Not the economy, stupid
Have you noticed, it's not the economy, stupid? Despite the return of inflation, despite the spectre of a price wages' spiral, despite the prospect of interest rate rises, the Tories are not, they tell us, focusing on the economy.
Instead David Cameron repeats the mantra again and again, that the heart of his strategy is to do for society what Margaret Thatcher did for the economy. Thus he highlights proposals on families, on welfare, and on schools and this week makes a major speech about the environment, hinting that he'd stop Heathrow's expansion at a potential cost - yes you've guessed it - to the economy.
So why is this? In part, because Cameron genuinely believes that improving society is the one thing he wants to do, and could do, if he became prime minister. In part, because the bad economic news works to the Tories' advantage without them having to do very much. In part, because there is a link. The Tories claim that if they cut the cost of social failure - a promise first made, you may recall, by Tony Blair - that they will be able to improve the efficiency of the economy and deliver those hallowed tax cuts.
There is though, I suspect, another reason. Read Danny Finkelstein's article in today's Times and you'll get a hint of it. The Tories fear being seen as too different to Labour.
Research shows that that people judge what is wise and what is risky by how different it is to what they've got now. Promise to cut taxes when no-one is and people think it's risky. Promise to raise them when no-one is and they assume that's risky. Thus it's better to show that you would be not that different, just better than the current incumbents.
The question is, how much thinking is going on behind the scenes, not about what George Osborne the shadow chancellor says, but what he'd actually do as chancellor? For all our sakes, I hope it's a lot.
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Don't worry Nick - the Conservatives will naturally sort out the economy - their basic instinct is to reduce government waste and provide an environment which is favourable to business.
It makes sense for the Tories to want to sound different - if they just talk about their core instincts they will sound very old fashioned.
This is especially true since Labour has failed their promises to deliver better schools, better hospitals and a more respectful society. The people still want this delivered - the Tories are stepping up to the plat.
The Conservatives understand that they need to help business to fuel the economy and also to divert wasted government spend to the front line in order to fund actual change.
Gordon clearly doesn't know how to delivery social improvement. He finds it too hard. He knows he should be busy doing things. This is why the Government likes to look busy and run around launching legislation which restricts peoples civil liberties. It is easier to stop people doing things, than to create an environment where people can thrive.
In short - the Conservatives are the only people who remotely sound like they understand how to fund and actually deliver social change.
Boom-bust Gordon is a disaster on so many levels - he is no more able to turn the economy around than he is able to deliver a better society..... 42 days.... cameras in bins... ID cards.... ASBO's..... CCTV.... threat to Jury trials....
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Nick,
Surely the Conservatives are sensible NOT to rush to judgement are develop their ideas in the short term - I mean, they've probably got 3 years before any general election!
Also, as much as I like you - can you stop using "it's the economy stupid" - everytime I hear you talk about economics you seem to peddle this tired cliche. Just some feebdack.
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I may be doing him a disservice on the basis of too little evidence, but my initial view is that if we are to rely on Osborne doing anything resembling deep thought about the real world then we really are in trouble. He may or may not be intelligent - it's difficult to tell with people whose academic career consists of public school/Oxford- but his track record so far in proposing initiatives that seem to fall apart as soon as they are subject to scrutiny is not encouraging.
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I hope iango82 doesn't know something we don't - by my reckoning we have under two years to the next General Election as the last one was held on 5 May 2005. Or is GB going to change the law so he can cling on to office longer?
On the topic of the post, why should the Tories announce any policies at the moment? - based on recent history, GB will only copy them.
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Nick,
I'm surprised that you have not picked up on the story of the cancelled bin and pay trial. If there was ever an example of Labour waste this was it. Pay out over £1 million to configure rubbish lorries to weigh bins and to implant microchips in bins so that the public can be charged for rubbish. Then to be told that it is being scrapped because it doesn't work because fly tipping increased and the problem of communal bins in flats...
Are those in charge so out of touch? Did they really not think of these simple facts.
GB told us last year that there was no election so he could layout his strategy for the future ... er ... I guess he has been busy...
There is a lot the Conservatives will have to sort out.
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#1 jonathan_cook: "Labour has failed their promises to deliver better schools, better hospitals "
I have to ask whether you have actually been into a school or hospital recently? You can say that the improvements have not reflected the scale of investment if you like, though I would disagree with you; but nobody with any knowledge of either health or education can possibly say that there has been no improvement, and you devalue your argument by making such claims. Of course, what you actually have to do is to compare where we are now with where we would have been but for Blair's win in 1997, and on that basis the improvements have been very considerable.
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The real reason is because they don't need to say anything.
We have a Labour government with rising inflation, overspending, huge waste, rising Union unrest. It's like the 70s all over again. We all remember how that panned out...
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Maybe I am going soft as I just sent the Tories an email of support with regard to David Davis.
I do agree that your observation is very pertinent to judging what the Tories would do in government - as opposed to what they say they do.
I probably am being a tad optimistic but possibly they are thinking big picture. Green policies that accelerate our flight from carbon dependency to sustainable energy security must be a good thing.
In a way what you describe is reactive politics where policy initiatives are closely tuned to public reactions. But the oil prices (if you consider that they are in part at least due to increased demand and not speculation) and the credit crunch could be seen as failures of strategic policy making. You can't be popular with everybody if you act strategically. The global economy and global issues like climate change necessitate strategic thinking.
I can't say I would expect the Tories to potentially upset the Square Mile if they felt that there could be another credit crunch type of crisis. Would they upset oil companies? Doubt that too. Nuclear power is not a strategic solution as nobody knows
for sure how to deal with the waste. But there is a powerful lobby.
The Tories may think that its wise to look like Labour - but they would be mad. The New Labour bubble has definitely burst!
If we had PR it might be possible to replace failing parties like we replace failing schools. But competition in politics is something that is frowned upon. Neither of the big two will queue up on that, but it would be a smart move for the Tories.
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Just a thought, but maybe part of the reason for not talking about economic policy is that the Tories realise that there are factors that UK Government can't do too much about whoever is in charge, and therefore it might be better to say nothing, promise nothing, and therefore avoid some negative effects should they be in power and not be able to turn things around?
The two big economic issues of the moment seem to be the Credit Crunch and Energy (particularly Oil) costs - Global issues in other words that are quite difficult to divorce from the local effect on the UK Economy. If Cameron promises that things will be so much better and then discovers that due to Global Economic Factors that he can't deliver, he will get a kicking - if he stays silent on prospects, there's always a bit of a getout that he never said he could bring the UK unscathed through a Global crisis.... In the meantime the press headlines, rising fuel and other costs etc do the job for him in any case. Potentially it could be a smart political move by Cameron to say nothing.....
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All I can say is -
If no party is prepared to commit to definite workable measures to reduce taxes, immigration and crime, I won't be voting.
Don't think I'll be voting, somehow.
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There is no point in asking Gordon about the economy he will just put it down too global trends.theres no point in asking Alister Darling he can hardly say the last guy mucked it all up.
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I agree with posting 1; fixing the economy is a "given" that anyone should assume they'd do if/when they get into power. After all, facing a recession and no money in the kitty and huge national debt and overblown public spending/waste, they need to fix the economy before they can do anything else.
Brown/Labour have destroyed our economy completely and have no idea about social policy either as they have no grounding in reality.
Cameron's right in focussing on social policy because that's one of Brown's "safe" areas where Brown quotes misleading statistics to hide the fact that he's broken that side of the country too.
For example, the "children's poverty" statistics improved for a bit, but only because Brown made everybody poorer.
His poverty statistics are calculated on a relative basis, so by making everybody poorer and then giving people with children a partial refund he "improves" poverty statistics despite everybody being worse off than before; this is one of the reasons he doubled the 10pct tax band and then gave a partial refund via tax credits.
This statistical manipulation/lying was also mentioned by someone else on another topic.
Brown/Labour, rather than fixing problems, prefer instead to manipulate the statistics so that it looks like things have improved when in reality they've got a lot worse.
If you don't believe me just consider the fact that things like the Northern Rock bale-out don't appear in Brown's national debt figures; hey presto over 100 billion pounds of liability/cash vanishes from the government books.
I guess the main point here is that Cameron would have a solid case where he can explain how Brown manipulates the social policy figures but the underlying problems get worse, so that when it comes to social policy nobody should believe anything that Gordon Brown says.
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How can the Tories possibly cost any policies at the moment when Brown is likely to borrow more money to fund Labours ever increasing budget, to waste even more of our hard earnt taxes (the 29m wasted on the planned asylum centre being the most recent example). The 10p tax debacle has meant borrowning of another 2.7 billion.
Osborne needs to know what the finances will be come 2010 before economic policies can be set in stone and properly costed. Brown spends our money by treating the economy like a credit card. It will all have to be paid back and that is the headache for the Tories.
As stated by an earlier comment, Brown will copy the policies anyway. Just let Brown keep digging.
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6 Jimbrant.
Yes I have been into both schools and hospitals recently. Though for different reasons......
1. Comprehensive Schools: I have noticed that teachers are still losing control of the pupils. The kids are in charge in many schools. Not much learning takes place. From the inside of one of the Year Heads offices, all you could hear was kids shouting and swearing.
The government has not given money directly to schools and to teachers. Our taxes are spent on a vast array of regulatory and review bodies. The Government has not improved morale. The Government has not weeded out poor teachers and attracted more inspirational teachers.
Yes - some schools are now housed in new flash buildings. The majority of schools demonstrate negligble change compared to tax payers investment.
2. Hospitals: I noticed lack lustre cleaning contractors skulking around. There is also no longer an air of matronly efficiency in hospitals. Our hospitals used to sepearate MSA and CDif patients - reduction in beds means these diseases spread to other patients and kill them. I noticed some fantastic nurses and doctors - doing their best - despite slow hand clapping Patricia Hewitt. I saw no change improvement in facilities - I noticed that I now pay to park and visit sick friends and relatives. Food has got worse - surely good food aids recovery?
Yes - We might have some new hopsitals being built, but these haven't really come on line yet - plus we are paying for them multiple times over due to the PFI arrangements. Gordon has wizzed huge amounts of money up the wall on health focused quangos and regulatory bodies. The existing hospitals show neglible improvement in facilities and an increased chance of killing people due to CDif and MRSA.
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Why should the tories run any 'risks' here, or leave themselves open to attack from New labour. We forget, this is politics. If I were in their shoes I'd keep whatever cards I have close to my chest. It's the Labour party that have to manage the crisis. They're in power, not the tories. I know there'll be others saying: 'well shouldn't the tories give us their solutions/policies on this matter?' Why should they? They want to get elected, and if new Labour find themselves in this position after ten years, then, hard luck. It's not Cameron's job to ease their plight.
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The terrible irony is that it is perfectly possible to cut basic income tax quite significantly without reducing the overall tax take.
I.e., you just rearrange the balance of the taxes you've got, rather than make actual cuts which will result in public funding reductions.
This is the reason the Lib Dems are able to offer a costed tax package to cut the basic rate for 16p - paid for by a combination of green taxes, removal of some higher-rate taxpayer reliefs and of some business tax reliefs (though combined with a 1p cut in the business tax rate as well).
However, take that or leave it, the my-party-right-or-wrong flagwaver @1 reminds me why I fear the Tories so much. I don't want to rely on anyone's "natural instincts". I want a bloody costed policy. But the Tories treat the economy like the finances of a student society. Their apologists keep saying that they've got to "get in and see what sort of a mess the economy is in", as if the country is run out of a set of A5 cashbooks Gordon Brown keeps in his kitchen drawer, rather than an international system open to constant public scrutiny.
In fact, Tories always strike me as distinctly amateurish in their approach to government as a whole and I am mystified as to why people give them so much credence. There is this crass assumption that getting in and "really giving everything a good shake-up", or whatever, is going to somehow naturally result in waste reduction throughout the entire system. It just isn't true. Did we learn nothing from Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey?
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I'm saddened by the contents of the post, which posit that perceived difference is risky (and the effect that's having on our stilted crap political system can only be bad, with nothing left field being even remotely considered), but I'm also saddened by the number of people writing comments assuming the tories will win the next election.
They probably will, but to be honest, it'll just confirm my theories that our choices are growing narrower by the day. How much longer before we vore for "L", who say "we're nice and we'll make you feel better" or "C", who say "we're nicer and we'll make you feel better than L".
I'm not getting anything concrete from either camp of fools at the moment. To use another horribly hackneyed cliche..
Where's the beef?
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Any of the parties will have to do a lot after Labour is gone.
I can understand why the other parties would keep there policies close to their chests.
Labour adopts all policies, from anywhere, at the moment and claims them for their own.
This is painful to see at the moment.
Democracy has been sacrificed in order to produce even more laws to use against the people.
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"Research shows that that people judge what is wise and what is risky by how different it is to what they've got now."
Umm...no. SHEEP judge what is risky by how different it is to what they've got now.
And, given the cohesion shown by all the pundits' blogs over Davis, so do political commentators, including Nick Robinson! However, the 'people' seem to be crying for independant thinking.
Why do you think this could be? Could it be because we yearn for someone to break the mould of these dead, grey, aparatchik politics? That are enforced on us by an unholy alliance of the political and media classes? What level of responsibility do the established news channels bear for this ghastly morass of continual oppression?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
re 16:
I think you're right in that you can rejig the tax/credit system (and eliminate waste) so that everybody's better off but the absolute tax-take still stays the same (or even increases).
A perfect example would be that they could increase the tax allowances so that less of your hard earned cash it taxed, thereby taking most people out of the tax credit system and saving a fortune on admin/bureaucrats. They could end up saving more money from eliminating the pointless admin/waste than they'd lose from increasing the allowances.
Another example is that by cutting taxes people have more money to spend, which leads to more consumer spending which leads to more tax generated for the government as businesses prosper and the whole economy starts to grow again.
There are many many other things that can be done along similar lines.
If they really wanted to, Labour could actually increase the overall absolute take-take, reduce the percentage tax burden, improve public services, and start to pay off the national debt, all in one shot.
The problem is that Brown/Labour do not understand how that can be done and they argue about completely invalid/incorrect points on mathematics. They simply don't have the basic grasp of logic/maths/theory when it comes to running an economy.
The tories can suggest some general ideas, but given that if/when they come into power there could inherit, say, a 2 trillion pound national debt and a depression/recession, or a 1 trillion pound debt and slow growth, it's very hard to give specifics.
They'll be in the same boat as when Thatcher came into power, ie they'll need to take a look at the books at the time and work out the balance between paying off national debt, eliminating waste, giving people a tax break etc.
Thatcher had to fix the economy before she could do anything else, because you can't help people financially when you yourself are completely bankrupt, hence why she was particularly hated towards the end of her first term (saved by the Falklands).
Towards the end of her second term she'd managed to fix the broken economy that she'd inherited from Labour and could start dishing out more money to help people.
If/when the tories get into power again it'll be a repeat of that situation; they'll need to fix the economy first, and everything else will stem from that.
People underestimate just how much damage Labour/Brown have done to the economy; when we start to hear the real figures and not the Brown/Labour lies after the next general election we'll then see the true magnitude of the disaster we're facing.
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Nick
In all honesty the only thing Mr Brown and his party know about finance is how to spend money on grand ideas.
Looked after from the cradle to the grave is my fathers favourite comment about the labour party, pity the shambles on the NHS and pensions now!
Years of wasteing revenues from gas,oil etc have been wasted by the likes of Mr Brown and the great social engineering policeys of his predecessors, when oh when will they realise people want the money in their pockets to do with as they choose?
Smashing our ecconomy with taxes to save the planet won't wash while India, China etc steal all our jobs and wealth and turn a blind eye to any damage they do to the Earth.
Soon we will have no work, be in the middle of ecconominc unrest, rising crime levels and cheap imported labour with the result Brown and his people will push through yet more law and legislation to turn us futher into a police type state!
The torries are missing the train here, Cameron should be quietly telling all that the buck and rot will stop with him and be quite clear he will repeal anything NOT IN THE INTERESTS OF THE BRITISH PUBLIC.
Who the heck can you vote for at the moment? they all speak with forked tongue!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I suspect the reason the Tories are keeping a low profile regarding the economy is because they, like G.B., have not got a clue what to do.
We are about to go through a fundimental change in our economy. We can no longer manipulate commodity prices and world trade, to our advantage, as we have done in the past. As a consequence lifestyles and expectations will have to change.
The two Ds will find that we no longer have a sphere of influence, and the "emerging economies" are not particularly interested in us-we have had our day.
David and David expect to be voted in by an electorate who believes they can change the tide of history. They know they cannot-but in the meantime why enlighten the plebs?
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The Tories aren't talking about the economy because they have the same policies as New Labour as indeed do the Lib Dems. It is exactly the same in every other part of public policy. The choice in our glorious democracy is no longer between blue, yellow and red but between various shades of whatever colour those 3 combined add up to.
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Most people seem to be congratulating the Tories for having no economic policies, and blithely assuming that Tories will naturally fix the economy.
I can only conclude that most contributors to this blog began their working life in the late 70s to early 80s and fell into a coma or moved abroad between 1990 and 1997!
Those of my generation will likely find such assumptions utterly laughable.
However, Nick's "more of the same is good" argument is on shaky ground. Has New Labour's landslide in '97 slipped so quickly from the memory?
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The game is up. The economy is heading for the buffers so fast that there will be chaos and mayhem.
If we don't want to see inflation then interest rates must rise. There must be a squeeze on credit, there is just too much money in the economy, and if more money chases ever fewer goods then, any idiot will tell you that inflation will result.
We are struggling against capitalism itself. We are losing this war as well. I wish this was not true but I foresee a repeat of the Great Depression, the Great Depression which followed the Great War. The Great War was the war to end all war, and that failed. The same with the economy.
During the Great Depression many people actually had very good lives, they maintained their standard of living where their income remained the same, or increased, but prices fell. Some people will do the same this time!
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re 25: I beg to differ; I think the reason they're not talking too much about the economy is because they don't want Brown to steal their ideas and then implement badly-thought-out half-baked versions of those ideas like they did with Inheritance tax etc. Coupled with that is the fact that the level of national debt could vary massively by 2010, as could the ongoing levels of waste.
What I'm hoping is that immediately before the 2010 general election, when Brown can't enact things in Parliament and cause any more damage, the tories will make an announcement in their manifesto of a major overhaul of the entire system, basically throwing everything that Brown's done in the bin and starting again using more rational arguments/logic than Brown's been using the last 11 years, and using lateral thinking to put forward alternative ideas that'll help the situation.
If they don't do that then I agree with you that there won't be anything much to choose between the parties.
If there isn't a massive difference between how Labour want to do things and how the tories want to do things in 2010 then democracy would indeed have failed us.
I hope/expect that the tories will be brave and say things like "why should anyone on 6 grand a year pay any income tax at all?", and "why don't we just take people out of the tax credit system and let them keep more of their own money in the first place?" etc etc. If they fail on things like that then we're all done for.
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Thatcher's economic policies led to massive unemployment, a recession, the poor getting poorer as the rich got richer - why would we want her policies again?
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Simple: they don't need to. Labour leader's delusions (particularly Brown and Darling) statement's around "3.3% inflation" is ensuring Labour's future defeat anyway.
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The Toires have nothing to say about the economy because they are Thatcherite, just like Labour.
With Thatcherism being daily shown to be a hopless system for running the economy the Tories have no choice but to keep their mouths shut, since they would have done everything equally as badly.
Crime, education, the NHS, house prices, energy costs - they are all problems caused by the core concept of "there's no such thing as society" and that the only way to provide a better life is to allow, indeed encourage, greed and selfishness while letting everything that's not nailed down to be sold off to massive corporations to do with as they please.
Thatcherism has always been about the moronic notion that the rich are important and clever while the poor are stupid and unimportant (otherwise they'ed be rich, innit?) so everything should be run by the rich for the rich and it's bound to all work out right in the end.
We need a government which is not working for big business, which means no more PFIs and no more privately-owned vital services like water, power, rail, and health (if a dentist wants to practise privately, then she or he knows where the ferry ports are). And that also means no more UK governments that grovel and slobber over the American President when he starts telling us what to do.
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#14 jonathan_cook :
I think you are wrong on the facts. A lot of the money in both health and education has gone on better pay and more staff - in education one of the big problems in the 90's was that good students didn't want to go into teaching. Now they do, and over time that will address some of the problems you point to. I remember that in the 90's kids had books that were falling apart, teachers were being made redundant because of under-funding, and classrooms were leaking and crumbling. Money has gone directly into those areas, and there have been great improvements. Money has been given directly to head teachers to use as they think best. The quality and quantity of equipment available to teachers (such as computers) has improved beyond belief.
In health, there are 20000 extra doctors, and 80000 extra nurses. The number of doctors being trained has increased two or three-fold, though of course the impact of that will take several years to make itself felt. The very large increase in demand for new drugs and more expensive treatments/equipment has largely been met, at great cost. You talk about MRSA without mentioning that until 1998 the numbers of infections were not even measured, let alone dealt with.
In both areas things are far from perfect, but there have been great improvements. And as I said earlier, what you really have to look at is the turnaround from a situation where things were steadily getting worse to a position where things are getting better. If policy had continued on the same basis as that in the early 90's it is difficult to imagine just how bad things would now be in both health and education. And finally you might remember that it was the tories who took matrons out of hospitals, and this government that put them back.
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I actually think that George Osborne is a very thoughtful, intelligent and capable politician, and an impressive strategic thinker. He was the mastermind behind Cameron's campaign to get elected as leader of the Conservatives. It was George Osborne who was the reason that the Tories shot ahead in the polls late last year - remember inheritance tax? Arguably he was one of the main reasons that Brown bottled it and did not call the general election as a result. He is happy to sit back and watch Labour floundering in the economic mess they have created, and he is right to do so.
Another thing - all this rubbish about economic problems being down to external causes like the credit crunch, oil prices and food prices - what rot. Our economy has not been set up to be resilient to these problems, and we are too dependent on and aligned to the American economy. Why is it that our German and other counterparts in Europe are doing so well now, and we are doing so badly? It is because they addressed the structural weaknesses in their economies, and are now well positioned to survive the economic downturn relatively unscathed, while Labour spent money during the boom years like a drunk on payday, racked up huge public debt (both on and off-balance sheet), allowed property prices to increase unsustainably, allowed private debt levels to spiral out of control, sucked out all the money that should have been available in the economy for investment and wealth creation through stealth taxes, and overall created an economic trough that the Tories would be mad to try and help them out of. Sadly, we'll all suffer through Labour's complacent stupidity, and like Mr Micawber, Gordon Brown will keep hoping that 'something will turn up', waiting out the full period of his office before allowing us the chance to throw him out. I notice he never says anything about 'Tory boom and bust' anymore.
The really sad thing is that when the Tories do finally win (and they will), it will be with such a huge majority that they'll be just as unaccountable and unchecked as Labour were since 1997 - and our pendulum political system will continue swinging from one extreme to another. We need PR to stop the first past the post system where a government with a large majority can do what it likes. Australia has PR, and is one of the most sensibly governed countries there is, no matter which party is in charge.
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re 30: you wouldn't necessarily want to repeat her policies on all areas, but you would definitely want to repeat the general policy of trying to fix the economy before wasting any more public money, because if that doesn't happen then we're all doomed.
If anyone thinks that we should leave the economy completely broken/bankrupt and just continually throw money that we don't have at problems without thinking about where that money's coming from or where/why/how it's being spent then I hope they don't vote.
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re 32: There's not much point refusing to address the problems of businesses; how do you expect people to have jobs if there's no businesses around to employ anyone?
Thatcher did a lot of things that were wrong/nasty, but one thing she was right about was reversing the brain-drain and encouraging businesses to grow and rewarding people generally when they do well.
The Labour idea that all rich people are evil and should simply give all their money to poor people and then kill themselves is very counter productive.
You might not like it, but without people who manage/create/run businesses properly, other people will have no jobs and starve. It's that logic which thatcher understood but which Labour/Brown don't understand.
The challenge is to get a better balance than Thatcher did but still using the same general idea; be friendly to businesses because that's the only way the country earns any money, but don't kill off other people at the same time, ie reward/encourage people when they do well, while still giving people who need it a hand but while also not encouraging laziness. It's just a question of balance.
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The economy talks for itself.
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The Dani Finklestein piece in the Times was interesting and does explain why 'Dave' is not going to do anything that defines his party in a distinctive way from Labour.
As we have now discovered that Dave's family is worth some 30 million pounds, then I do hope he is working 'for the love of his country' rather than drawing a salary and expenses from the long-suffering English PAYE drone.
I would like a political journalist to ask 'Dave' what he is going to do as PM when Alex Salmond informs him that the Scots are off to full independence.
No doubt, he'll fall back on a 'stock' answer such as 'I don't deal in hypothetical questions'.
However, that particular one will have to be answered in 2010, and mostly likely by 'Dave'.
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Now Nick why oh! Why did you not see the writing on the wall?
GB has been putting on the style again, you guys are either blind or should we say under performing the question is ?Fit for Purpose??
When GB and AD talk about the world economy and in the same breath, blame the import of oil as being one of the major problems for the UK, you guy?s fall for it time and again.
We export more of the North Sea oil than we import oil from other oilfield across the globe, all the worlds oil refineries require to mix the different crude oils to maximise the returns.
As for to-days biggest blunder again Gordon really put his foot squarely in his big mouth, merging the ?English and British Navies? with our European partners really took the biscuit and being a Navy biscuit he broke his teeth badly there, the weevils will get him over that one.
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What do you mean "With the return of inflation!" Inflation has hit the hardly remarkable level of ... wait for it ... 3%. We all remember that under the Tories it was double that. Interest rates are a third of what they were under the Tories.
Isn't it more likely that the Tories don't talk about the economy because then people will reflect back on the miserable years of two recessions, mass unemployment, and spiralling interest rates. And that they opposed the main reason for this stability - Bank of England independence?
They are probably very wise to focus elsewhere.
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Nick ,
you wrote this article at 10.56. By 12.00 you had changed tack by saying "what a lot of choice David Cameron had to go on and that you thought it had to be Afghanistan and Europe". I used to think you were great but I think you have been getting too many chocolate biscuits and cups of coffee in No.10. Are you being sucked in by the Downing Street machine?
Silas Brown
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OK then Nick. Let's make it very short. Is it because of the following Tory record of so called, low interest rates?
Base rates under the Tories. These are from 1985 and after someone here said that the economy was sorted.
1996 Oct 6.00 % 0.25 %
Jun 5.75 % - 0.25 %
Mar 6.00 % - 0.25 %
Jan 6.25 % - 0.25 %
1995 Dec 6.50 % - 0.25 %
Feb 6.75 % 0.50 %
1994 Dec 6.25 % 0.50 %
Sep 5.75 % 0.50 %
Feb 5.25 % - 0.25 %
1993 Nov 5.50 % - 0.50 %
Jan 6.00 % - 1.00 %
1992 Nov 7.00 % - 1.00 %
Oct 8.00 % - 1.00 %
Sep 9.00 % - 1.00 %
May 10.00 % - 0.50 %
1991 Sep 10.50 % - 0.50 %
Jul 11.00 % - 0.50 %
May 11.50 % - 0.50 %
Apr 12.00 % - 0.50 %
Mar 12.50 % - 0.50 %
Feb 13.00 % - 1.00 %
1990 Oct 14.00 % - 1.00 %
1989 Oct 15.00 % 1.00 %
May 14.00 % 1.00 %
1988 Nov 13.00 % 1.00 %
Aug 12.00 % 1.50 %
Jul 10.50 % 1.00 %
Jun 9.50 % 2.00 %
May 7.50 % - 0.50 %
Apr 8.00 % - 0.50 %
Mar 8.50 % - 0.50 %
Feb 9.00 % 0.50 %
1987 Dec 8.50 % - 0.50 %
Nov 9.00 % - 0.50 %
Oct 9.50 % - 0.50 %
Aug 10.00 % 1.00 %
May 9.00 % - 0.50 %
Apr 9.50 % - 0.50 %
Mar 10.00 % - 1.00 %
1986 Oct 11.00 % 1.00 %
May 10.00 % - 0.50 %
Apr 10.50 % - 1.00 %
Mar 11.50 % - 1.00 %
1985 Jul 11.50 % - 1.00 %
May 12.50 % - 0.25 %
Apr 12.75 % - 0.75 %
Mar 13.50 % - 0.50 %
Jan 14.00 %
Have a nice day Nick, and well done.
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At post 6 someone made the claim (clearly based on Labour propaganda) that schools and hospitals have improved in the last 10 years. Not wanting to spend too much effort bursting that bubble, I doubt the poster himself has actually bothered to look in schools and hospitals recently. In schools we see 2 things that are very interesting, the first is that discipline has clearly gone out of the window, especially in deprived areas. This in turn has a knock on effect of adversely affecting the quality of education of all those in low discipline schools. Then we have had standards consistently lowered under the facade of improving exam results which are actually the direct result of exams becoming easier.
Hospitals are similar, we see improvement of very specific goals which are easily fudged. I've been to casualty twice in the last 5 years, once in the back of an ambulance, where I was seen immediately by a doctor, but then left in pain on a trolley for 2 hours. The second time for a broken bone, where I was seen quickly by the triage nurse (to get waiting times down), but then left in a cubicle for a few hours before actually seeing a doctor and starting sorting out the cast.
Where Labour have been highly successful is in fooling the voters. From day 1 of the New Labour administration, they have been devising clever schemes to fudge official figures and make it look like they are doing better than they are. Unfortunately with these schemes, when the voters finally see through them, the damage has already been done. Take the economy as a key example. In 1997 Labour inherited the most successful economy a new government have inherited in over 100 years. Then what did Gordon Brown do with it, he followed Tory plans for 3 years, and embarked on a grab for as much money as he could lay his hands on. He sold most of the UK gold at a historic low. He applied stamp duty to pensions dividend income, which has stolen billions out of pension funds every year of the Labour government. He started borrowing heavily during a boom period, when he should have been laying aside for the coming bust. He mandated that the Bank of England should set interest rates based on an unrealistic measure of inflation that excluded key things like housing costs. All these things have meant that Britain is easily the second worst (after the US) placed country in the world to weather the credit storm. You only have to stick pins in maps for failed banks to see that.
Osborne fortunately has a great intellect, but David Cameron should not underestimate the task he faces. The country isn't ruined as badly as it was in 79, but it isn't far short. Many of the problems will take 10+ years to fix. Just think of all the final salary civil service pensions we will be paying in 40 years time for the explosion in the size of the civil service during the last 10 years?
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re 30: since 1997 the gap between the rich and poor has actually got wider.
The Tories wont give any economic policies away because any mention of cutting tax will immediately be heckled by Labour as therefore cutting spending, cutting services and closing the NHS. Economising and value for money aren't ideas they understand.
Labour doesn't want a well managed efficent civil service, if they can get 2 people to do one persons work then all the better, because then it's 2 people who are likely to vote Labour in future because neither will vote for the Tories knowing they have a 50% chance of being made redundant and actually having to find a worthwhile job where they have to work.
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#34 A small child: "Why is it that our German and other counterparts in Europe are doing so well now, and we are doing so badly?"
Can you give the evidence on which this statement is based? I don't think it's true, but if it is it is strong evidence for the benefits of joining the Euro perhaps?
"Our economy has not been set up to be resilient to these problems,"
See the IMF report on the UK economy released last month: "For over a decade, the United Kingdom has sustained low inflation and rapid economic growth - an exceptional achievement. More recently, the economy grew by 3 percent in 2007, and inflation returned to target after a temporary elevation. All this is the fruit of strong policies and policy frameworks, which provide a strong foundation to weather global shocks." Can you explain why your opinion is to be preferred over that of the IMF?
I am interested in your view that the government should have prevented people from selling their homes at the market rate, and prevented them from exercising their right to decide whether and how much to borrow. Surely the Cam Tories are not Stalinists in disguise?
As for Osborne, you have your view and I have mine. You mention his populist proposals to cut inheritance tax and stamp duty, but neglect to mention that they were to be paid for by changes to non-dom taxation that would have produced only a fraction of the money he needed. The jury is still out, I think.
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You're forgetting the green stealth taxes they are proposing. The proceeds of which will go into tax cuts elsewhere. 'To help hard working families'.
The problem is green taxes are supposed to change behaviour. If behaviour does change and less green taxes are coming in. what happens to other tax then? Maybe they don't expect behaviour to change and green taxes are actually just revenue raising taxes.
Basically nothing will change. Except the Conservatives will be a little nastier and will scapegoat single mothers see first line.
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It is mildly amusing to watch you and your fellow left-wing apologists at the BBC clinging to the wreckage of this arrogant, deceiptful and cowardly government.
One subject that Cameron will probably keep quiet about will be his plans for the BBC. I suspect that there will be a price to pay for its supine and grovelling support for Labour during the past 11 years. The BBC has become both an anachronism (hoovering up public money) and the paradigm for political correctness and and leftist bias.
I am fully aware that censorship is alive and well at the BBC so no doubt my comments will never see the light of day. My assessment of the government above also applies in full measure to the BBC and I look forward to David Cameron and his men exacting a very painful revenge.
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Can someone please define wasting public money? What should be done with it in your view? Except hoarding in it and dishing it out in tax cuts at election time.
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Ref comment 6. jimbrant wrote:
Ref improvement in schools. the recent list of 600 failing schools published by the government contained one third on the new flagship academies.
I have 2 kids at school and have seen the improvements, they all revolve around more regulation, targets, buildings and kit.
You need inspirational teachers, small class sizes and firm but fair discipline.
Put a new glass factory over the same old machinery and you just churn out the same old sausages. They just cost more.
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Nick,
Even though Chancellor Gordon Brown boasted an end to boom and bust during his ten years at the Treasury we both know that was a lie. No Goverment can control the economy. The best they can do is to take advantage of the good times and store up enough reserves for the bad times.
Gordon Brown did not store up reserves in the "Nice Decade" and so has extremely limited power now to help out people hardest hit by the economy.
I'm sure both Gordon Brown and David Cameron are aware that there are no easy solutions and it will be a matter of taking austere measures to "tough it out"
I voted Labour in 1997 and 2001; and Lib Dem in 2005. I'm pretty sure I won't vote Labour at the next election because I beleive Gordon Brown's Government is unprincipled and incompetent.
True the newly branded Tories are largely an unkown and nearer the election I will be studying their policies and manifesto. I have some sympathy with the Tories for not wanting to lay out all their policies so far away from an election for fear that Gordon Brown will steal them. Look what happened during the election that never was!
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The Tories have two problems, First, many of the difficulties that the economy faces are either totally outside of the UK's control, and would have been the same whether they, or Labour were in power - or they are caused by rampant, unrestrained capitalists making money at the expense of the wider economy - the banks trading in worthless sub-prime debt. The same capitalists who are the darlings of the Tory party.
Second, the pound has fallen against all major currencies, except the US Dollar. A run on the pound has historically been a rallying call to the opposition, but the obvious solution, ditch the pound and join the euro, is particularly unpalletable to a euro-sceptic Conservative party.
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#43 dave_h "At post 6 someone made the claim (clearly based on Labour propaganda) that schools and hospitals have improved in the last 10 years"
Well no, actually. I note that you're evidence-base on health consists of two visits to casualty in the past 5 years, while you don't actually say what your knowledge of schools might be. In my case, in the past 5 years I have had a daughter give birth in hospital, I have had my son die of leukaemia after treatment in hospitals in London and locally, my wife is well down the path of dementia, and I have benefitted from new drugs available from the NHS to control hypertension. On education, I worked in a university and was a comprehensive school Governor until my family's health problems intervened. On the basis of that evidence I can assure you that your portrait of the NHS is insultingly inaccurate, while your knowledge of the education system is based more on Daily Mail reporting than on the facts.
On the economy, please see the view of the IMF quoted in my post at #45. And finally on Civil Service numbers perhaps you would give the evidence for your claim for the 'explosion'?
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Public money is simply that amount that has been taken from the citizens. All taxes come from the citizens - even corparation tax, which is only possible because we pay for products and services.
Wasting public money occurs when politicians invent schemes that have little possibility of working in practice, but seem like a good idea to raise a profile in the limited term.
Wasting money is also when you invent new QANGOs, populated by people who are described as the "great and the good" but still expect to be paid a hell of a lot more than most citizens.
Any good corporate management could go through a rather flacid business and take out 2-3% of cost without breaking sweat.
If that approach were applied to Government expenditure, we - yes we, the tax-payers - would have more than UKL 12 BILLION of savings.
This Government expects to get the "right" answer when collecting statistics about the performance of departments and agencies.
A real government would be more prepared to accept reality.
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#49 RussellHolmstoel: "Ref improvement in schools. the recent list of 600 failing schools published by the government contained one third on the new flagship academies."
But 'failing' in this case means failing to achieve standards that are being set at a much higher level than they were. They would not have been failing if judged against the standards expected in 1997.
And since many of the new Academies were set up to replace 'failing' schools in difficult areas of deprivation your statistic does not surprise me particularly.
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I see little difference between Labour and Tories - I trust neither of them.
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Utter tosh.
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Enough of this nonsense about "not patching the roof when the sun was shining" and how the large government deficit as the responsibility of the government is stopping the UK being able to improve its current macro-economic condition. the opposition may well spin it well but in reality if we had a more expansionary fiscal policy we would merely get greater inflation than current seen. the BoE cannot lower interest rates for this reason. in reality there is little or nothing a government can do in these circumstances, except potentially lower the fuel duty, which would be beneficial. but to do that would ignore the threat of climate change, which we cannot afford to do
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Re. 47
"I am fully aware that censorship is alive and well at the BBC so no doubt my comments will never see the light of day. My assessment of the government above also applies in full measure to the BBC and I look forward to David Cameron and his men exacting a very painful revenge. "
Its nice to know that people keep an open mind about things instead of posting inanely stupid and inflammatory comments.
Its particularly ironic that when you take into consideration whose Newslog you have posted your comment on. Nick Robinson in particular flouts this to the extreme.
A case of Write-First, Think-Later?
Or possibly no thinking at all...
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Brownloather @ 47.
If you consider the Blair/Brown governments to be left wing you are a very deluded individual. I'm left wing as are most of my family and friends. None of us vote New Labour as it has absolutely no left wing policies on offer. It's a centre-right party in awe of corporatism, politically correct garbage, the free markets, PPP/PFI, the rampantly capitalist EU and the USA.
Bit like Cameroon's equally useless Tories.
The Trades Union movement is now realising this as displayed by the GMB cutting New Labour funding. The sooner New Labour loses the election and the Blair/Brown acolytes can be disposed of and the party returned to it's rightful owners - the TUC - the better.
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regarding schools and hospitals. Surely it is not about whether these places have improved, what is relevant is the extent to which these places have improved relative to the amount of money that has been spent on them.
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Nick,
For whatever reason, you finish off with a flourish about "our sakes". Since Osborne will not be near the economic tiller for some months, if not years, why on earth does it matter whether he is holding court in the summer of 2008? Why on earth would the Beeb want to flush out his policies at this stage when clearly the existing men in charge haven't a scooby but are not likely to pass the bat to him to have a shot.
Why not discuss the performance of the government instead. At least here it matters whether these people are held to account or possibly even do what they said at first? Why not pose the question to Brown about what he plans to do with a Treaty that has no foundation in law so long as Ireland says NO? I am sure this will be of greater significance to-day when the Lords are being asked to pass the Treaty rather than a discussion about what Osborne might say about something he might be able to effect some years away. Or am I being just too obvious?
All the best
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? Ref 54 jimbrant
Not totally sure about standards being higher or how you come to that conclusion. We know that many in the business claim that exams are much easier. One Uni has announced its own entrance exam as A levels arent much use as a guide to entry. So many get 3 As now.
Discipline standards have got worse, ask any teacher about their ability to discipline a child, they are barely allowed to defend themselves from assault.
The point I was really trying to make is that Labour just throws money at problems. It builds swanky new buildings but does not fix the real problem. Children need smaller classes and basic discipline first. The building is the last thing to make any contribution to their education. Yet it has been where Labour start.
You are quite right when you say many of the new academies were built to replace failing schools. But to fail after huge amounts of investment is a terrible failure. Labour have effectively said, youre poor inner city kids, heres a new building, carry on as normal.
I don?t mind paying high taxes to educate inner city children, its probably one of the best uses of my money. I do however object to paying hugely for failure or at least for the same old régime in a new glass box. I also object to the price the kids pay for this failure.
And don?t even get me started on the brand new state of the art prison that Jack Straw recently opened. Private cells, wired for the internet, playstations, video games. Did you see it? Even one of the cons told Jack Straw that it was like a holiday camp. I tried to book the family in for 2 weeks in August but the courts filled it within days. This money should be spent on educating and training prisoners. Again a good use of my money.
Your point on the Tories and what would they have done may be right, they were not exactly up for investment in public services. At worst the economic boom over the past decade would have led to massive tax cuts and the majority of people would have taken their money and spent it the way they would have wished. (private education and health care) A minority would have been worse off. Hard to know to what degree.
But we do know that Nu Labours promise of Education Education Education has failed and with a significant human and financial cost and the health service isnt really in fine shape either. I am however, not persuaded that DC has the answer.
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Ok, I get the point, Nick, however, do we actually want this new style of bland yet slick politics? Do we want spin? Do we want politicians who only live for every edition of the The Mail, The Sun, etc, etc?
I DON'T!
In Gordon Brown's first three months he seemed to put a great deal of effort into differentiating himself from Blair and I was actually quite hopeful.... any change at all would have been good. Cameron on the other hand made clear that he was basically a continuation of Blair.
As you now suggest, they're presently engaged in a game of chicken not daring to change direction and personally I find it awful - they should adopt their respective positions and stay there, stick to their principles and give us a choice.
They should do as the Liberal Democrats and come up with some policy not just steal it (from the Liberal Democrats).
Oh, and Cameron's going to re-engineer us socially? So it's a continuation of the nanny state is it?
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#59 One good thing about New Labour is that they shifted the spectrum of political policy away from the truly disasterous extemes of the left. Free markets and capitalims have a lot of faults in terms of social welfare, but these pale in insgnificance when you compare them with the (Orwellian) Animal Farm consequences of pursuing a genuinely left wing agenda.
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Nick, is the reason that no party is standing against David Davis in the by-election is because they all agree with him? Or is it because they're scared to disagree with him?
Puzzling.
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# jimbrant having had similar experiences with hospitals, I agree with you absolutley the improvements are amazing. Every one I meet in the hospital waiting rooms are of the same opinion or so they tell me.
If its not obvious that schools and teachers are much better, I remember the Tories laughing and jeering at Tony Blair when he said he would see that every child would be taught to use a computer, it did'nt take long for them to stop laughing, my grand children have just about all finised school and their standard of education at the same age as my children is much higher. these Tories on these posts are renowned for saying the first thing that comes into their heads and if it degrades the govenment and particularly GB they will post it with gusto!they want to sit back and think, the living they are getting today is the result of GBs policies, and their not been doing too bad for the last ten years.
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#62 RussellHolmstoel "Not totally sure about standards being higher or how you come to that conclusion"
I'm talking about the standards set to judge whether a school is failing. The 600 schools originally mentioned are 'failing' because they are not achieving the proportion of kids expected to get a good set of O levels. That proportion has been increased as the general level of achievement has improved. Of course, if you think that the standard of the exams has been lowered that will affect how you see this - but there is actually little evidence for such a lowering. Just try to do an O level Maths paper now, and see how you get on!
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#extremesense. no its because he's a self seeking nut and they all think its better for him to stew in his own juice , but if he does well Dangerous Dave and Gormless Gideon will wellcome him back with open arms,not to sure about Dreary Dominic though.
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#60 colinefb: of course you are right. But how do you measure how effective the investment has been? How much of the extra expenditure does the fact that there are 2000 extra doctors, and that it is easier to recruit and retain teachers, justify? I don't know, and I don't know how you would come to a conclusion about it. What I do know is that both health and education are significantly better, and I can't see how they would have been better with less expenditure.
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#40 - no one believes the official rates (possibly because there are two of them for a start!)
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#69
I don't disagree with you. Measurement is extremely difficult. I guess it probably lies in the hands of the Public Accounts Committee, I'm not sure which other body might really have the clout and the resources to really consider all of the issues.
On a personal note, I was very sorry to read about your son and I wish you every strength in looking after your wife.
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@64 - I think you'll find that Animal Farm was actually a warning against 'State Capitalism' (ie Russia under Stalin or present day China) and 'Nationalism mixed with Socialism' (ie Hitler's nazi's, Syrian/Iraqi Ba-athists, Iran etc). It wasn't a warning against socialism as any move toward proper socialism ceased when Lenin himself ceased.
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Nick,
Another desperate attempt to justify a desperate Government from a disreputable organisation employing a failed journalist. Apart from that, nice try...!
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#72
What I meant, and probably didn't articulate very well, is that "proper socialism" is merely a theoretical creation. In my opinion it cannot meaningfully exist (ie outside of tiny communities) in the real world because human nature gets in the way and there will always be people who subvert the system to leave themselves "more equal than others" (to continue that theme).
Capitalism is not the "best" solution, but it is - again, in my opinon - the only one that can successfully provide a framework for society whislt accommodating the shortcomings of human beings. Then, to make up for the shortcomings of the capitalist model the state must introduce the necessary safety nets and opportunities (broadly, "the welfare state" and high quality education for all). As far as I am aware this is classic "centre ground" politics - and I don't mourn the fact that all parties have gravitated in this direction from their respective extremes.
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66 Grandantidote and 67 Jimbrant
Yes there has been some improvement in schools and hospitals, but people object to the value for money achieved.
Take schools - we now have 10% more teachers and since 1997 the Government spends £35Bn more per annum on education. Brilliant. Marvellous. But where has all the money gone?
I think people are frustrated that they see so little improvement for the money spent. Personally I think we'd see better education results if we just divided most of the additional annual £35Bn evenly between schools and let them spend the money as they see fit.
Instead - the government are obsessed with quangos and initiatives. Across all government the amount spent on these bodies rose from £79Bn to £123Bn in 3 years alone.
If you take education alone, the government has set up and continues to staff and spend money on numerous bodies. Do we really need to fund all these bodies and initiatives, rather than divert money directly to where it is needed:
- Early Learning Partnerships
- Transition Information Sessions
- Parent Support Advisers
- Parenting Early Intervention Pathfinders
- Primary Leadership Programme
- Primary Strategy Consultant Leaders
- Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning Resources
- School Improvement Partners
- Reading Recovery Teachers
- Secondary National Strategy
- Learning Agreements and Excellence Hubs
- The September Guarantee
- School Sport Partnerships
- Pathfinder Partnerships
- Education Improvement Partnerships
- Extended Improvement Partnerships
- Extended Schools
- Every Child Matters Programme
- Cross-Government Safeguarding Programme Board
- Local Safeguarding Children Boards
- Activity Agreements
- The Apprentice Ambassador Network
- Care to Learn
- Aimhigher (the national outreach programme)
- Safer Schools Partnerships
- the London Challenge
- Chartered London Teachers
- the 6th Form Presumption
- Early Adopters Programme
- Making Mathematics Count
- Train to Gain Service
- Youth Matters
- Sector Skills Councils
- National Skills Academies
- Trust Schools Toolkit
- Specialist Schools and Academies Trust
- Numeracy Taskforce
- Safer Sector Partnerships
- Framework for Personal Learning and Thinking Skills
- Diploma Gateway
- Every Child Reader
- School Attendance Strategy
That is education. What about other government responsibilities? How much money is spent on bearocrats rather directly on the frontline in hospitals, the armed forces and the police?
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"The Labour idea that all rich people are evil and should simply give all their money to poor people and then kill themselves is very counter productive." #36
I wonder what country you've been living in if it has escaped your notice that Labour has been the party of the super-rich for over a decade.
Perhaps the Tories would be better since they are the party of the merely very-rich!?
Both parties believe in the fantasy notion of a free market providing for everyone. So long as they do that there is no chance of them doing anything sensible. There is no such thing as a free market anywere, and the real market provides for a tiny number of people at the top, while screwing over everyone else.
Or does anyone here think that people like Donald Trump or Tony Blair are suffering sleepless nights because of the increase in home heating costs? Or wondering if they're going to lose (one of) their houses?
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Ref 67 jimbrant
Ah Ok misunderstood that point. Thanks, I am not sure I can personally comment on how hard my O level was compared to a GCSE, (too long ago) But I have seen recent papers and I didn?t seem to have much trouble with it.
I read a lot of comment from the trade about them being easier and I cant say I have seen anyone saying exams are getting harder. Universities don?t say this and some private schools are thinking about setting their own exams to replace A levels. This cant be good.
I accept there have been improvements, But are they the right improvements, is money being spent well and are we getting value for money? The big improvement discipline, would be almost free. I actually heard a head teacher on a TV proudly announce his school had launched a new policy of excluding children from a class for 15 mins if they swore at a teacher more than 3 times in any one lesson. Does this happen in France and Germany. German friends of mine say No, not in any schools there, I have Belgium friends who say the same, and would bet this does not happen in France.
I think I read that you were a comprehensive school Governor, why is it that we fail to deal with this problem effectively. Im interested because I have just moved my lad to another school solely for this reason.
One statistic I would love to know, is how much we spend per child and actually how much gets to the child and how much is spent on administration and regulation.
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Alas for Gordon, he is no Midas. Rather, everything he touches turns to the Brown stuff!
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#75 jonathan_cook "But where has all the money gone?"
Well I'm sure there has been waste, as there always has been. Don't let me get started on the Higher Education Funding Council, for example!
But the answer to your question is basically fairly simple. In education it has gone on higher salaries and more staff (ie pay); on more books and equipment; and on building new and refurbishing old schools. If the extra funding had not gone in, it is difficult to imagine the state that education would now be in. I can remember the very great difficulty we had in persuading university students to consider a career in education in the mid-90's, so that people were being recruited who were not ideal for the job (and perhaps that goes some way to explain the difficulties in discipline etc that has been commented on earlier). Teaching is now an attractive career, at least financially, though you wouldn't think so to listen to the NUT, and there is no difficulty in getting good students to go into it.
The question is, how much is that worth? What would have been the cost of continuing with previous levels of funding?
And the same is true in health, but in spades.
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I think Cameron should start talking about the economy because Brown has well and truly doomed us all with his wasteful public spending and centralised beurocratic government.
The only problem for Cameron is that there is not alot he could to rescue the economy in the short term even if he got into power.
Its a shame that when Brown inevitably gets chucked out that Cameron will inherit a dire economy and won't have the money to deliver the things he wants. Furthermore the working people in this country are going to be on the breadline and Cameron will not be able to ease that pain in the short term.
Thanks for nothing Brown.
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#77 RussellHolmstoel : You are right, universities do have problems with the current system. There is a relatively minor problem with poor literacy and (especially)numeracy among some students, particularly those who wouldn't have got to university at all just a few years ago. But for the 'top' universities the problem is that A levels no longer provide a means of discriminating (in the nice sense) between good students. I think that there is some evidence of 'creep' in the level at which 'A' grades are awarded, but there also seems to have been a real improvement in the standard and especially the range of A level achievement. In my day, in the 50's, we had A levels and then a separate S level exam that was supposed to be harder; and of course in those days the numbers doing A levels at all was a lot lower. It is a complex area, but I don't think you can take the decsision of some universities to introduce their own exam to divide up the A grade cohort as conclusive evidence that standards have fallen.
As for schools, I commented in #79 that one effect of the extra funding has been an improvement in the quality of students attracted into teaching as a career. It will take time for that improvement to work through into the system, of course, but it might be expected to lead to an improvement also in the areas you find problematic. I have to say that in 'my' school there were few of those problems anyway, though it was situated in the middle of a fairly deprived old council estate which the Council tended to use for their more difficult tenants. A lot depends on the quality of the Head, which is one argument for not just handing over everything to the individual school.
Spend per child has doubled since 1997. I don't think it is possible to break the spending down in the way you suggest, partly because it is actually very difficult to define what you mean by 'administration and regulation' . For example, within a school there might well be (should be) a unit devoted to providing pastoral support for difficult kids (too bright/ not bright enough/ challenged mentally or physically). Those staff will be counted as 'non-teaching', and so will look like administrators. The same sort of difficulty comes up in health; the Conservatives regularly make capital out of the extra 'bureaucrats' in the NHS, but they include in that grouping medical technicins and other non-clinical staff who are anything but bureaucrats. According to the NHS;s own figures, the cost of managing the NHS has fallen from 5% to 3.6% of the total budget; in Canada the propoortion is 10%, and in the US it is 17%. There is a lot of misinformation about all this, in my opinion.
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#71 colinefb: Thanks.
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Not sure whether it's worth making a comment, as many messages seem to disappear.
There appears to be a complete lack of understanding that "learning and understanding" is the basis of education.
How many of our children actually understand how the English language works?
And, without that, how can they hope to really understand how French, German, Spanish, Arabic and various Asian languages work?
We've had a senior educational advisor to the government say recently that teaching "subjects" is a Victorian middle-class structure.
Pray tell, how do you teach Physics, Chemistry or Maths without focusing on the core of the subject? Trying to make it "relevant" is not necessarily a bad thing but real knowledge doesn't necessarily find it easy to fit the Periodic Table ior Quantum Theory into an everyday situation.
My old man (born 1912) left school early as he feared his comprehension of the structure of French could make him fail the much more demanding and broarder based School Certificate.
It is complete nonsense to believe that children have become more "able" over the last century.
The better (from whatever background)have always done well. It is only a government focus on "delivering" better results that makes it look that way. How is it possible for so many graduates to be now considered worthy of First or Upper Second degrees?
In the past, only the very best got a First.
Waving exam results as if they show improvements is a nonsense.
If not, why should Universities now have to to add an additional year for many students
who simply are not capable of dealing with the basic requirements of genuine degree level understanding?
This may not apply to "soft" subjects. But it is critical in the Hard topics of science. Guess where so many students are directed now...
Bugger the league tables. Get more children thinking in harder areas. That's the future.
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The problem is that there is just too much "stuff" spewed out by people who have no real feeling for what is needed.
Don't give us more Balls. Give us more people who understand that it doesn't matter where, or in what circumstances, you were born, you can still be a brilliant contributor to our society. (Not sure that applies to Balls, who seems to have a totally theoretical approach to both economics and learning...)
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It just seems really odd.
When Blair/Brown promised a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty, Blair withdrew that commitment once French and Dutch voters decided it was not what they wanted. So the treaty was - as they said - dead in the water, so we weren't allowed to confirm that fact. So we were not allowed to kill it stone dead.
The Lisbon Treaty has been legally killed. it can only be applied if all signatories agree.
Blair decided not add more grief to the Constiutution's failure. And he withdrew the option of a Referendum.
But Brown seems to feel it is "right" to force an unwelcome (barely diguised) Treaty down ourthroats.
Where can that be be seen as a government for the people, by the people?
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getridofgordonnow - "For example, the "children's poverty" statistics improved for a bit, but only because Brown made everybody poorer."
Really?
Then why did data show that the gap between rich and poor was increasing consistently within Labour's time in Government?
Child poverty is increasing again, now, but not because Brown has made everyone poorer, but merely because he has a delusional scheme where the government takes more money off lower earners, centralises it, and then expects everyone to know how to claim it back.
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It may be that the Conservatives need to bury the insidious spectre of Thatcherism before they can win enough votes in a general election. Snap polls over one-issue debates don't really indicate positive trends. Margaret Thatcher famously declared there was no such thing as society, but David Cameron puts his focus on social reform and promises to bring Thatcherite tactics to bear on his aim, should he win office. I'm not sure I quite understand his reasoning on this one.
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I realise that in #33 I made a great error in claiming that there were 20000 more doctors since 1997. There are not. There are 40000 extra doctors. The lower figure relates to the extra consultants, I think.
#86 Dingdongalistic "Child poverty is increasing again, now, but not because Brown has made everyone poorer...."
No indeed not. It is because what you are referring to is relative poverty. The increase is because Brown has made everyone else richer (to use your formulation). And the gap between rich and poor is not because the poor have got poorer, but because the very richest have got richer even faster than the rest of us.
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Sorry Nick, but the titles of your recent blogs seem to be skating around the periphery of the political world in this country, whilst the real significant daily events are hardly mentioned by you.
Who cares who had dinner with the worst prime minister on record and the worst US president ? Or Gordon Browns rhetoric tone about oil prices?
To paraphrase your original question, what I am asking is :
"Why is Nick Robinson talking about anything but the real political issues ?"
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Ref 81. jimbrant
Thanks, some good points to mull over.
I accept the difficulty in working out how the money is spent, do you know the total spend per child? It would be interesting to compare with the private system. When I read all the initiatives listed in 75 you can see where a good chunk of money goes.
Just knowing that the spend per child has doubled is not enough, especially if much has not actually reached the child. when I say that I mean reached the school. I accept the need for pastoral care and even good admin in the school itself. I also accept that teachers need to be paid well. Though I have to say some Head Teachers salaries seem rather amazing. (if what I read is true)
Probably the best thing GB has ever done was to make the BoE independent. I cant help but wonder if the same principle should be applied to education. It should not be a political football with a new initiative every few months. I was pretty outraged that Ed Balls, essentially an advisor to the treasury, was made Education Secretary as soon as GB became PM. Just a job for a mate really.
My experience of the NHS, I have to say, has been very mixed, our family here in London use it and our experience has been very poor. My father died recently after a series of illnesses in Bristol where I have to say the care there was fantastic. A total contrast.
Sorry to read about your lad.
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Ref 89 U11714077
No point talking to Nick he never reads these postings.
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jonathan_cook @75
Thanks for the long list. I bet that most of those organisations have directors, administrators, media centres, new logos and fancy stationery, internal communications, external communications, focus group liaison officers, (perhaps even diversity officers), PR and marketing people (check the ads in The Gruniad)....
Basically if half the people employed in the public sector (excluding front-line staff such as nurses, teachers, refuse workers, hospital porters, etc - i.e. people whose work actually achieves something) disappeared tomorrow, I'm sure public services would not suffer at all - and probably even improve.
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When Thatcher said there was no such thing as society, she was possibly right. from a modern perspective, but politically very wrong to say it.
What do we prefer? Comments that we don't like, or challenges?
How many people now really know their neighbours extending ten or more doors down from where they live?
What are their lives like? How could we help them? Could or would they help us?
Once upon a time we lived in small places - villages, towns, cities - where people knew each other, their families, their aspirations.
Now things have become different.
Thatcher pobabluy buggered things up because she didn't reacognise that very local things - like mining industries - created local societies that it could take years to replace.
But just take a look around you and wonder how many people you actually know.
And how solid that sence of society is as Brown accepts that Post Offfices should be clsosed down, local life should be curtailled, so that bloody useless equality rights people can be afforded.
Given the choice, would you prefer a local Post Office, or an equal rights counsellor?
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#90 RussellHolmstoel: "do you know the total spend per child"
I think it is quoite a complex question. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (not a govt-friendly organisation) did a report for the Select Committee that went into great detail, and gave no very simple answer. Many people say it is currently about £5000 for each child excluding building costs. The government gives a figure of £6600, I think - with the aim of increasing to the level of public school funding in 2006, which was £8000. One problem is that a single figure covers all schools - my understanding is that the UK does very well (better than anyone else) for pre-primary, for example.
Head teachers are well paid, but having some experience of senior management jobs in both the public and private sectors I have to say that they have one of the most difficult roles I have seen. It is made harder by the fact that they are not embedded in the sort of structure that you would get in a business of equivalent size. So while I think that teachers are now quite reasonably rewarded, I would not object to Heads getting even more than they do now.
Thanks for you final comment.
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Most Labour policies can I believe be directly traced to Mrs Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph so why do we need to go their again with the Tories. We already have a Tory government called the Labour party and look where that has got us....
One thing that seems to be unrecognized is the effect on the structure of the population of the UK of reducing the employment stability of the middle class as Mrs T. did. The middle class are breading less than they did, but the working class have a support mechanism ('the social') and they have continued to breed. The consequence of this is to inevitably change the balance of society.
This gives rise to a relative increase in the number of children from the less stable and less well educated classes. This require that GCSE and A level grade inflation took place to present the UK as a well educated society when in truth our kids are on average dumber. All this is down to Mrs T and the subsequent Tory Prime Ministers including Mr. T. Blair.
I fear that Mr. D. Cameron is another Tory. I hope he is not.
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The relative aspect of child poverty is measured relative to people without children on a similar salary scale from what I understand (although feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)
ie a person on salary x who has a child is compared to a person who doesn't have a child but who's earning the same salary.
The person with a child gets tax credits, whereas the other person doesn't.
The child poverty statistics would compare like-with-like, comparing the final post-tax/post-credit income of the person with a child to the person without a child.
So, by making everybody poorer on salary x, but giving a partial rebate of a tax credit to the person with a child, you therefore "improve" child poverty despite the fact that the parent actually has less money than they did before, because the person with the child now officially "earns" more than they did before when compared to the person without a child.
ie the person with the child earns less than they did before, but in relation to the person on the same salary without a child (who's lost more than the person with the child) they're better off than they were before.
The government assumes that everybody who's entitled to tax credit claims them when they calculate who's rich and who's poor, so when they work out these statistics I don't think they measure the real incomes, just the "if you grabbed all credits you'd have this" assumed income.
I might be wrong, but from what I've read/heard I think that's how they do it.
Hopefully a statistician who's in the know about how Brown works out the poverty stats can chip in here to confirm/deny/explain this aspect.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong and that Brown isn't making everybody poorer just to improve his official poverty statistics, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's the case.
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Sorry, Nick, not that this is related, but did you know you have an appreciation society on Facebook?
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why should they reveal what they will do in great detail?
who knows what the economy will be like in 6 months/2 years time when an election is called!
cameron doesnt have access to the country's books until weeks before an election... would you plan your household expenditure on guess work?
then of course, there's the obvious reason that youve missed nick, they might want to keep some of their ideas to themselves, as brown has already shown by blatantly stealing ideas from other parties and telling us they are his own, but always managing to implement parts of these ideas, whilst raising tax revenue from the public.
cameron is quite right not to talk about it in detail, as he doesnt have the full accounts and financial position before him.
why do you think the labour spin machine is trying to force cameron's hand to reveal some financial policy?
could it be that the labour leadership have run out of money and ideas?
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The reason he is not harping on about the economy is that globalisation (as predicted) is the main driver of all things economic. Multi-Nationals are now calling the tune. So if the Tories were to get into power they will have as little control over events as the last lot. That is why they can't make any promises about the economy because they will not be in charge of the economy. Of course they have always been right to oppose the minimum wage as ( if you are going to curry favour with them) the multi-nationals love cheap exploited labour. There is one small difference ,though, they could make to goverment expenditure and that is to curb the criminality involved in MP's expense claims. (make that a large difference considering how many are at it)
I don,t know if it's true (it's probably just a malicious rumour) but I have heard that an MP may have been paying some of their expense allowance to a relative who has been dead for twenty years. Anyway I've got go now. I have to go and let mother in from the garden. I've had her out there all day rotovating and planting spuds (I'm going self sufficient). I only pay her a fiver per day. She's done a grand job considering she's turned ninety one. Ha! and Peter Hains thinks he's getting value for money out of his eighty year old mum.
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Oh! Nearly forgot to mention (that Thoughtful couple) the Wintertons putting that second London home into a trust fund for their dear children to benefit from. How thoughtful. Maybe one day one of them can get elected as a Tory MP and claim the second home allowance on it as well and maybe when their kids grow up and maybe. You get the picture.
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This is worth a look
http://www.aaroadwatch.ie/eupetrolprices/default.asp
Last months info, but still interesting reading, paticularly the priice of diesel in the UK.
Most people of my aquaintance are sick the to back teeth of heaing MPs say "what people are worried about" -- sheesh, we are the people, we know what worries us (and it rairly coincides with what government ministers say it is).
We don't need to be told what the 'official' rate of inflation is, or how it is calculated, we already *know* what the situation is, we are living it - not commentating from a distance.
Interviews (particularly TV) with ministers are on the way out, the public don't do one way communication now -- blog and let us comment, or keep it to yourself (untill we throw you out).
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There are bills over which I have very little control, gas, electricity, water, food.
What concerns me most of all is that this discredited government wants to return to the old days of linking pension increases to wages and not to the Retail Prices Index (RPI).
This would be a terrible thing to do just as the government urges wage restraint. Only an idiot would want this to happen.
We must maintain the link between the RPI and pensions and resist any attempt to link pensions to either the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) or wages.
Please highlight the problem now with your MP because they will say nobody said that this was not a problem and nobody raised as an issue. Just remember the 10p tax.
All the utility companies must be nationalised, the true costs of privatisation are now becoming obvious to anybody with any intelligence.
Taxes must rise, interest rates must rise, spending on the public sector must be cut, there must be restrictions on credit, price and wage controls must be brought in, and finally we must immediately withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, we cannot afford these wars.
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Ref 94.from jimbrant
And therein lies the rub on value for money, if it costs 6600 to state educate and 8000 to privately educate a child the amount of wastage and misuse of funds must be massive. The difference in the standards is startling.
I wonder just how many parents would use the state system if they had an option of directly taking the 6600 and topping it up to go private. That extra 1400 buys you well over double if not triple value for your money. You would have to be on the bread line not to take that option.
I agree with you about how tough a head teachers job must be, but I should imagine that it?s the politics and the accountability to government officials and all the nonsense initiatives that makes the job so hard.
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RussellHolmstoel @103.
All true.
But then, if parents were allowed true choice, governments and 'educationalists' couldn't 'shape' our children; most trendy pedagogues would be unemployed; and the Guardian would lose a fortune due to reduced ads to its public-sector jobs pages.....
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#1
Nobody has managed to put it better yet.
Gordon Brown likes to rush around looking busy 'a new challenge every day' he says.
The problem is they've all been rushing around looking busy for eleven years getting absolutely nothing done.
Their track record on actually putting through legislation and acting upon it is diabolical. All this preaching about green taxes but the wind power program is stalled - nothing at all being built. Likewise nuclear - just words no action. yet we pay more and more green taxes straight into the hands of the chancellor to waste on busted banks and state hand outs.
So why is Cameron wrong to pursue this agenda? He has to kill the culture of cradle to grave state dependency which includes, by the way, the 'rights' culture that NewLabour ushered in with such a splash. It's a national disgrace the this has been imposed on us and should be reversed.
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Can the moderaters tell me why there is one blogger on this post who has used the words bugger and bloody in a derogatry sense and has not had his posts removed and rightly so, this is in no way a complaint against that individual, it is a complaint against yourselfes. on two recent blogs on on which i was explaining that to call someone a bugger was more offensive than calling them a sod which the person who the post was addressed to had objected, although this post was in a fairly lighthearted vein regarding free speech it was removed not at the behest of this person I hasten to add, on another blog I added to the end of a post in which I was commending the post I ended by saying "good on you its about b****ing time some one said it as it is, again in a light hearted way,that was removed, can you please tell me what the difference is.
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# I have noticed on this thread that already the Tories in anticipation of a Tory win at the general election are paving the way for Dangerous Dave and Gormless Gideon, of course you cant expect them to make the economy any better for a few years they will have to clear up the mess left by labour. What do they mean. Is their policy going to be typically Tory, that they'll need to make more people unemployed get rid of the minimum wage,We never liked that anyway if we cut out the pensioners winter fuel allowance and the bus passes TV licenses that will help to cover the cost of the loss of inheritance tax on million pound homes and all this nonsense about extended maternity leave and I ask you maternity leave for men.
Then there's all the money the've been wasting on schools and hospitals, they were good enough for us why waste all that cash, and who needs all those extra nurses doctors and policmen, we did'nt need them, it was all going really well when we were last in power, these damn socialists spoil every thing.
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#102
be nice if you could remember to add "in my opinion", or something similar, when you're making posts like that.
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107. grandantidote
I see the thread you mention. The point I think many area making is that we have paid the tax, but they don?t think value for money has been delivered. I certainly believe this.
The Tories (Thatcher) the last time around transformed our economy but with devastating social implications at the time. The country was economically speaking ?Cancer ridden? and Thatcher delivered a dose of chemo that was badly needed, but with some devastating effects.
So people were offered the alternative of high taxation and high expenditure on social services. And they voted for it 3 times in succession. It?s a model that works well in Scandinavia for example. But there is little doubt it has failed here or at least it has failed in most peoples eyes. Why? I am not totally sure, but it certainly has a lot to do with the efficiency and waste of anything state run in this country
So to the alternatives. I know that when I buy into a service, if I feel the value is poor, I would rather have nothing than pay a high price for poor value goods. I will happily pay a high price for a quality service and am delighted to find the odd bargain. If I am faced with high priced rubbish from the state or low taxation and very little in return. The I and I suspect a growing number of others will prefer to keep their hard earned tax and use it to spend privately.
Not for a moment that I think DC will offer me this option. He will naturally reduce taxation over time and try hard to tinker with social issues. But if labour continues on for another term then taxation will continue to rise and so will waste. Value for money will certainly continue to deteriorate.
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Why should I add "in my opinion" as it is under my name, my real name, then of course it is my opinion. All these blogs are surely the opinion of the writer, there is not much point regurgitating other peoples opinion.
You cannot seriously be thinking that some of the bloggers are not voicing their own opinions but the opinions of others.
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110 T A Griffin I shouldnt be to proud of adding your real name to your posts.
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#110
Just because it keeps the debate a little more civilised.
Not doing so also diminishes any value attached to your comments, as it comes across as a presentation of fact - when so clearly it is just your opinion.
As a matter of interest, what would the basic state pension be now if had remained linked to National Average Earnings since the 80s? As a further matter of interest, it was my understanding that the NAEI link would not be restored until at least 2012, four years away. Does your crystal ball tell you what RPI and NAEI will be at that point. You seem to know so much, it would be useful to know....
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107#
Grandantidote, I have just caught up with this weeks PMQ's and what did really strike me was the following:
In his early days GB had real problems at PMQ's, over the last few weeks and although the press have never gave him credit for it. He is really towering head and shoulders above Cameron. Yesterday I seen a Statesman take on a minnow. Cameron relies on silly jokes where the PM was self assured and handled everything sunshine "Dave" thew at him.
This Cameron chappie, not only is he so shallow he is definately not PM material and yestreday it really showed.
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colinefb wrote:
#110
"Just because it keeps the debate a little more civilised.
Not doing so also diminishes any value attached to your comments, as it comes across as a presentation of fact - when so clearly it is just your opinion."
Piffle!
What keeps debate civil is addressing the content of a person's argument instead of complaining about the way it is presented. I think you may be confusing "facts" with "assertions" - TAG is making the later. Without someone making an assertion and then attempting to prove it empirically or through deduction their can be no debate, merely a lot of loudly asserted opinions.
Also, if you accept everything as incontrovertible fact unless someone specifically states that it is opinion, then you are not in a position to give advice on anything (or handle sharp objects unsupervised).
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109#
I could blow a gasket reading post like yours and I say that without intending any disrespect towards you.
The Services in this Country were on there uppers ,when after 18 years in power the Conservatives were given the order of the boot.
Since leaving office and the Labour party taking over, I will list just a fraction of where money is, and was spent, we will at this point just stick to two of the more important departments of State namely the NHS and Education.
Which this Government has improved beyond all recognition.
We will start with the NHS. More Doctors, Nurses, Ancillary staff, Ambulance personell, Radiologists, Spesialists etc, etc, etc. That is just the people.
,Now let us look at the buildings.
The biggest Hospital building programme ever replacing all the outdated Hospitals and equipment in this Country.
Next X-Ray equipment, Breast screening equipment, Scanners etc.
When did you last see inside of a ICU or a HDU?
The equipment in those places alone are mind blowing. Have you the reotess idea of the cost of same?
Hospital waiting lists are down, there is now no winter crisis which we had every year under Thatcher to John Major.
Vacination for the over 60 for 'Flu every year. Appointment with Specialists now normally run to time, hip replacement ,cataract and knee ops done with patients in and out inside of a week.
Cancer patients seen to very quickly, Ladies over 50 years old have a breast screening programme every three years. Cervical Cacer checks every three years.
Now compare that to Thatchers days if you can. Are you aware that Andrew Lansley the Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Health is on record as stating that if any hospital runs out of cash, that hospital will not be baled out, it will be allowed to go into receivership.
Next Schools, in the dying days of the Tories we had crumbling Schools, outside toilets ,leaking roofs, children sharing books, no jotters a scarcity of nursery places, over size classes, far too many for one teacher to educate effectively, no classrom assistants.
Since coming into office Labour has either modernised or built new Primary Schools, we have almost every Secondary School either updated or replaced.
We have Computers in every School.
What the Dickens do you think they have done with the money?
Are you suggesting money was wasted on all of the list above. Are you aware thet the NHS is the largest employer in Europe? And are you one of these people who thinks money grows on trees and we can pay for the 2007/8 wages bill and equipment using 1990's relevant prices?
Money does not grow on trees and surely you would rather see your taxes used for such as the above, than tax-cuts and substandard services as they were during the Conservative years.
Still you have an option pay private and have tax cuts.
Have you noticed the price of a bottle of Cough Mixture and Aspirin these days?
Check them for yourself, then you will need the services of the proverbial St Bernards with the Brandy and on top of that you will see for yourself where the cash has been spent. As for money being wasted.
What price do you put on your health?
Mine is priceless and I will stick with Labour and GB and enjoy treatment when I need it, not only when I can pay for it.
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109#
Prices are going up everywhere not only on Services, have you not noticed?
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#114
Hello MonkeyBot5000.
To be honest, I was just trying to be polite to the person who posted #102. If I was being impolite I might have said something along the lines of "what a load rubbish you're spouting about pensions, you clearly don't know what you're talking about you cretin."
As you can see, in post #112 I was slightly less polite. Now I suppose I've been rude. Could have saved everyone two posts and just gone for the cretin option straight away.
As for your last paragraph, I think you are confusing my request for the poster to inject a little humility into his/her statement (ie implicitly accept that other people may hold a different opinion) with an inability to distinguish fact from opinion.
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113/ 115 trudie victoria great to have you backTrudie i agree with everything you say although I would never have the energy to put it as well as you.
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118 # I do eventually catch up with the political scene but not as swiftly as I am used to.
Still the old brain is still ticking over and the batteries have been well charged.
Back to the fray in approx 2 weeks. it passes rapidly, all to swiftly in IMHO.
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Nick - are you sure you should be writing "different to" and not "different from"? Maybe you can tell me that either is correct and all will be forgiven.
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It is the economy stupid. As Harold Wilson said the economy is the vallance issue of British politics. Always has been and always will be. Brown vs Cameron on economic competence - a heavyweight vs a featherweight. The economic environment is being shaped by forces outside of UK government control. This is a simple and obvious fact. It is time to hold tight and stick with a guy who has delivered growth and stability for 11 years on the trot.
Some bloggers have praised George Osbourne's intellect on this thread. Did anyone see him on Newsnight offering to undo the 3 year public sector pay deals already negotiated and agreed by the government? There are inflationary pressures in the economy - how on earth is this going to help?
A classic example of when you ask the Conservatives for detail on what they would do in the economic sphere they give the game away. They are not up to it.
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To colinefb #112 I would say that it is irrelevant to say what would something be now if it was linked to something else. I had experience when working in the City of Pension Funds saying that if we had done nothing what would the value of the fund we gave you to manage be now. I then had to reverse all the transactions re-invest the money into the money market, work out what the value o the original assets would be etc.. and the value was less than we had achieved. A wasted exercise? Actually no but it really didn,t have any effect on the value of the Fund.
I have to ask do you trust the statistics. When you go shopping you can see the prices and any movement in those prices. Can the same be said of wages. How do you actually know the facts of what people earn. For example, I had a fixed rate mortgage, through my employer at 2.5% for the life of the mortgage, which is when other people were paying over 10%. How do you value that benefit in kind. Bonuses, benefits in kind etc all distort the figures. I trust the RPI!
As for not being proud about revealing my real name grandantidote #111 I do not feel pride about some of my views, which others may disagree with. I actually am so sad that England, which according to Gordon Brown has its' own Navy, is embroiled in two conflicts which cannot be won, which cost lives, and for which there is no justification. Were we told when we originally went in that it was about reconstruction. Look up the war of Jenkins Ear!
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Colinefb, you would like to accuse me of being a cretin, this I can take. However, not knowing about pensions is something which I can't be accused of. Let me tell you some personal information which I hope the moderators let through because it is relevant to the debate over pensions and the RPI.
My pension is linked to the RPI. I worked for an organisation for twenty one years, 'til 1992. I was made redundant but bought my pension with the redundancy money so received a pension from age 50, I am now 59. I receive just over £12,000 per annum.
I had a lump sum payment of £28,000 and am due another £20k next year from a maturing Endowment policy.
I bought my house for cash in 1984 with no mortgage for about £70,000 and it is now conservatively valued at about £350,000.
In six years when I get to 65 I will receive a further £5,000 as my paid up State Pension. This together with inflationary pressures will give me a total of about £18-£19 or £20 thousand per annum. Accordingly, you can see that if I am a cretin I ask you to define what is cretinous about organising my future income to the extent which I have.
My problem is that all governments avoid the issue relating to those pensioners who have structured their lives so as not to be a drain on other members of society. If more people revealed the truth then we may get policies implemented which stop the erosion of personal responsibility.
I am not proud or boastful about my advantaged situation, I just try to be honest when conducting arguments. Now then, am I a cretin, I leave that to others to judge.
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121# Yes and there lies the problem, Cameron and Osborne are not put under enough scrutiny by either the Media or press.
Did you hear Osborne the day he gave the tax interview to the Daily Torygraph?
It would have been comical if it was not so serious.
Having said that if Osborne had the slightest financial nous he really would be dangerous.
In the morning it was one thing, by lunch time it had changed by all recognition and it was dead and buried by tea-time.
The Laurel and Hardy effort the two of them concocted over the N. Rock debacle had nothing to come on this particular fiasco by blunderboy. It was downright hilarious to say the least.
This man child would be Chancellor, heaven help us all if it was to become a reality.
One policy Godeon, designed to help the comparative well off, with nothing to help those in most need.
Typical Tory, like the Scorpion they cannot help themselves.
We would end up having been taxed highly in order to get the services into some sort of shape, then that pair of clowns would have us back where we started.
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Ref: 115. Trudy_Victoria
Gosh Angela.. Sorry didn?t mean to send you quite so wild. You deserve the brandy.
I accept of course that Labour have spent a fortune over 11 years and the equipment and buildings are all there. I particularly liked the new prison that Jack Straw recently opened. It was so nice that I tried to book my little family in for a fortnight in August, but the courts filled it in 2 days. I didn?t even get to see the new detention centre that cost 29 million in fees as it never actually got built but no doubt it would have been wonderful. Why do prison cells need an internet connections by the way?
My point is one of value for money, and the broken promise of ?we are going to tax you hard but the investment will bring fantastic results?. Well we gotthe first half.
On education see103 and the thread with Jimbrant. We concluded on his figures (hes in the business) that it costs 6600 to state educate and 8000 to privately educate a child. That is very poor value. Did you read the list education initiatives in 75.
My point of value for money especially on Education is not just my perception, it?s a growing one and that was the point I made to grandantidote.
People feel the tax burden every payday and every time they fill up at the pumps. They look at the services and they don?t like what they see. I don?t like what I see.
I think its very easy to look at shiny new schools and hospitals and lots of kit and think that this is value for money. It isnt, its is simply expenditure. A good education is not about the buildings or even actually about the computers, its about inspirational teaching, small class sizes and some firm but fair discipline. Labours answer on Education has been to simply to throw money at the problem. One third of the new flag ship academies are on the governments own list of 600 failing schools. How is that offering value. How do we have 600 failing schools after 11 years of ?Education Education Education? Give me a well paid, motivated., inspirational teacher, a class size of 15 and a battered old book sitting in a prefab building any day.
I have stayed off the NHS, I think we probably need to still spend more on this as we are well below the average expenditure of similar western style countries. But you just know that the waste in such a mammoth organisation is going to be off the scale and being the biggest employer in Europe is just no excuse and nor is the fact that I value my health. Our health isnt priceless by the way its worth no more that 30000 per annum according to NICE.
I might just have a brandy too. Cheers.
Small print?.. this is all my own opinion, no offence has been taken or intended to anyone during the course of this debate?..
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98#
I often wonder how the often quoted myth that the "opposition" don't have access to the "books" is perpetuated. This is Garbage!
Do you really think that HM official opposition, the "government in waiting"have no access to the figures re the Governments spending, the balance of payments, public borrowing infact absolutly everything!
Grow up!
The reason the Tory's won't talk about the economy is even they know 90% of the problems are global and the same in all developed economies.
And please don't come back and say Yes but because of Brown's spending we can't cut taxes blah blah. Well we wouldn't anyway because of the additional inflationary pressures that would create. The Government and BoE are trying to restrict the supply of meney into the economy in case you hadn't noticed, hence the threat if Pay goes up, interest goes up.
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Trudy Victoria.
Not seen you on here before, glad to see someone helping the enlightened few.
Now onto this Russel Bloke, My Children are both in state education and I'm a school governor.
The school like most in 1997 had outside toilets, one classroom held up with acro props!! Yes really and a paucity of books and equipment. The transformation is unbelievable.
However there has been one consistenr factor, the headteacher, who I respect tremendously, There view is that its not the buildings that made the difference but the staffing levels and class room sizes and the addition of nemerous Teaching Assistants. The quality of education has come on in leaps but yes at a cost, but IMO for the countries future, our children worth every penny.
Not everyone can go to Eton like the Bullingdon Boys you know.
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Ref: 115. Trudy_Victoria
One last point. Don?t think a lot of these new builds are actually yours, they have been paid for under PFIs. (a clever little off the balance sheet trick) Built by private enterprise and the government then rents them back for decades often at well over the normal market rates.
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125# get this straight, once and for all.
I am not Angela!, I do not post under the name of Angela, and if you require any verification regarding this matter. Please contact the Moderators..
I hope I have made myself abundantly clear and you do not resort to accuse me of being someone other than who I say I am ever again.
I trust I will not have to remind you of this again. Please feel free to ask the regulator to check this matter out, they have the IP chicken numbers of every computer that posts to this site. Please feel free to check,if you are so suspicious.
A very angry TRUDY VICTORIA!!!
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127 Yes Eatonrifle I know only too well about the books as I ran a bring and buy, a charity stall and run raffles just to get books that the State system should have and did not provide for.
I also had to send children to School with Macs if there was a rain forecast to stop them getting soaked answering the call of nature.
I have been on before mainly to contact Grandantidote we are political soulmates.
Just run back on previous threads you will see them there.
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Ref 127. Eatonrifle
I think we agree, the kids are worth it. I liked the sound of E,E,E, My point is high taxation, value for money and government waste.
If it costs 6600 to educate a state child and 8000 to go private.. This can not be value from the state given the difference in standards. Would you send your kids privately for another 1400. Not all private schools are like Eton and they arnt in the 8000 bracket any how.
How do you as a school governor excuse this, where does the money go? Genuinely interested to know.
Where do you see the quality of education improving, the universities don?t seem to agree, they are starting to introduce their own entrance exams as they cant trust A levels and many complain that arrivals cant construct a basic essay. Most commentators seem to say the exam papers are easier.
I accept we needed a building program, but do note much has been paid for under PFIs and will not actually be paid for for decades and will actually cost more in the long term. These building have not been bought they are being rented.
Im all for paying the high cost so long as the results are good, 600 failing schools. No not convinced? Yet. See what you can do with some facts and figures.
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125# Now down to pure politics amd I must say you are a way out.
First "People see the services and do not like what they see"
Well dash my ribbons did people like what they GOT! not what they seen when they had to wait anything up to 2 years to have a hip replaced, where some died waiting in queues just to just to see a Heart or Cancer specialist?
Do not forget there was a queue just waiting to join a queue to get on a list to see the Consultant.
Did people like what they seen when they had relatives waiting on trolleys to get a bed in a hospital beacuse of the winter crisis.
Did the 3.5 million people who were unemployes like what they seen when they tried in vain for a job, any job just to maintain their self respect and dignity and to keep body and soul together?
Did people like what they seen when some were working for as little as 80p per hour?
Did some like what they seen when the Conservatives voted against the minmum wage?
Did the Woman prisoner who was in Labour pains like it when Anne Wddecombe had her put in handcuffs to a bed just as she was about to give birth.
I could go on but I have given you a slight taster, plenty more of that ilk to come.
Last but not least, of course nobody likes the price of petrol at the pumps.
Whose fault is that and are the people in this Country the only people this is affecting. Get real, read the press they are striking in all the EU Countries about this. This problem is International and not peculiar to this Country alone.
Or can you tell me different?
Last but not least can your friend Cameron order the oil cartel to reduce the prices?
He cannot even get an ally in the EU never mind anything else.
Not to worry though he can always hug a hoodie or cuddle a Husky.
Feel free to argue with those points if you like.
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I'm beginning to doubt that kiwilegs is on holiday!
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Gosh Trudy
A simple typo, I was on the phone to an Angela while typing and seem to have crossed hemispheres.
Feel free to call me Robin.
My sincere appologies and perhaps more brandy
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133 Kiwilegs is on holiday are you forgetting the time difference of approx. 5 hours?
Or were you unaware of it?
What is around 10 pm UK time is teatime in some parts of the USA.
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131 Absolute utter rubbish about 600 failing schools. Where did you get thise figures from the Gideon Osborne School of Economics?
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132
Trudy,
Got...Seen same thing in my mind.
I think I said I agreed with spending on NHS, in fact I think I said spend more and I have no problem with the min wage in fact I live in London so anyone on it here is close to starvation unless they live with their parents.
Reduce waste so we can spend more there.
Might be helpful if you read my post and answered some of the specific points I make about waste rather than move on to fuel prices, oil cartels or handcuffs. Otherwise its not really a debate.
think Ive said before Im no Tory, always a floating voter, voted for Labour the last 2 out of 3 times. I think I may have voted Tory once, but I was young.
There goes my chance of getting a Tory seat.
Cant argue one jot with your last paragraph, agree entirely.
So can we stop the socialist love in with you three and really get to grips with the points I made.
Did you see that prison by the way.
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134# Once agin your nous lets you down.
Allow me to inform you the time on a post is that when it reaches its intended recipient, not when it crosses hemispheres.
If you did not know that before you know it now, and once again feel free to check this out.
Your facts are sadly lacking and leave a lot to be desired.
You know the old saying it is best to say nowt and have people think one is a fool than to speak up and prove it.
Could that apply to you I ask myself?
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136 Trudy
Actually from Ed Balls and quite right its not 600 its 638.
Report from the guardian
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2284728,00.html
Report from the Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2103801/Ed-Balls-threatens-600-failing-schools-with-closure.html
Just want to appear balanced.
And all threatened with closure if they dont pull their socks up. And thats after 11 years of EEE.
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138 Trudy
Sorry again. (I actualy meant in my head, crossed wires etc. not this forum but hey)
And on your last point... maybe.
I clearly dont agree with your politics, they are too resolute for me but would never infer you were a fool.
On that note I shall bow out and wish you good night.
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137 You see this waste thing. I have heard this same argument from consecutive would be Governments for Donkey's years, they all have it on their wish lists but never actually achieve it. Of course there is going to be waste, we live in a wasteful throw away society that is a fact of life. Nobody likes it, this should be tackled head on. They all give it their best shot and they all fail.
They all will as long as we are dealing with human beings and not robots.
It is a myth to think otherwise.
This is more to do with the size of the NHS rather than neglect and the will to try and improve the situation.
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131 RussellHolmstoel "Where do you see the quality of education improving, the universities don?t seem to agree, they are starting to introduce their own entrance exams as they cant trust A levels "
I don't like to intrude into a private argument, but I did point out to you earlier that the main problem that universities have with A levels is that they do not discriminate adequately between the excellent and the very good. With many ore kids taking A levels these days it is not surprising that there are more who get the top grade - but if you've got 20 applicants with 5 A grades and only 10 places how do you choose? Interviews are dicey because very subjective, so one of the few options is to introduce a separate exam to identify the best of the best.
As for the general argument, I have previously commented that as a former Governor the vast improvement in the quality of provision as testified by Eatonrifle in #127 is my experience as well. Perhaps I could add that I used to be a Governor of a public school as well as of a comprehensive, and your simplistic analysis of the relative cost benefits of the two systems is off beam. For a start, the public school didn't just have more current income but also benefitted from the accumulated 'capital' of decades of better funding.
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#139 RussellHolmstoel: Oh, and while I'm at it, I did explain what 'failing' means in respect of the 638 schools you mention. In 1997 I doubt whether any of them would have been seen as 'failing' beacuse the standards were significantly lower than those now being set.
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139 You have that figure taken way out of context. I did read online what Balls had to say about those Schools.
What he said was he required these 638 Schools to be the same as the best of the best and that those that were really failing would be given the time and opportunity to improve, after a given time if there was no improvement he would use alternative methods to bring them up to scratch or close them. he was going to see that standards are and were raised. Some were only just below the required standard and others to a lesser degree. You would do well to read the whole statement not the selective pieces as the Torygraph does. They after all have to sell there wares and they are going to make it as juicy as possible, without the facts getting in the way.
What you seem to forget is that not all children have the same learning capacity. Some are much slower than others. What you are also forgetting a lot of these schools have children attending where English is not their first language. How do you expect these to come up to standard over night.?
Ed Balls was talking about all of these things, which a right wing press would take care to douse.
And a sceptic would pounce on.
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Much that I am a huge fan of Gordon Brown, I do think a rapid re-think is required on Vehicle Excise Duty. Why not scrap the retrospective part and increase further still the tax on 3 litre plus new cars. The "politics of envy" I here you cry. Maybe, but the Porsche brigade can afford it. Now more than ever the middle man, "mondeo man", needs to feel that those with the capacity to pay more tax are paying more. This might make a few New Labour people shudder but Labour must show they understand that hard-working people on middle incomes are going to get some short term respite.
In a tough economic period this would be a an easy way to show Labour are listening.
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140
Try again when your head clears and then wires will not be crossed.
As for my politics we all vote for that which is important to us all AND that which life throws at us.
Please bear in mind that the author of the last Conservative manifesto which was the most right wing ever written was by David Cameron where they wanted patients passports. The manifesto to me was frightening.
The health service is very important to me along with a good education for all children.
That does not mean to say every child is going to be a genius they will not. They will only manage what they are capable of plus a little more if stretched then no further.
Only to the point of their learning capacity no further and to try and stretch it further could damage the child.
I am sure nobody would wish that ever.
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145. My gut feeling and it is only that, something will be said about that in the chancellors forecast in the Autumn.
Please do not forget, I do believe this does not come into force for another year or so yet.(Not absolutely certain of that though so it may not happen) The present economic circumstances could improve allowing Alistair Darling to do something about it. I feel sure now he realises the effects of this he will not want to see another 10p fiasco.
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125 before I sign off I would like to bring you back to another point regarding prisons.
Now with the exception of paedophiles and a few others who commit the most heinous of crimes. Those above it is unprintable what I would like to do to them, quite apart from throwing the keys away.
Why should the internet not be used as a source of learning inside prisons?
The internet is not always for frivilous things. Education is never wasted and the internet is one of the best souces of learning ever.
A lot of people go wrong in their lives, then when they are shown by good example a different way it can and does turn lives around. Everybody is worth another chance in this life and we should not deny that to anyone.
If the internet helps then why not?
Taking a persons liberty is the real punishment in prison not to deny them that which can improve their lives more especially education and it just may show them the error of their ways and a better way forward.
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Ref 143. jimbrant.
Pleased for the interruption sorry you didn?t get back to me on my last post. Its good to get some good points back rather than endless socialist rhetoric.
Point 1
A levels do not discriminate adequately between the excellent and the very good.
As an employer I would say that they barely seem to discriminate at all.
Last year over 25% of exams received an A grade, over 96% got an A-E grade (passed). I assume just 4% fail. It smells of dumbing down to me but Im a skeptic when it comes to any govenrments statistics.
Point 2
600 Failing schools in relation to 1997.
I accept that standards must have risen, both in terms of structures and teaching standards. I wasnt really comparing Labour v Tory standards. I was comparing Labours achievements with what it has promised and the value for money it provided.
In the private sector when someone presents a case for investment. They outline their vision, plans, methods, systems etc. When the plan come to fruition the results are examined; they are compared to the expected outcomes and not with some other poor managers attempt 11 years ago, especially if that particular manger had no where near the same level of funding. That is a chalk and cheese comparison.
You say that you are not surprised that one third of the new academies are on the list for a variety of reasons. I gather that there are over 30000 schools in the UK. If this is true how can a flag ship school, the very best of what the government can put together, almost no expense spared still be in the bottom 2%. That does not indicate value to me it indicates wasted expenditure. May be not all but certainly considerable.
Ironically one of the threats from the education secretary is to hand the failing schools over to private firms. So essentially privatisation.
I do accept your point about funding and that private schools have had years of healthy investment. My 6600 v 8000 analysis is over simplified. But it seems to me to be a very good indicator of something being quite wrong.
The public seem to agree, record numbers of people are leaving the state system and this despite a huge investment by the state and a massive increase in private fees. Many just want smaller class sizes out from the culture of testing and targets and a return to basics. They cant all be wrong.
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How many times have governments said they will save money to cut taxes by cutting back on waste? It never happens.
This subject is too complicated for me and for most people on this blog. The economy has so many variables that has taken on a life of its own. It almost like trying to model the climate(Cue scepticmax).
Inflation seems to be down to oil prices which has a knock on effect on transporting food. and I think the idea of 'saving money for a rainy day'(patronising even for me!) Which I think means give tax cuts to help people suffering from inflation. Would put more money into the system and cause more inflation!
I think people who say the conservatives are better at the economy are living in the 1980's and comparing the conservatives then with labour of the 1970's that comparison might be true. But what other evidence do they have?
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149# and others
Russell.
Not read all your mails but the jist appears to be comparing public and state sector education.
Do you feel the fact that the state sector takes absolutely everyone of all abilities from a wide cross-section of the community of varying backgrounds and social differences etc tc etc may magnify the difference in eventual outcomes at the end of the process?
Its not really a like for like comparison is it?
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re 115/150 and various other similar postings:
Actually, waste has been eliminated before, but only under the tories, and never under labour.
Thatcher had a massive waste purge and managed to get the country out of bankruptcy because of it.
The trouble is she went too far and people started losing their jobs.
Thatcher basically stood up and said "no, that's not reasonable, you'll get treated the same as everyone else and if you don't like it then get another job" to unions when they asked for insane pay increases and perks, and she also said that for public money to be spent on an organisation which was failing financially due to mis-management was unfair to the tax payer.
Her basic logic was sound/good on that front; why should government organisations be allowed to waste huge oodles of public money when instead they could fire the incompetents and reform/reorganise so that they don't just waste all our money.
A country can't run all its government/public bodies by just throwing money at things and hoping that some of it sticks; they need to be run/funded more intelligently otherwise the country goes bankrupt as it has now done.
It's the "just throw more money and hope some of it sticks" attitude of Brown/Labour which people don't like; we're not saying that things shouldn't be funded, we're saying that it needs to be funded/managed properly and not just left to incompetents to fritter away all the money.
PFI is a classic example where labour's people who create/finalise the contracts have no idea what they're doing and end up wasting billions because they just don't understand how the commercial sector works and so they draft completely insane contracts that do things like pay a company 100's of millions to do nothing.
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You are right that you can't throw money at a problem and hope some of it sticks. But isn't it also correct that if you cut services too much, cutting spending unintelligently to save for election winning tax cuts, it could go badly wrong and end up costing more to put right.
Thats what happened to the last Conservative government with the NHS, schools and other things. They had quangos,too much management, targets,PFI and the Millenium dome! as well. Labour spent money trying to put that right. rebuilding crumbling old schools and hospitals.
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Ref 151 Eatonrifle
No its not a completely a fair comparison and yes there is bound to be a bigger variation in eventual outcome with the state system. I was just astonished at how close the figures were though and Im still not sure if the 6600 for a state child includes out of school / government administration. Jimbrant didn?t confirm that.
I just felt the figures added weight to my key argument of public sector waste and inefficiency and Labours tendency to throw money at problems and not deliver value for my hard earnt tax.
Not that I have heard any fantastic policies on the matter form the opposition.
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re: 153
yes, that's correct; I'd agree with you on that.
You can mathematically/logically cut taxes and cut spending while still maintaining (or even improving) the standards of the public services, it's just a question of working out where the waste is and how to get better value for money and improving efficiency.
There'll always be some losers, but there has to be some pain to fix the problem. eg if you've got 10 government bureaucrats being paid to do a job which is essentially pointless, then you need to sack them to save public money; those 10 people will lose their jobs which isn't nice for them, but without losing that kind of waste the country's done for.
I think the mistake that labour's made is to increase spending (beyond the country's capacity to bear that level of spending) but generated as much waste/mis-management as humanly possible along the way (not intentionally, but through negligence/incompetence)
So, I say, yes; refurbish a school with public money, but don't pay a consultant half a million pounds to tell you what colour paint to use.
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152#
I'd say the biggest waste of public money EVER was under Thatchers glorious government. Paying out afortune in unemplowment benefits for people who wanted to earn a living to sit at home on the dole. From about 1.5 million to 3.5 Million on the dole in about 2 years and you talk of waste!! Wasting money and peoples lives and self respect.
Please tell me how was that eliminating waste, I'd love to know????
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Ref 156. Eatonrifle
Im not sure about current unemployment figures though as I gather that Nu Labour has moved many long term unemployed on to disability benefits. So the true measure would be to add both unemployed and those on disability benefit together and see how they stack up. I read a very interesting article recently that said if you do add both figures together and compare them with France (who does have a big unemployment problem) then you get a very similar figure. Cant recall the source so cant substantiate that. Do you have any figures? Interested to know.
In direct answer to your post, I cant comment on whether it was the biggest waste ever, not even sure what the cost was. I have no figures. But I agree 3.5 million must have been expensive and did ruin a lot of peoples lives.
The factors that I recall was that the economy was dire, and poor management and the waste involved in running so many nationalised industries at huge losses and powerful unions holding business to ransom was not helpful. I guess some pretty awful medicine was required. Thatcher took that view and the people agreed.
When Nu Labour came to power I welcomed them with open arms. I really did like the sound of Education Education Education and investment in public services. I thought they were a breath of fresh air. I was fed up of Tory sleaze. In the same way that I now resent GB I resented John Major and his coronation.
All this being accepted or not. The fact that some government 11 years ago got it wrong is just no excuse for the current government to get it wrong today. Wahts done is done, the future is up for debate.
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If Cameron does make it to number 10 he will have to wake up and join the real world.
Anyone can criticise others with hindsight. But when you are in the hot seat and have to make the decisions life is not so cosy.
The usual line when taking office is i know we said we would do this but we didnt realise the economy was in such bad shape.
With Cameron it is different because no one has a clue what he would do in number 10.
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157#Russell, just a quick Three Ha'pence worth for me.
Sorry I cannot reply
for a few days as I am unsure exactly where we will be.
Russell, allow me to correct this myth about Labour and Disability Benefits.
Only a GP can refer a patient to a specialised Medical Board, to find out if his/her patient is eligible to receive such benefits.
After lengthy medical examinations a panel decides if the said patient can or cannot receive benefits.
There is an appeals system as most fail at the first hurdle, it is not as easy to obtain these benefits, as one may think.
The sole reason I know this is, two of my sons are Doctors, one a GP in the UK.
He told me of the present procedure, as this was comparitively recent, rest assured, it will be accurate.He is not the type that makes many errors.
Now you possess the facts regardless of what you have read, as I reminded you once before, the Daily Rags are there to sell newspapers, and none allow facts to get in the way of a good story.
Now we have destroyed one myth I will move on to another.
I would like to re-enforce a remark that Eatonrifle @ 156 has passed.
During the last few years of the last Conservative Government. There was more money spent on unemployment benefits than there was on the defence of the realm.
That is a verifiable fact.
Contrary to what people thought, there was approximately 5 million people unemployed.
The reason that particular figure is higher than that which one normally hears is perfectly easily explained.
From the end of WW2 up until a few years ago, a married lady could pay half stamp and her husbands NI contributions paid for her pension when the lady reached 60 years old.
What the lady could not claim was sickness benefits or unemployment benefits as the half stamp did not cover those benefits.
So when the evils of unemployment was at its height, there were thousand and thousands of ladies unemployed, who never got onto any registar or count.
The figures were massaged and in turn theywere fraudulent.
The Conservative Government disguise them for obvious reasons.
Last but not least, when Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair, had he have gone to the Country, he would have won hands down.
Can I remind you about David Cameron, his ratings and his flip-flopping.
Plus the fact he did not acquire the nom-de-plume of Chamelion without earning it.
I do not think I need to pursue that one any further. That is another fact of life.
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159. Trudy_Victoria
Like I said the true measure would be to add both unemployed and those on disability benefit together and see how they stack up. This is regardless of who verifies who is sick and who is unemployed. The accounts don?t care about that. Just who is out of work. Or in fact who is costing what.
But we need all the figures to do any form of meaningful comparison.
Im not really into comparing things with 11 years ago, I agree that government then was poor, but the world has moved on since then. You know the core argument of my thread and its value for money now.
You are right about GB, he probably would have won as would have Major. Actually Major did win an election. Brown wont. I would vote for neither today or then. Neither have great leadership qualities.
But here is some figures to consider (you used this analysis so I will stay with you.)
The cash Defence budget currently stands at 30 billion per annum, (about the same as the French by the way except they aren?t crusading in the east).
Labour claim that unemployment currently costs 11 Billion
But they also admit that there are 2.7 million on incapacity benefit, and that this costs a further 11.8 Billion. Lone parent support costs another 9.7 billion and Income support 9.1 billion. So even with some adjustments and errors they too are well over the cost of the defence of the realm and the Tories weren?t fighting 2 wars. Some argue that the true cost is over 60 billion.
I know you think Brown is a great statesman, and that?s fine, but polls show labours support at an all time low since records began in 1930.
Brown's personal ratings, which have fallen from plus 48 last August to minus 37, on a zero midpoint scale. I quote "The collapse is the most dramatic of any modern-day prime minister, worse even than Neville Chamberlain who in 1940 dropped from plus 21 to minus 27 after Hitler's invasion of Norway," Source Reuters April 08.
So hes less popular with the British public than the PM who misjudged Hitler. Now be fair that is an incredible achievement. And that was before David Davies started crusading for liberty and bumped the Tories up 2 points.
All that said and done my point is still that this guy does not give me value for what I pay in taxation. Too much is wasted. I actually cant find anyone in day to day life who disagrees, just a few die hards on this forum.
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And to think that not too long ago someone on here was talking about 'reading with relish' about The David Davis affair while on a flight over The Atlantic.
The demise of our economy meanwhile is nothing for anyone to be pleased about because it will take years to recover from and that affects all of us from whatever political persuasion.
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Russelholm
Russell, you've had a lot to say about "Waste" and Value for money in Education, Health amd the NHS, the benefits system. Its a word bandied around all the time usually by opposition politicians. What are the wasteful poor value issues you're talking about exactly in schools for eg, what is it that you see as "waste"?
Are teachers overpaid is it that?
To much spent on new IT and books perhaps?
Free school meals where needed?
Costs of maintaining and cleaning?
What is it you're referring too OR is it just the general sweepin "waste and bureaucracy" statements that have been made by opposition (usually Tory) MPs since for ever.
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162:
I used to work in Education and will attempt to answer your points in a simple way:
'Are teachers overpaid is it that?
Too much spent on new IT and books perhaps?
Free school meals where needed?
Costs of maintaining and cleaning?'
None of these. These are essentials at the chalk face and cannot in all fairness be condemned as being wasteful expenditure. Where there appears to have been waste however and billions of it is in the area of administrators, needless paperwork and an exodus of teachers after years of training because of the stresses involved in what is steadily becoming an extremely and almost impossibly difficult job.
The same waste argument applies to Government quangos which have proliferated over the last 10 years and have also consumed many billions of taxpayer's revenue with little end result it appears.
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Ref 162. Eatonrifle
I do wonder about the socialist element on this forum, I question waste and expenditure and you immediately think I am some Thatcherite that wants to cut teachers pay and abolish free school meals.
I think I given some pretty good examples so far if you go back thro my posts. Essentially I have 2 issues. 1 the waste and 2 this government does not give you the complete picture about how much debt we as a nation are in.
A country just like an individual has to be able to afford what it buys. It cant just keep spending regardless of income or need. I do despise the staggering interference.
But you asked me a specific question where I see waste and inefficiency so here goes:
The Chinooks.
The MoD?s civil servants, despite hiring consultants to help them, forgot to include in the contract a clause which allowed them to test the Chinooks for airworthiness. When the helicopters arrived from America, they turned out not to comply with UK safety standards. The upgrade has taken two decades and cost £300 million, and will probably cost at least £200 million more.
Billions wasted by the NHS on the new computer system, with no sign of ever working properly. Over 20 billion according to the Guardian
The billions that disappeared forever with the introduction of Gordon Brown's tax credit system (by the end of its first year, the computerised system had paid out more than £2.2 billion to people who were not entitled to it.
The PAC last week took a look at how the Home Office had managed to waste £29 million of taxpayers' money on thinking about building a centre to hold asylum seekers. ( The centre never got built) The Home Office's civil servants decided that they had to hire outside consultants to advise on how the money allocated for the project could best be spent.
I thought that was what civil servants were paid to do. But these days, their only real responsibility seems to be to decide how many outside consultants they will hire. On this particular project, more than £7 million pounds - almost a quarter of the total budget spent - went straight into the pockets of consultants.
The PAC found that the whole project "embodied a lack of foresight, poor business planning, and a startling absence of common sense."
Those brilliant consultants - and some of them were paid more than £15,000 per month - were supposed to at least make sure the Home Office did not do something obviously stupid, such as signing a contract commissioning builders to construct the centre before planning permission had been obtained. They failed. So the Home Office had to pay out a further £7.9 million in "termination fees" to the building companies when the centre was cancelled.
I could continue with ID cards, The Olympics etc but you get the picture. But you will recall they gave us a figure, trebled it within months and then they realised they had not added VAT.
No one in the Home Office will lose their job because of the millions wasted on that asylum centre, no one in the Ministry of Defence has suffered for the Chinooks, and no one in the NHS is held accountable for the computer system, and no one in the Treasury will even be ticked off for the tax credit cock up.
You might think the PAC's criticism would cause ministers or at least officials, to hang their heads in shame. But no the Home Office said the whole episode had produced an "overall positive impact for the public", because "officials have learned important lessons. Well Yes a 29 million pound lesson.
Think what you could with all that in the areas that you mention in you post.
You socialists need to look a lot harder at who you support and how you question them and how you hold them to account. Its too easy to just listen to what they tell you and carry on sleep walking into financial catastrophe, after all it?s the poor who really suffer not the wealthy, they just cut back on a few holidays and put off buying a new car and perhaps reduce the gardeners hours.
Hope that wasnt too sweeping
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Ref 162. Eatonrifle
As Im on a roll.
The Arts Council spent 77,000 sending a team of artists to the North Pole to make a snowman.
Quangos cost over 22 billion per year.
Ken Livingstone's office cost 13.9 million to run. His staff includes 58 media and marketing personnel!
Nottinghamshire tourism bosses spent 120,000 of taxpayers' money rebranding the county with a big 'N'.
Each European member of Parliament (MEP) costs 2.4 million per year in salary, expenses, perks and administration.
And you may have spotted the error above on the Chinooks. I meat years not decades to refit. The aircraft were originally ordered by the MoD in 1995 at a cost of £259m.
But my issue is not just about party politics its about government waste and inefficiency. Its just your team is in power right now and they have a tendancy to spend spend spend and mislead us on the numbers.
I also accept that under investement and leaving infrastructure to rot is also waste and the Tories were guilty of that in spades. But that was 11 years ago
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Russell_homstoeal@160
As pushing people onto disability to massage the unemployment figures started under Margaret Thatcher while she was closing down British industry during her war against the unions, I would suggest that you also add up disability and unemployment figures from that time. we still say 3 million unemployed in the 80's when it was probably more. so you cant start taking the disabled and sick into account now.
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Russell,
Lots of examples there though a bit thin on education which was the essance of the question.
I think in every organisation public or private there is and alwats will be waste. From my own household with lights accidentailly left on, out of date food chucked etc yo any large corporate. I would guess the bigger you get the more you'll find. Bad decisions made, projects started and terminated, estimates of cost wildly under eventual cost. I doubt this is just a government phenominon, its just part of how the world lives.
I bet Microsoft, about as big as most governments have seen billions go down the pan on projects or takeovers that have not worked. As I say the bigger the organisation and lets be honest running a country is pretty big, you'll get waste.
If its as easy to eradicate as you suggest from the hindsight armchair how come no one manages to achieve it, as I say public or private, large or small.
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Ref 166. dhwilkinson
Agreed. My point was that labour took it well beyond what to Tories did.
But you are right about comparing the two figures from both eras and I don?t have the figures. They seem very hard to find. There is a lot of assumption here based without the figures. Im asking does anyone have the figures or the costs. Then we can compare. Lets not believe spin, show me the numbers.
I wanted to point out that you can not just say uneployment is low so all is well. I further wanted to point out that if it is down then one factor is massive economic growth over the past decade and that?s been a global thing.
Also a lot of the jobs created have been in the public sector and as these are not wealth creating and as such there is a huge and contined cost to us as tax payers. And again Im not saying some wernt need.
Im saying prima facia it looks like its gone too far.
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Ref : 167 Eatonrifle
I got a bit side tracked with jimbrant on education. And have covered that, look back at my points made to him. The specifics being the grand academies and the value for money and the 6600 v 8000 for state v private costs. Look wrong to me.
Agreed there will always be waste and everyone makes mistakes. Agreed the bigger the organisation the bigger the waste.
I think that the reason many people are angry with labour is that they see their taxes going up and up and up, but have not received what labour promised them for the buck. Labour made a promising start. I voted for them twice.
This governments biggest mistake in my eyes is their acceptance of waste. The repercussion are nil for those who cock up. This is your money, you should be furious and heads should role, people should be fired for incompetence. Instead we just get ?oh well there goes another 2 billion keep your heads down chaps?. You recall ?good day to bury bad news on 9/11. well thats the culture.
Their second mistake is top down state control and big government, they love it. And that leads to massive waste. When people are put in control of their own money they spend wisely. When an official has big pot with an endless stream, well you can imagine how cautious he is.
Microsoft can loose all they like, its not my money and even if they go bust it does not affect our childrens education, our medical care or our teachers pay. I bet Bill gates runs a tighter ship that GB though. You just know that and I mean on a pro rata basis.
Its not easy to eradicate waste, I agree there. I suspect it is very easy to reduce it from where it is now though and that?s my point.
I want a government who takes that responsibility seriously and one who doesn?t issue a statement saying ?it was worth the 29 million folks because the officials have learnt a valuable lesson?. They might as well just say ?bleep bleep? its just as offensive.
I really do want my tax to fund the things that I can tell you hold dear. I do not want a big tax cut. I want my money to go to the kids, the sick, the elderly, the disabled, foreign aid, and social projects for inner city kids etc. Not an NHS computer system that the doctors never even wanted in the first place and certainly not a polar snow man and definitely not on Margaret Beckets garden or other outrageous expenses.
I want politicians and civil servants to be much more accountable and to really worry about wasting my very hard earnt tax.
I want blood on the carpet when they cock up, certainly on the scale I described in 164
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To reduce waste by the state, the state needs to do less.
I'm pretty sure that if 50% of public sector workers - the 50% who are not 'front line staff ' disappeared tomorrow, public services would not be notably worse - and probably even better.
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Poverty is the only way to cure a broken society. People have to rely on one another and individuality is scorned.
I think our politicians are setting the scene nicely for the repair work needed.
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170#
There was a saying that the Conservatives are never happy until they have three men chasing the one job.
It was so true in the run up to the 90's where they fought tooth and nail to see the minimum wage defeated and by not having it introduced into this country.
They insisted quite vociferously that the minimum wage would cost jobs.
Gordon Brown showed them differently.
I think we will see heavy unemployment if they are ever returned to power.
They accept now that the minimum wage had a culmative effect on jobs.
I think a spell of hard unemployment would do a lot in this Country a power of good, as some do not realise just how well off they are and have been for the past 10 years.
Unemployment will certainly concentrate the mind to the fact that, people never realise what they have got until they loose it.
They will learn the hard way as others have done in the past, it is coming, especially if Cameron is elected, make no mistake about that.
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172 Trudie Victoria once again I have to fully agree with every thing you say, of course you will still get the typical tory rants from some posts,although they will protest that their not Tories. Lets sack 50% of public sector workers that will solve our problem. It does'nt matter that the 50% have wives /husbands and children and motgages to pay, sack them thats the answer, Just like Maggie did to the miners etc, as long as I'm alright jack to hell with everyone else thats the Tory way and if Dangerous Dave gets in many people will learn this to there cost.
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Trudie Victoria, I remember many years ago an old chap saying to me "socialism breeds conservatism" at that time I thought what on earth does that mean, Well in the last year or so I have realised how right he was.
Now that every one has a good standard of living, record numbers of people owning their own homes, nice cars somtimes their chidren have nice cars also.
Their homes are all nicely furnished and stuffed with all sorts of equipment they could only have dreamed about twelve years ago.
I wont go into all the wonderfull progress that Labour have brought to schools and hospitals etc but there for all to see.
Every mistake thats made and there are some, the Tories and the Tory press are on it like a flash, never any praise for what Labour have done but boy do they love it even if the smallest mistake is made.
Now after eleven years of good living there comes a world recession,not the fault of the government but because they have experienced the cosy life under Labour they start to feel betrayed.
Their going to have to tighten their belts for a while, Tories jump in with all sorts of solutions to the problems. Problems that they were never able to deal with when they were in power but now they have the power of the tory Media thrown in behind them.
The people who have had it so good for all these years think well the Tories are saying they can fix it so we dont have to tighten our belts, labour have been good they say, but were not going to lose it now so we had better vote Tory after all we are not the poor people that we were twelve years ago are we.
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Ref 172. Trudy_Victoria
When you said?. I think a spell of hard unemployment etc. I actually thought that you were Thatcher talking about protesting minors and workers from all those highly subsidised loss making nationalised industries.
You and grandantidote may agree on this point, But I would never wish unemployment on any one and certain don?t think it has ever done anyone any good. Well may be Arthur Scargill and Derek Hatton.
Re your comment 141 have a look at mine to Eatonrifle 164, 165 169and tell me what you think about the issues on waste. Interested to hear specifics not general feelings or anything from the Thatcher years. We are agreed there were lots of mistakes in that period and under investment is just waste by another name. But lets move on to now and todays wrongs.
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Ref grandantidote
OK some good points,
I take the view that neither the boom or the bust looming had little to do with Labour The power of the global economy is too massive for a little government such as ours to have much of an effect. You only appear to agree on the latter though.
Where government can have an effect is to be prudent with our taxation. Reduce debt during the good times so that when hard times come, as they always do, they can ease the pain with tax breaks, which in turn stimulates growth. If you have little debt then you can increase borrowing so again the pain isnt felt quite so much. Especially by the vulnerable.
Over spending and increasing debt during the good times is just not prudent. Waste on a massive scale has always been a Labour problem essentially because it believes in big government. Its not hard for the Tories to leap on. Talk about giving your enemy a big target to hit.
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@176 russellholmstoel
What you are suggesting about giving tax cuts during the hard times would be a wrong.
The current hard times are due to inflation. If you give everyone a tax cut, that is the equivalent of giving everyone a pay rise. leading to more inflation and less revenue for the government to spend wisely or otherwise. and also the tax cut will be also worthless.
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Ref 177. dhwilkinson
Yes and no depends where you cut the tax. You have to target the cuts not just give everyone an equal reduction.
Fuel prices are currently driving up inflation, cut the duty and you cut the cost of fuel and reduce inflation.
You encourage economic growth by increasing the rewards for work and reducing the cost of producing goods and services. Reducing tax can do both.
The aim being to increase the total tax take but reduce the percentage.
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177. dhwilkinson
You could also give small business a break. that stimulates investment and job creation.
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I think a cut on duty would lead to that cut being taken up as profit. They know how much you are willing to pay so they will take it.
I would like to see a freeze and help for HGVs and Buses. HGV help would obviously help with inflation. and it would reduce the cost oftransporting goods.
help with Buses and Trains would stop the ridiculous sitiuation of the tax going up to deter people from their cars and fares going up at the same time. because they have to pay more tax on diesel. This would also help inflation.
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Ref 180. dhwilkinson
Possibly on the fuel price point, Markets generally don?t behave like that in reality though so along as there is a reasonable level of competition. But you could deliver that tax cut specifically as a rebate to road hauliers and business users as you say.
You mention public transport and I agree the fares are just bonkers. I just wonder if there is much waste there. You just know it.
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well consider if GB decided to cut fuel tax by 20p a liter tomorrow that would look very nice to most people, but were does the money come from to replace that tax and it would have to be replaced thats obvious so the Tax is put on food, clothes etc.
The statement would not have left the house of commons before the Tories and the Tory media would be screaming stealth tax from the roof tops.
People have to realise that there is no quick fix to this problem its beyond the control of any party ,so ignore all the posturing we just have to hang on until negotiations take place to try to bring things back to normal, GB has been trying to help to sort things out this weekend,Alan Duncans response was incredible, totally dismissive but not a suggestion of what he would do, as usual tyicaly Tory.
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182: very true about the quick fix; there is no quick fix.
How can there be a quick fix for a country whose economy has been completely destroyed, where the government debt is mind-blowingly large, where we have a recession on our hands, where inflation is sky high, where nobody can get a mortgage, where the country has no savings put by, where there's been a run on a major bank, etc etc....(oh, of course, none of that's Brown's/Labour's fault; it's all down to the Americans)
There is only one fix, and that's to get rid of Brown/Labour so that we don't waste any more money, then get someone in charge who actually knows what they're doing.
Where does the money come from? It comes from not wasting obscene amounts of public money from mismanagement and total stupidity of everything they touch.
Brown's/Labour's answer to everything is "throw more money at it and hope the problem goes away", that needs to stop, and they all need kicking out right now before the country ends up even more bankrupt than we already are.
It is not beyond the control of any political party, but it is beyond the ability of the labour party as they don't understand basic maths/economics.
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Brown's response at the oil summit was very telling.
Firstly he wants the saudis to increase production to help pay for his own mad levels of tax.
Secondly, because he's bankrupted the country, he wants the saudis to donate all their profits from oil to us by financing nuclear power stations in the uk.
Is he completely mad? I think so. I think his attitude/arrogance/stupidity at that summit pretty much said it all.
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183/184 getridofgordonnow, Even people who are vehemently apposed to GB are not blaming him for the price of fuel or food, I cant be bothered to go throught the many incorrect statements you've made on these two posts. I would be wasting my time trying to talk sense into you obviously, try to stop ranting and try to get your brain in gear before you post again,.
I think that last sentence of yours is more befitting to you than GB just drop the words at and summit.
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Ref 182. grandantidote
"consider if GB decided to cut fuel tax by 20p a liter tomorrow that would look very nice to most people, but were does the money come from"
It comes from extra borrowing. But that assumption is based on you not being at the top of your overdraft limit.
Hence the need for prudence and the reduction of national debt during times of sustained economic growth. It gives you room to manoeuvre when the tough times arrive.
Works for a country and works for you and me on a personal level.
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re 185 grandantidote:
I assume then that you think it was a good idea for Brown to tell the Saudis that they should finance their own competition here in the UK and to waste all their natural resources in a bid to help subsidise Brown's mad level of taxes? What part of Brown's wishlist to the Saudis wasn't completely mad, and why/how?
If you think that Brown/Labour haven't had a history of just throwing money at things and hoping some of it sticks, and generally mis-managed things dyuring the last 11 years then you're even more deluded than I thought.
If you think they haven't mis-managed things, then how come immediately following a long global boom we have no savings and a huge deficit and insane levels of tax?
I don't blame him for the price of food/fuel, but I do blame him for the level of tax on fuel and for the tax burden generally, especially as he's expanded the regressive nature of taxes so massively since 1997, and I also blame him for the fact that as a country we're now totally bankrupt.
Brown and his labour colleagues have no understanding of basic economics; any 12 year old could give you a huge list of the mind-blowingly stupid gaps/actions in the economic policies the last 11 years, and could also tell you the theory of how to improve things.
Sadly Brown doesn't have the understanding of a 12 year old when it comes to economic theory, neither do his labour colleagues, so we'll need to wait until a grown up becomes PM.
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Re 187 getrid
"..assume then that you think it was a good idea for Brown to tell the Saudis that they should finance their own competition here in the UK...."
The idea was to INVEST in alternative energies. Which could provide an extra income and give them other opportunities as the oil supply decreases. It is not competition as they will have no trouble at all selling the oil as demand outstrips supply all over the world.
This is an advantage to us as it reduces our dependancy on oil as will branching out into renewables might reduce the middle easts dependancy on supplying oil.
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re 188:
yes, I understand he was asking them to invest in alternatives for a possible future income, but it's equally true that he was asking them to invest in their own competition (ie to eliminate/minimise the need for their own main product/export)
If they really wanted to invest in alternatives then they wouldn't push all their money abroad and donate it to us, instead they'd invest in their own scientists/factories to invent/patent something that in the future will be able to generate much cheaper energy possibly from non-oil sources, and then they'd license that technology to other countries.
But to blindly pour money into your own competition in a foreign land is just complete madness; that's not investment, that's just charity, and they're not that stupid.
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getrid..@189
Its not Donation its Investing capital to gain a profit or share of a company. Its not pushing money abroad. That money comes back with a profit. Like on dragons den, They will not invest in a project without a good return.
They can also run or be partners in companies in the UK. Nearer to where the fuel is to be used or power supplied.
They won't have any trouble selling their oil for a long, long time to come and will develop a long term strategy for when the oil runs out.
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re 190 dhwilkinson:
It's not a real investment, Brown's idea is more like a dodgy christmas club fund where they'd get some money back if they're lucky but where they wouldn't own the rights to the technology to license it elsewhere.
They'd be funding their own competition, and getting some (not much) residual income from it if they're lucky.
Investing in your own competition for a partial residual income but no real potential big benefit, instead of investing in your own people/technology to license to others, would make no financial sense.
If the money's going spare then they'd be infinitely better placed by investing and then owning the rights to the technology rather than basically just buying a partial share in a factory.
If I had a choice between funding my competitors, or investing my time/money in making better products/services myself and then making a fortune from licensing/selling them and keeping control over it, I know what I'd do.
Brown's general business sense is completely non-existent; he's telling the Saudis to do things which make absolutely no financial sense, either in the long term or in the short term.
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another thing to remember regarding the Saudis is that if they invested in a UK company they could have all their technology/rights stolen from them.
eg even if they bought up an existing UK company lock stock and barrel who invent/patent/manufacture/license fantastic energy saving devices, the UK government could, if it wanted to, steal all the rights from under them and they'd lose everything.
Can that happen? Yes; it happened with the TSB; that was legally owned by the members before it was "privatised".
Thatcher was told she couldn't privatise is because the government didn't own it, the members did, so privatising it would be illegal.
She then did her Judge Dredd impression and just said "I *am* the law", stole the bank, sold it, and then pocketed all the money (on behalf of the government that is)
It's a massive risk for the Saudis; they'd definitely want to keep full control, and that means keeping the rights in their own jurisdiction.
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We are talking about alternatives to oil. At the moment oil has to be shipped out of Saudi Arabia because that's where it is.
It wouldn't make sense to produce alternatives in Saudi Arabia and ship them to the UK. We are also talking about power stations. So investments and companies would have to be here. or near this country.
Brown is suggesting that they invest in this country's alternative energy development that might help to ease the pressure on there oil supply. Due to greatly increased demand. Somehow I don't see the government stealing away patents. Clutching at straws I think.
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That'd just be straight-forward investment in an existing business/property then, rather than investing in an idea/technology, and they'd still be financing their own competition for not much return; I still think it doesn't make financial sense for them; there's a lot more things they could sink their money into for much better return and much less risk to their own business.
The uk government are quite likely to steal a patent if they deem it "in the public interest", this is especially relevant to energy saving technology.
Of course it wouldn't actually be theft in legal UK terms, because they'd enact a new law which gives it to themselves; if they're in fear of breaking the law then they just change the law; that's what happened with TSB (and Northern Rock for that matter) and countless other situations where they've fallen foul of the law and ended up changing the law so they can get away with something.
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