. I have, of course, a visceral hatred of unearned privilege but this does not affect the above views, it is a separate matter and will only be cured in the long run by gradual change. Revising the system of Monarchy and writing a constitution could be a good start, I am not a revolutionary.
Meanwhile, we see the EU having yet another meeting today. Significantly Hollande is siding with the debtor countries in pressing for bail-out funds to be used to buy 'Euro Bonds' a policy that Germany is dead against. In this respect we see the start of a significant change in the internal politics of the EU as the Germany/France axis seems to have broken. It is now Germany versus the rest and it remains to be seen how far the German electorate are willing to continue to support the EU project. Meanwhile, as they debate, the Eurozone is sliding down the pan. I think they are running out of time.....
At home, I am now convinced that the Tory segment of the Coalition has taken a decision. They are looking at the next election and all their domestic policies are aimed at preserving the unity of the party and massaging the Tory voters with what to them, are populist policies. 'Hammer the scroungers', get the Welfare State 'under control' and preserve the privileges of the rich and the middle class. The greater good of the mass of the electorate doesn't figure in this. The shame of the LibDems is that they are allowing the sop of Lords Reform and their need to be seen to be retaining power to blind them to the erosion of what used to be core Liberal values by their government. This is a betrayal of their supporters and will come home to them in a future election. In this respect it is not only lack of principle but futile.

[Tardis]

not sure I ever signed up for this, but I will put it here for FYI:

Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)

The Lancashire LEP held its most recent meeting Among a number of items on the agenda was a report designed to promote investment in schemes across Lancashire to encourage economic growth. The funding is provided by Government and enables the LEP to lend to developers to get schemes moving. The LEP has been provided with £20 million and so far has committed more than half of this to schemes at:



• Luneside East (Lancaster)• Burnley Bridge• Blackpool Pleasure Beach In addition, there are two further schemes currently under active consideration, which will increase the LEP's commitment to £15 million - fantastic in the current economic climate. Indeed, there is real potential in Lancashire to buck the current trend of slow economic growth and I'm hoping to bring more positive news in the next few months.



Free School Meals

There's an opportunity to help some of Lancashire's poorest families which has been missed over the last few years. Anybody in receipt of council tax benefit is entitled to free school meals for their children. Unfortunately, data protection legislation does not allow matching of benefit data with free school meals information. District councils were not prepared to take the risk as a resident may complain. However, we are now able to do this by giving families who could claim free school meals the chance to opt out of a data-matching exercise. We believe that as much as £1.5 million in free school meals is not being claimed by some of our poorest families. In addition, the Government also pays a pupil premium to schools for every child entitled to a free school meal and a similar sum could currently be lost to schools. Once One Connect Limited has concluded this, we will look at other data matches we could do, to quickly uncover unclaimed benefits for residents across Lancashire .



Council Budget

The cabinet meets next week to discuss a series of reports. One of these is the final out turn report, which sets out the council's financial performance during 2011/12 and the financial position at the end of the year. I am sure you will be aware that this is the first year covered by the Government's most recent Comprehensive Spending Review and the council's three-year budget. The final accounts for the year show an underspend on the original budget, thanks to the early achievement of savings earmarked for 2012/13. As far as the county council is concerned, it puts us in a healthy financial position as we continue in this period of austerity. As I write this email, newspapers are reporting a speech made by the cabinet secretary (one of the two most senior civil servants in the UK) in which he says that we are likely to face a further eight to ten years of public-sector spending cuts





Regards


K Bailey

[Tardis]

Town Council:

Mixed messages? On Wednesday night they thanked the Town Crier for the Jubillee weekend stuff and made sure that her stipend was paid, and then agreed to discuss the future of the role in October.

[Stanley]

They tell us that the EU ministers 'achieved a breakthrough' and the markets predictably heave a sigh of relief and rise slightly. Don't start cheering yet kids! What has happened is that the main debtor countries have dug their heels in and forced the Euro masters to agree to release more bail out funds without the austerity clauses and in such a way that these funds do not have preference over market support in terms of ranking for pay-back. In order to fund this they have looked down the back of the sofa and chucked all the available cash into the pot. It follows that if this amount proves to be insufficient, Germany will have to inject more funds into the Euro. This is a big problem for Merkel and the one she has been fighting to avoid, first reactions in Germany are not good and there is good reason to expect a backlash. The only other source of funding for the bail-out is for the ECB to create digital money which in affect is a devaluation of the Euro and this in itself will affect Germany. Merkel's political fig leaf is that in return she has gained agreement to tighter fiscal and political integration but this is illusory because on the best case it is ten years down the line. The basic problems still remain, the catastrophic state of the economy in the debtor countries with high unemployment. low productivity and treasuries crippled by debt. I have little doubt that by Monday the markets will have digested all this and market pressure will increase. All the ministers have done is buy a few weeks of time, if that.
Meanwhile, here in the UK there is a deafening silence form Downing Street about the deterioration in the GDP calculations which show that performance in the last quarters is worse than expected, our recession is becoming structural. When the employment figures were analysed it was found that beneath the raw figures which showed an 'improvement' long-term, youth and women's employment have actually deteriorated in terms of hours and wages. Government borrowing is up and still rising. All the signs are that the indices are worse and of course will deteriorate further as the remaining 75% of the cuts bite home and further reduce disposable incomes of the lower 85% of the population. This is why Cameron has started campaigning for the next election by massaging his core voters with promises of even more draconian public service cuts.
Sorry to be so depressing but the UK is sleepwalking in to at least ten years of falling standards of living. The only man who seems to be aware of this and give him his due, because he is coming up to retirement is telling the truth, is Mervyn King. It is quite obvious he has seen what is coming and bear in mind, as he has already said, this does not take into account what happens if the Euro fails.
Interesting times! Tin hats on lads!

[Whyperion]

Should proposals for the capping of Child Benefit after Child 3 ( what about when a single parent of 3 marries / civ partnership parent of 2 ? ) , also mean the removal from civil list payments of Edward ?

Time to eliminate Housing Benefit entirely for those not in receipt of Basic State Pension or Disablement allowances ? - It should be regarded as a subsidy to property owning landlords , and replacement with proper , fair sized , affordable social rents related as a proportion ( say 35% ) of income after tax and NHI / Compulsory Pension payments )

[Stanley]

I'm appalled by the way the Barclays affair has been turned into an opportunity for party infighting instead of addressing the problem rationally. Bob Diamond hung out a dead bat to the Committee and they learned nothing except that if he is to be believed he was asleep at the wheel when he was in charge of the investment arm of the bank. Not credible.

[PanBiker]

If the bloke is as thick as he makes out to be he should have all his wages taken off him. "Not aware" should never come into the equation with senior management. Complete deny-ability without any form of redress certainly does not apply to the plebs so why should it apply to him. You're right about the protagonists Stanley. He should be put before people who know how to formulate questions and extract answers, the newspaper lot are being put through the mill properly in front of the judiciary so why not him?

On a related note it was mentioned yesterday that the total expenditure on the CERN project that has made the latest discoveries announced yesterday and that will almost certainly re-write quantum physics is actually less than we have paid to the bankers in their bonuses and pay-offs when they screw up. Something is sadly wrong.

[Stanley]

Dead right Ian. It isn't just us kitchen table pundits, an MP was on the news yesterday saying exactly the same thing. The Tory wing of the Coalition may have won the battle but it remains to be seen whether they win the campaign. The level of 'debate' in Parliament yesterday was a disgrace and the electors will have their own views about Osborne making direct accusations against Brown and Balls and failing to produce any evidence.
Meanwhile the CEO of Ulster Bank rejects his bonus because the backlog of the computer cock-up will not be cleared for at least another ten days. Declining a bonus has become a substitute for resignation on the grounds of incompetence.
The domestic shenanigans are diverting attention from the wider global economic ills. The markets are not impressed by the latest moves in China and the US or the £50billion the BofE has thrown at the banks hoping it will 'trickle down' into more credit for industry. When this tranche has gone through the BofE will own 36% of government borrowing via Gilts. Does anyone really believe that this is credible economics?

[Tardis]

is it just me that finds the photograph in the B&E of Cllr Whipp in the group launching the Rape awareness campaign?

Everyone else is dressed in finery, and he is even scruffier than me. At least I might have put on a shirt and tie instead of T-shirt and shorts

[Stanley]

The politicians are very quiet. Recovering from all the excitement earlier this week? I suspect that The Tories are busy with internal matters in the coalition, the LibDems are getting restless!
The Greek government fights to stay in the Euro. They agree to most of the conditions on the loan but are making sensible noises about easing some of the austerity to allow growth. Meanwhile Bond yield for Spain hits 6.9%, an unsupportable rate. There is almost no reporting in UK media about any of this. We argue about domestic matters when global position deteriorates daily.

[Tardis]

Very parallel stances by Dan Hannan and Diane Abbott on last night's Radio 4 BBC Any Questions

[Stanley]

It's going to be an interesting week.... Vince Cable was reporting on his visit to manufacturing firms in the North East and says he was appalled to hear that sound, well-established firms were finding it almost impossible to get short term funding for export orders. He says he is 'going to do something about it'. He could start by looking at the £50billion the BofE is currently channelling into the banks by buying gilts. Imagine that scale of money going into financing manufacture.
Meanwhile, in Parliament there is nothing but conflict. Cameron is fighting his backbenchers, the LibDems are threatening reprisals against the Tories and Labour is stirring it up in hopes of damaging the Coalition. What's it all about? Lords Reform of course. This is the last ditch as far as the LibDems are concerned, they have lost all the other reasons why they entered the coalition. But there is more to it, Cameron is attempting to put a time limit on discussion, unheard of in a Constitutional Bill. This has really put the cat amongst the pigeons and senior Tories are saying they will vote with Labour on this separate vote. Labour's reason is that they know that if unlimited time is given to the debate the whole matter of Lords Reform will be talked out. The tragedy of all this of course is that Lords Reform is not a priority except for purely political reasons. The LibDems fear that if they lose this one they are electorally doomed. Cameron fears it because if the curtailment of Parliamentary time is defeated he has lost control of the political timetable and a large section of his backbenchers. What a way to run a country!

[PanBiker]

Interesting to note also that Betty Boothroyd, former Speaker of the House has commented on the present bill regarding reform of the Lords. She has branded it I'll conceived and a rush job.

[Stanley]

Ian, I heard her as well and must say I take more notice of an opinion when it is made in a Northern Accent! My personal opinion about the Lords is that on the whole they are doing a good job and the present shenanigans are more political than priorities.
Osborne (quite rightly) comes under pressure to apologise to Balls and Brown, latest critic is one of his lady colleagues on the Treasury Committee.
The internal struggle between the Tories and the LibDems continues. I was wondering this morning where we would be now if the Tories had formed a minority government and been subject to the ameliorating influence of Labour and LibDems in Opposition. One thing is certain, the LIbDems prospects for the next election would have been better than they are now and this is what is driving them at the moment.
Meanwhile, Spanish bond rate continues upwards and is now over 7%. EU promises €30billion by the end of the month... The old problem remains, the disparity between the north and south of the Eurozone over productivity, budget imbalances and productivity levels. This is what will kill the Eurozone as it stands no matter how much money is thrown at it. How much more can the affluent electorates take?

[Tripps]

....But she lives down here - a few villages away from me. We used to see her regularly in Tesco, and my son got her autograph on her till receipt when he worked on the checkout. I couldn't help noticing she usually had quite a few bottles of wine in her trolley.

[Stanley]

News this morning that a challenge has been entered in the German courts on the grounds that any further involvement in the proposed Euro bail out mechanism would be an attack on Germany's fiscal sovereignty.... A straw in the wind but indicative of the tensions building up in the EU which will militate against any speedy resolution of fiscal and political moves to 'solve' the Euro problems.
As expected, there was a massive majority in favour of House of Lords reform but this gives no comfort to Cameron or the future of the coalition because the earlier vote to impose a timetable had to be dropped because it would have been a government defeat. In the vote on reform 91 Tory members rebelled against the whip. Cameron is no longer in charge of his party on this matter. It remains to be seen what the effect will be on the use of parliamentary time or the outcome of the debate. Some commentators forecast that it will now be 'talked out'. Whichever way you look at it this is a parliamentary mess.

[Stanley]

We are told that 'the market' is more efficient in the provision of services, hence the outsourcing boom. G4S have intimated that even after all the notice they have had they will not be able to fulfil their contract numbers for security personnel at the Olympics so 3,500 troops will be called in. Great! What level of mismanagement is needed to achieve this?
In England and Wales British Waterways dies today and the Canals and Rivers Trust takes over. Does anyone believe that this will lead to better management and investment?
I see that Tony Blair is to be an adviser to the Labour Party on the Olympic Legacy. He's good at legacies isn't he? (LINK)

[Whyperion]

While looking for a history of BBC World Service , given that the radio service ceased from Bush House ( Ideally located between the City of London , Courts , Parliament and Monarchy ) to move studios and production to adjoin BBC Radio Broadcasting House as of Midday July 12, on the BBC website I noticed this story.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00v3y0f (Peru's Gold Rush)

Regarding the destruction of longterm value land by pollution and mining techniques for short - term financial gain from tiny amounts of gold.

Really sums up the political process where instant rewards chased after rather than some meaningful building over a longer term.

[Stanley]

Teresa appears to have managed another debacle. Mounting evidence of the low standards of security being imposed by the G4S 'fully trained' staff. Also reports of the army desperately seeking accommodation (like disused warehouses) to accommodate the increased number of troops. Some of them are going to find themselves in worse conditions than they had to accept on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reports of dummy bombs getting through security. All amorphous and denied by Teresa but on recent form....... Live cows to be used in the opening ceremony, now this I must see......
Yes, you're right, I am a sceptic.

[Tardis]

Love the G4S story, especially since I discovered that John Reid, former Home Secretary is a director of G4S

You couldn't make it up

[Stanley]

G4S have admitted they have cocked up and estimate it will 'cost them £50million'. Although it is not clear whether this is a loss on the contract overall. No doubt this will come under 'commercial confidentiality' a get-out clause that should be abolished in the case of public contracts.
Just heard Peregrine Worsthorne eulogising Montague Norman the eccentric Chancellor of the Exchequer whose monetarist policies triggered the start of the Great Depression in the 1920s. Classic example of the use of the air brush in history!

[Tardis]

The boss of G4S said that the company would take a hit on their profit line of between £50-100 million, and they would still have to bear any financial penalties imposed by the contract

[Whyperion]

Funny , the Army could have had Chelsea Barracks ( oops , sold off ) , Woolwich Arsenal (oops , mostly sold off + In use for the Shooting Contest )

Always thought the Corps of Commissionaires were ex-military , why didn't G4S subcontract some elements / venues out in the first place ?