PMQs 29th February 2012 - The Assertive Lib Dems Edition

Is an assertive Lib Dem an oxymoron? I only ask because Lib Dems, we are led to believe, are asserting themselves in government and forcing through various measures and reforms. There are various methods they use for doing so. If they have ministers in charge of the relevant department it is easier, notwithstanding the objections of select committees which can, we are told, be selectively ignored by the usually ultra democratic Lib Dems. But it was a committee that split on party lines they argue. Yes but the other party are your coalition partners. Imagine the fuss if the nasty Tories did the same to them.

The latest method for trying to assert themselves, other than the licensed to roam and shoot his mouth off Lord Oakeshott (as good a reason as I've seen for the abolition of the House of Lords) is the open letter. This is a form of thinking out loud, of arguing for change via the media and thus playing to their own supporters who, thanks to the lack of nice offices and chauffeur driven cars, often fail to understand the benefits of being in government. We are led to believe that most of the agreements around coalition policy are agreed in what has become known as 'the quad'. This is Dave and George for the Tories and Nick and Danny for the Lib Dems. Yet apparently open letters are also necessary.

At last week's PMQs, as Forrest raised the issue of the NHS once again, I remarked that Nick Clegg seemed to shift uneasily in his seat. Nick has been arguing forcefully, or at least as forcefully as he is capable of, for these NHS reforms, often alongside Dave and indeed mouthed as much to Forrest today. Yet seated alongside Dave last week he looked even more uncomfortable than the PM. And all he had to do was sit there and look content without looking smug. Sure enough though, just a few days later, there he was sending out another letter signed with Shirley Williams talking about yet more amendments and safeguards for the NHS. Isn't coalition politics wonderful?

For a moment today Dave and Nick must have thought that they were off the hook. Forrest took on what passes for him as a statesmanlike demeanour and asked one of those cross party agreement questions about the Leveson Inquiry. Dave agreed with him that it was awful what was being alleged about the police and News International.

But then came the stinger. In a startling example of shallow and cheap opportunism even for him, Forrest tried to make political hay out of Michael Gove's remarks about the inquiry having a chilling effect on press freedom. Forrest also made snide insinuations about Gove's links with certain press barons, presumably a reference to Gove's former employment with The Times. It was plain nasty and unprincipled, perhaps a sure sign of his growing confidence. He may soon be picking fights with Tories in Commons bars. If however he is signalling that Labour intend to argue for regulation of the press he may find more than just News International aligned against him.

Dave stayed calm, no doubt relieved not to be having to talk about the NHS, and backed Gove and freedom of the press. It isn't as if Gove was wrong, the press in this country is in a peculiar place and running scared of certain types of stories while Leveson investigates. We only have to look at the antics of Dominque Strauss Kahn who would now be running for president of his country were it not for the fact he stepped out of line in an Anglo Saxon state where the press are more fearless and unwilling to be as compliant as their French colleagues.

But then, for the fourth week in succession, Forrest went on what he hopes will be Dave's poll tax, perhaps forgetting that the Tories did away with the poll tax and the prime minister who had brought it in and won another election after. Labour had to change leader, twice, and become New Labour before they finally won power, a government that Forrest now seems to regard as an unwelcome aberration.

Anyway, he was on to his pet subject now and there followed the usual exchange of people who were against the reforms from Forrest and people who backed them from Dave accompanied by chants from backbenchers echoing their respective leaders, a particularly poor and embarrassing attempt from Labour this week but it does none of them any favours. It felt like deja vu and, as the PM pointed out, was once again about process and politics and not about specifics. Labour, he said, had once been in favour of many of the items in the bill but now, opportunistically, were dead set against and banging away about it every week without ever really saying anything new.

It was all very tedious and repetitive, only lightened by Forrest speaking what looked suspiciously like extemporaneously for a change as he took the opportunity to have a dig at Clegg who mouthed from a sedentary position next to Dave that he backed the bill. He ought to put it in writing.

It is fair to say that Forrest gave another good performance, although Cameron was on form too with some decent lines about Labour opportunism and lack of any policies to address the problems they diagnose.The problem Forrest may have is that the NHS bill will soon be an act on the statute book. Whatever will he talk about then?

Most telling today however was the contribution of some Tory backbenchers who are becoming increasingly irritated by those assertive Lib Dems who in turn will have been worried by signs that Labour intend to cause problems for them with regard to their dithering over the NHS. And Clegg was the victim of not very friendly fire as Tory Stewart Jackson asked if immigration policy, already in trouble, will fall victim to the curse of Clegg. A good line that.

This was only matched by Tory delight at the intervention of Unite's leader and his call for civil disobedience and general strikes during the Olympics. Dave and supportive backbenchers took every opportunity to point this out and Labour's silence about their biggest donor. Civil disobedience is a tricky subject for Forrest's class warriors, after all one of their number started a one man war against Tories in Strangers' Bar last week.

Finally we heard once more from Peter Bone, who for once had not conducted a poll of his family and Mrs Bone but asked a question off his own bat. What would happen, he asked, if the PM were to be incapacitated? Would Nick step in? Dave answered that he had no intention of being incapacitated. But it remains an interesting question. If Dave were somehow taken out by terrorists, presumably a Tory like William Hague would step up, but it is not entirely clear. Perhaps Nick will write an open letter asking for clarification. Or we could ask Lord Oakeshott, he's sure to have an opinion.

The Diaspora of the Demented and Delusional

So the Occupy movement has finally been moved from its position outside St Pauls. What did they achieve? Well they got an awful lot of publicity which, in this 24 hour, interconnected media world, has to be a good thing doesn't it?

Doesn't that depend on what it is you are trying to say though? And ultimately that was their problem. They didn't know, so how was the world supposed to? It boiled down to the fact that the world is unfair. But we knew that. It's something you get very upset about as a teenager and young adult. And then you grow up and try to make the best of what talent you have and what opportunities you can create. That's probably a more productive attitude than pitching a tent and taking a crap in a national monument.

The sort of people who occupied a small area outside a cathedral are the same sort of people who angrily protest that companies are giving young people work experience and treating them like slave labour. That's why their accidental decision to pitch tents outside St Pauls rather than a cathedral of capitalism was actually a kind of flawed genius. The woolly minded Church of England lived up to all of the stereotypes and vacillated, wrung its hands and looked suitably tortured. They felt that they ought to be on the side of these oppressed and brave people even if they couldn't readily identify who was oppressing them.

And of course this was a bandwagon that Forrest bravely hitched himself to when the sort of papers he reads told us all that this was a movement that was going to change the world. Ooh, said Forrest, that sounds good, I'd better back them. That's what I came into politics for, well that and because I can't really do anything else.

And now they are gone. There are various rumours about them going elsewhere and starting again. But I suspect that this diaspora of the demented and delusional will spell the end of this particular revolution.

A Greek Waiter Exacts Revenge

For this Greek waiter, it seems, revenge is a drink best served ice cold.

Spotted: A Boris Bus

I just saw the first of Boris's buses on the 38 route on Graham Road in Hackney. If nothing else we should all hope that he wins May's election if only for his greater potential for regular and satisfying alliteration. Ken just doesn't do it.

The bus was packed to the rafters, albeit mostly with journalists I suspect. Seldom have I seen a bus load of people who looked more well heeled, recognisable and so unaccustomed to public transport, even in London. I wonder if they all paid?

As I was making my way down the road, before the bus came, I saw a photographer on the pavement, waiting for its appearance. The driver in one of the other buses leaned out of his cab and informed him that it would be coming soon and in answer to the photographers questions, waxed lyrical about it and said how excited they all were by it and how nice it is to drive. This is definitively not always the case. I have driven buses in the past and so I know.

Driving in convoy with the Boris bus was another bus, an old Routemaster with banners on the side of it talking about Boris's vanity project and the cost of these buses. I wish I had had my camera with me. I'm assuming that this was a Labour Party stunt for Ken Livingstone. If it isn't feel free to let me know.

Assuming that I am correct however, this is another example of Labour's peculiar attitude to the public finances. Livingstone himself has been making all kinds of uncosted and unaffordable promises to try and get re-elected in May. And Labour of course were very free with money when they were in power, spending it on architect designed and thus expensive schools and hospitals instead of cheaper off the shelf examples, not to mention the ruinously expensive PFI projects so that Gordon could keep all of the spending off the books. They launched their 2010 election campaign from the vastly expensive new Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, a striking building for sure, but hardly necessary for better patient care.

So it ill behoves them now to be critical of Boris for daring to do something bold and have a new bus designed. It looks great. Where he should be criticised is in the halfway house he has accepted. The buses will have conductors on them who are not conductors, do not take fares or Oyster cards and are just there for safety reasons, and then only for part of the day. These buses look stylish and rather funky, a nice composite of the old and the new and seem to have fired public enthusiasm. It would be nice however if they could truly replace the much loved and very much missed old Routemaster properly, allow people to jump on and off them between stops regardless of the time of day, and have conductors on board who perform that role all day long.

By allowing all of this, Boris would be making public transport more efficient and user friendly at a stroke. He would also, I would suggest, do more for easing congestion in London and make the daily commute better for all. It would be more than Ken Livingstone ever did with his congestion charging and promises to cut fares. When people use these buses they will like or even love them. But only if they fulfil their promise and become modern Routemasters.

PS

See here  or here for another example of Livingstone's and Labour hypocrisy, this time on fat cats and tax avoidance.

Kenny Delivers

In Kenny we trusted last year when the king returned and today, after a mixed and at times controversial season, he delivered. As Steven Gerrard didn't quite say, Liverpool tend to do things by the skin of their chattering teeth on these occasions, but my god it makes for some exciting and edge of your seat football.

So, the first trophy in six years is in the cabinet with the FA Cup still a distinct possibility. Fourth place and Champions League? That may be a step too far, especially with Arsenal seemingly having another of their late season spurts (although Liverpool play them next week) but this is a start and a great one.

Nothing Is Certain: We Should All, Like Richard Dawkins, Be Agnostic

To all of the cretins trumpeting in triumph because Richard Dawkins has said that he is actually agnostic and cannot prove beyond doubt that there is not a god, I say duh! Of course. The man is a scientist and a highly accomplished and celebrated one in addition to the world's most famous (now that Christopher Hitchens is sadly no longer with us) atheist/agnostic.

Good scientists, that's the ones who talk about evidence and not consensus, know that nothing is ever 100% proven and beyond doubt. When we are talking about something as nebulous as belief in a deity then we can infer a great deal from our knowledge of the human state, of the complete lack of proof, of the inconsistencies and absurdities of the various religions, of evidence that we are hard wired to believe, and that the various states of belief and transcendence claimed by the religious are quantitatively no different to those created by hypnosis and snake oil salesmen.

But can we prove that a god does not exist? Of course not. You cannot prove a negative. But then, as others have pointed out, we cannot prove that we are not all ruled by a flying spaghetti monster in invisible orbit above the Earth either.

By acknowledging all of this, Dawkins is just being honest and a good scientist. He is being a great deal more honest and open than many of those he debates with who claim certainty because of a warm fuzzy feeling or the voices in their heads.

Dawkins, and people like him, just like to point out that only the religious demand, and all too often get, respect for their beliefs. All too often they demand and get much much more, including a veto on laws and morality and the right to tell other people how to lead their lives, or indeed who they can marry. They do so because of a belief that is ultimately no different to belief in fairies, UFOs, voodoo, tarot cards, psychics or levitating pasta. The difference is we are allowed to mock these beliefs, despite the fact that we cannot comprehensively disprove them.

The definitive argument for me is always this one: If you genuinely believe in your god and genuinely believe that you will get your reward in heaven for that belief, then good for you. But surely that means that you should leave those of us who don't alone? Surely if your god is going to sort it all out when we all go up to meet him, then what we do during our sinful lives is his and our business and none of yours? So why not just revere your god in private and leave the rest of us alone? Why demand special privileges, why demand the right to demonstrate your belief when you believe in an omniscient god who can read your mind? Why become angry and aggressive and sometimes even violent on behalf of your omnipotent and omniscient god? Surely he doesn't need your help, just your unquestioning adherence, since he can't be bothered, in his wisdom, to come up with a more believable story and a more fair and just world. Why, most of all, demand the right to dictate morality and even dress and eating codes to the rest of us? Surely the god you all believe in, who is great apparently, is big enough and old enough and indeed omnipotent enough to look after himself?

How is this being unreasonable? How is this being militant or even aggressive? Live and let live, turn the other cheek. If you are convinced you are right then leave the rest of us to be agnostic while we wait for some decent evidence.

Labour Isn't Working Again - Thanks to Labour

Aha! say the loony left, look at those evil capitalists profiting from and even defrauding the public purse. The A4e case is manna from heaven for those who regard all public employees as ministering angels and anyone in the private sector as evil and rapacious.

Let us therefore point out a few facts to them. It seems that the fraud at A4e was actually committed by only 4 people, that they were committing what may well be a criminal offence, something not unknown in the public sector one might suggest, we only have to ask our MPs and those who try to police their expenses.

Fraud and criminality takes place in all walks of life but is actually much more common in the public sphere where controls tend to be more lax. I used to work for a local authority where helping yourself to stationery was seen as a perk of the job as was taking your fair share of sick days. I once went on holiday with a couple of colleagues, one of whom, on our return, erroneously claimed that her lack of a tan was because she had been ill the whole time and not because she had to sit in the shade constantly wearing factor 100 for fear of burning. Her boss spoke to human resources and she was given the time back as sick leave. Elsewhere in the same department, some of the then student grants staff created some fictitious students and pocketed their grants. 

We have to challenge this increasingly pervasive but bizarre notion that profit making business is a bad and corrosive thing for society. What do they imagine made Britain rich and powerful in the world, the NHS and welfare state? Most of the advances we have enjoyed in technology, science, medicine, food and entertainment come because people somewhere saw a chance to make money and competed with one another to provide it. We are offered a service and pay people who, if they do it well and we keep going back, make profits. It drives innovation and hard work. It is why capitalism, for all of its flaws, flourished and the communist block collapsed. It's why when the Berlin wall fell the east Germans emerged from their side in  Trabants instead of VW Golfs.

And do they imagine that those in the public sector are immune from the profit motive? A salary is your reward for work done. A nurse may well get a warm glow and great job satisfaction from doing his or her job but she makes a profit in the same way that oil and car companies do. She or he uses the spare money, their profit, to spend on what they want. It's the way modern advanced economies work, yet this seems to be news to the left.

The commotion this week about work experience is another example of the bizarre mindset of some on the left. Work experience is slavery and exploitation they shout from their high horses. No it's not. It does what it says on the tin. It gives experience to those who lack any, gets them out of the house, teaches them the rewards of work and getting up in the morning and gives them an opportunity to start their careers instead of languishing at home.

Taking people on this way is not costless to these businesses. Even those expected to stack shelves have to be shown what to do and how to do it.

And so what if it means stacking shelves? We all have to start somewhere. Most of us have done jobs like stacking shelves, waiting or serving in pubs and bars. It's a question of what needs to be done to earn money, something which you might imagine the Labour Party would appreciate.

Episodes like this tend to support those of us who think they have ceased speaking for the working population of this country and now seem to spend their time supporting those who don't want to work, whilst allowing hundreds of thousands of immigrants in to take the jobs and depress the wages of those who do want to work. That Forrest and his gang genuinely think they have identified an idea that will win them support shows just how other worldly they are. But then what should we expect from people who have always worked in the public sector and done very nicely out of it indeed. It's probably why they think it needs to be expanded ever more and that this will mysteriously grow the British economy. It's why Britain is mired in Gordon Brown's debt and Labour's only answer is to borrow more and create more public sector jobs.

Labour still isn't working and the Labour Party still struggles with the concept. 

Some Scientific Reassurance

 
Fancy a little light reading for this weekend? Want something reassuring about the world and the state of our planet? Then take a look at this, a lecture given to a House of Commons seminar about climate change by one of the most celebrated specialists on the planet, Professor Richard Lindzen, of MIT.

Lindzen is the expert the alarmists and Green Meanies hate, for the simple reason that he knows what he is talking about and has evidence, plenty of it, to support his analysis that the planet is not heading towards disaster and catastrophe, that yes the climate is changing because that is what climates do. But there is actually very little to worry about and we certainly shouldn't be bankrupting ourselves and forcing poor people to choose between heating and eating for the sake of this great panic.

Lindzen is essentially saying what we sceptics have been saying for years but he is doing so in his remarkably  calm and authoritative way. This is a man who is respected and thus extremely difficult to challenge, especially by those who like to fix the argument in their favour. It is people like him that embolden people like me to keep fighting against the tide and the name calling and point to the real inconvenient truth - the world and humanity faces much greater and more pressing challenges than climate change and we need to get our priorities straight.

This is just another story in long history of science in which a consensus develops and people fight tooth and nail to defend it despite contrary evidence. Science is not supposed to work this way. Ultimately it doesn't work like that because enough people fight to bring the truth out. As Lindzen has said in the past: we, the sceptics, will win this argument. We will win because we are right and have all of the evidence on our side.

Get Radical, George

Lots of people, as is traditional, are offering George Osborne advice in the run up to next month's Budget, including the Shadow Chancellor with his strange obsession with VAT, a tax on goods which, if it had any effect at all, would just make Chinese made consumer items that little bit cheaper, which is hard to reconcile with a desire to export our way back to prosperity. Essentially, however, what Balls is doing is urging various tax cuts a month in advance in the hope that one of them makes it into Osborne's Budget. Then Balls will claim credit, whilst at the same time accusing the Chancellor of not doing enough, being complacent, cutting too far and too fast - delete as appropriate.

Anyway, since everyone else seems to be offering advice I may as well do the same. I actually, as I have done consistently since before the election, back the Lib Dems plan to raise personal allowances as quickly as possible to £10,000. This is a good and sensible policy which rewards work and helps out those at the bottom of the earnings scale the most. It fits beautifully into the overall policy framework that the Coalition is trying to achieve. Osborne ought to commend it to the House and the country, and as soon as possible.

How is it to be paid for? With more cuts. There is plenty of fat to be removed painlessly from government as we have seen this week with the announcement that borrowing is to come in at less than expected. We have saved money, a not insubstantial £9 billion, almost without trying and just being a little more prudent. Just imagine how much waste they could find if they looked properly. Only last week savings of £5 billion were trumpeted by Francis Maude on bureaucracy. He claimed that the civil service has been reduced to its smallest size since the war. But this was done by a bit of sleight of hand. It didn't include quangos. So include quangos. The bonfire of them we were supposed to see never sparked into life. Burn them.

But I would argue that now is the time for this reforming government to get really radical with the public finances and with our tax system. We could have real joined up government and start reversing the vast system of taxes, benefits and tax credits created over the last 60 years and in particular by Gordon Brown.

For a start we should signal the end of universal benefits that go to anyone regardless of wealth. We cannot afford them and they just create bureaucracy so that we can take with one hand to give back with another. Tory MPs are said to be demanding the reversal of the policy to take away child benefit from those paying the higher rate of tax. This is a mistake. All such benefits should be means tested so that they only go to those who really need them.

Of course this is politically difficult. This is why it should go hand in hand with a fundamental reform of taxes. We should start with that £10,000 allowance. To this we should add the abolition of the 50% top rate, which is not raising as much money as was expected. And we should go further. It's time for a flat tax for all. We should abolish the 40% rate too which has been slowly slipping down the income scales and is now hitting nurses, teachers, police inspectors and middle managers.

Announcing this of course would cause howls of protest and angry accusations about the abandonment of fairness. But a flat tax is perfectly fair. One set at say 25%, with a high personal allowance, would mean that everyone paid the same rate but those earning 10 times more than the average would still pay 10 times the tax. That's how percentages work. How is that unfair?


We could help make this work by having a sliding scale of personal allowances. So it would be £10,000 for those earning up to say £40,000 meaning that those earning the least would benefit the most. It would then gradually decrease by £1,000 per £10,000 of income until those earning for instance £120,000 lost any allowance altogether.

It is this kind of fresh and radical thinking that the government ought to be considering. It would be an incentive for people to work and would advertise Britain as open for business and for those wishing to set up businesses. It would be a signal that the Conservatives, unlike Labour and indeed the Lib Dems, do not think that people who earn good money, who work hard and have done all of the right things like getting an education and skills and are now enjoying the fruits of their labours should be punished. It is these sort of people the country needs to make us competitive in the world. It is these sort of policies that will promote the growth this country so desperately needs.

The Modern, Tolerant Labour Party Glasgow Kisses an Opponent

Earlier this week, in the wake of that screaming woman assailing the Health Secretary, I wrote this paragraph:

Have you ever noticed by the way that lefties by and large are much more intolerant of people with different opinions than those on the right? They are much more likely to resort to abuse and to get angry. They are much more to likely to use ad hominem attacks. Watch any political debate and see how often the leftie on the panel interrupts their interlocutor while the Tory tends to make his or her point and then listens politely to the opposing view. 

Now, according to The Sun, a Labour MP has allegedly headbutted a Conservative MP in an unprovoked attack in a House of Commons bar. Little did I realise that, in addition to all of the above, some are also willing to use Glasgow kisses. Still, perhaps Eric Joyce should remember that a former deputy leader of his party once got into a brawl with a member of the public. He is now a peer and aiming to be a police commissioner. Perhaps he will claim that it was a moment of madness brought on by what those evil Tories are doing to his beloved NHS.