Iain Duncan Smith resigns, immolating George Osborne in the process

It's a sign of how mental George Osborne is that even IDS has quit rather than impose his plans to harvest organs from beneficiaries and put taxes on breast milk:

Iain Duncan Smith has resigned from his role as Work and Pensions Secretary complaining of Treasury pressure to make cuts to benefits.

In a statement to the media, Mr Duncan Smith said he "incredibly proud of the welfare reforms that the Government has delivered over the past five years" but said he is "unable to watch passively whilst certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self imposed restraints that I believe are...distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest".

Even Scrooge can't stomach what Osborne intends for the proles!

it is an impressive piece of political shafting by IDS.

IDS might have been a dreadful leader, an awful minister ... but quitting like this just days after the budget, and calling the budget a piece of ideologicaly motivated national sabotage must have put paid to Osborne's leadership hopes.

Nothing in his political life became him like the leaving of it, as Shakespeare almost said.

Fun fact - homelessness soars under Tories!

As an aside at the end of a rare positive story about Jeremey Corbyn, the Independent noted that the number of people sleeping rough in England rose from 1,768 in 2010 to 2,744 last year.

That's a 50% in just four years. Why isn't this a bigger story?

Oh, wait, a Kardashian is not wearing clothes ...

Do we just no care about the marginal? Yeah, that's kinda a rhetorical question.

 Margaret Thatcher supposedly once said that Tony Blair's Labour Party was her greatest achievement - a Labour party that repudiated socialism to get elected, and effectively embraced her market reforms and privatisations.

She under-valued her other great achievement, which was to usher in a new era of gutter press and yellow journalism, where important social issues are ignored because people - created in Thatcher's image - just don't care so much any more.

Labour's electoral disfunction

John Cruddas - the man I hoped might have been Labour leader in 2010 - has delivered his initial conclusions (if that isn't an oxymoron) about Labour's defeat in 2015.

The first hard truth is that the Tories didn’t win despite austerity, they won because of it. Voters did not reject Labour because they saw it as austerity lite. Voters rejected Labour because they perceived the Party as anti-austerity lite. 58% agree that, ‘we must live within our means so cutting the deficit is the top priority’. Just 16% disagree. Almost all Tories and a majority of Lib Dems and Ukip voters agree.

I'm confused about the idea the Tories are deemed economically competent.

Between 2010 and 2015, they managed to deliver Alastair Darling's economic plan - halving the deficit over a parliament.

George Osborne, you'll recall, wanted to eliminate it. He failed, and also strangled growth.

So I think the narrative is not that Labour lost because flaky on the economy but that Labour lost because of the perception that it was flaky on the economy. If anything, the Tories should have been castigated into atoms because of their failure to deliver their plan, their suffocation of the recovery and their reckless over-promising and under-delivering.

Of course, getting people to understand counter intuitive things - that it's not a bad idea to spend on infrastructure to help tomorrow's tax payers today is not actually a bad idea, and that cutting spending reducing economic growth - in an environment where reasoned argument is stifled by the mad wailing of the Mail, is another matter entirely.

Kendall speaks her branes

Liz Kendall has supported Harriet Harman's position that Labour should stop, you know, supporting working people and trying to share the wealth of the nation about a little bit more evenly:

“I think Harriet was right to say that we have to provide a credible alternative.  You said to us, we don’t trust you on the money, we don’t trust you on welfare reform,” Ms Kendall told BBC News.

“If we carry on making the same arguments as we have over the last five years we’ll get the same results. 

“I want to support what Harriet said, we have to listen to have people have said to us, that they didn’t trust us, and we have to change as a party.”

"Credible alternative."

That's the problem, Liz. You aren't providing an alternative. You're just agreeing with the Tories.

Alternative doesn't mean the same as agreeing.  If you have two things that are the same then one is not an alternative to the other.

Providing a credible alternative would involve describing and entirely different way of dealing with the problems facing Britain, rather than just indicating sheepish agreement.  It would involve speaking up in defence of the idea of redistribution - saying something simple and sane like, "Because it makes our society better and we all benefit from that."

You say that people don't trust Labour on "on the money" and on benefit reform.  You're response is to fall into line with George Osborne's plan to slash benefits to children.

That isn't offering a credible alternative.  A credible alternative would involve defending the positive legacy of Labour's years in power - and tax credits is one of them.

It would involve attacking the Conservative scaremonger on 'benefits' by exposing their benefits reforms for what they are - tools designed specifically to pauperise children, which will increase hardship and all the attendant social problems that accompany it.

You could mention that in your fantasy "credible alternative" speech and point out that "We all suffer from that" - a simple rhetorical device that has the advantage of being a truth, unlike your preposterous claim that aping Tory attacks on the poor - and the working poor at that - is offering a credible alternative.

Incidentally, you are wrong to suggest that carrying on having the same arguments will lead to the same results.  I'm sure you, Liz, are familiar with Schopenhauer's suggestion that "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

Political parties - even socialist ones - can be right about economics.  People - even those who vote Tory -- can be wrong.  If you think Labour pursued good and valid policies in supporting the welfare state and redistributing wealth and in making work pay, then that should be defended, even in the face of ridicule and opposition.  Because it is true and events will show it to be true.

Embracing incorrect thinking as a means to power is surely some sign of madness, or (worse) Blairism.

By refusing to defend credible economic positions, you're either revealing that you thought they were wrong (i.e. you disagree fundamentally with the ideas of the welfare state, re-distribution and fairness) or you are too craven to defend them because you're afraid of the ridicule of the Daily Mail.

Neither makes you a very appetising prospect as a Labour leader.

Even if I thought hammering the poor and working poor was a legitimate means to gain power (it isn't, it's just being a shit) I'd still say it wasn't a smart move because - here's a blinding truth for you - the Tories will always do it better.  You see, Liz, Labour can not beat the Tories at this game.  They are always going to be willing to cut further and cap more ruthlessly than Labour, because it's what they believe in.

And if you believe in it, then you rally need to think about why you want to lead the party that is supposed to support and represent the workers, the poor and the disadvantaged.

Because at the moment it sounds like you don't give a fuck about those people.

Put the Labour Party out of our misery, please

From The New Statesman:

The tighter household benefit cap (cut from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and £20,000 elsewhere) was similarly crafted with the “welfare party” in mind. The speed with which Labour endorsed the measure reflected how Osborne has moved the political centre of gravity to the right. Shadow cabinet ministers told me that they had moral objections to the policy but believe they cannot allow themselves to be outflanked by the Tories again on such an emotive issue.

Good Lord. What the Hell?

Are Labour really as awful as all that? I'd have thought hungry kids in rags getting shovelled out of their homes by bailiffs would have been precisely the sort of thing Labour would have wanted to be 'outflanked' on?

Because it is just the sort of stuff that drives home to people what these polices mean to the people affected by them.

Almost everyone opposes $26000pa handouts when it is just a number. Most of us don't actually want to see degradation and hardship that it means, however. Why we continue to allow the right to define this as an issue of 'benefit scroungers' and not an issue of insuring all Britain's children are well looked after is beyond me.

Is the only 'strategic vision' possessed by Labour really the desperate desire to avoid negative headlines in the Mail and Sun? Truly pathetic.

The current Labour PArty, transported back to the late 80s, would have endorsed the Poll Tax because they feared being 'out flanked' on it. This is the same issue. We've got a budget that will pauperise children and reduce the income of the working poor by $2000 a year. And Labour are endorsing these cuts, rather than using them to fight back against this colostomy bag of a government? Are they too craven, or to unprincipled, or just too thick to make a fight on it?

I'd vote Lib Dem, if I could find one.

Only joking.

But I can't think why anyone would vote for anything so un-utterably useless as the current incarnation of the British Labour Party. It would seem Ed Milliband - who suddenly seems like a colossus in comparison to the pretenders to his throne - took the party's spine on holiday with him. He's been criticised for that. But you can understand why he would do it. I couldn't want to be around such a bunch of repuslse, supine sell-outs either.

Oddly, I don't recall seeing them much BEFORE the election ...

But here they are, crawling out of the wood work immediately after their vote-shedding faces are no longer likely to jeopardise Conservative prospects.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr Michael Gove:

Michael is charged with repealing the Human Rights Act!

And by 'charged' I mean 'told to by David Cameron' not 'in legal trouble because of'!  Though you'd think taking a blow torch to the legal protection of British citizens might merit the latter sort of charging.

And here is Mr Iain Duncan Smith, showing Ed Miliband that there is life after losing the leadership:

Iain is clearly very happy.  And who can blame him for feeling chipper?  He's just been charged (again, in the 'told to by David Cameron' sense) with hacking a further £12 billion out of the welfare budget. Obviously, Iain isn't going to be feeling any of these cuts, otherwise he might not be looking quite so smug.

Enemy at the gates

Panic spreads through the upper echelons of the Conservative Party as they realise they may be about to go down in history as the administration so inept that they were replaced, at the first opportunity, with the party they had succeeded in booting out of office.

All of this comes back to the question of whether the Tories have the right messaging. Lee Atwater, the Reagan/Bush strategist, has said the key to good message strategy is to choose the ditch you’re going to die in – meaning that messages need to be chosen early and then stuck to because by election day either they will have been proved right or it is too late to choose otherwise. 

The Tory “ditch” was supposed to be leadership and the economy. But Cameron weakened his leadership advantage by failing to turn up for the debates and has relied on an economic message far too triumphalist for the reality of the fragile recovery at hand. 

As a result, the ditch the Tories chose to die in may well result in electoral death rather than messaging victory. 

Source

The grim choice facing the Tories is blaming their likely defeat on Ed Milliband's political genius (which seems a rather weak defence); their own utter uselessness (a strong case could be made; but I don't think they will want to make it); or on the evils of the British electoral system (another strong case, but one that would reuire a degree of hypocrisy I think even the Tories may not possess.)

Bluntly, they had plenty of warning.  They were told not to embark on an ideologically driven programme of austerity, but decided to do it anyway.  As a result, Britain's economy languished while the economies of comparable nations improved.  So trumpeting the recent growth sounds hollow and weak.  Celebrating small falls in unemployment when there are millions out of work and in part time work or facing up to having no work next week makes them sound out of touch and arrogant.  And the recent promises to spend money - even when they don't know where they are getting it from - and somehow reduce deficits at the same time, shreds the whatever is left of their reputation for competence and calm leadership in the eyes of people who haven't suffered as a result of the economic mismanagement that has blighted the country for the last five years.

The startling thing is, though, that this was always going to happen.  There hasn't been a time since late 2010, when the Labour have been significantly behind in the polls.  The Conservatives might argue that they are peaking at precisely the right time; they have pulled Labour back just when it mattered, given that the parliament was going to run for five years; but it is a doubtful claim.  They've had five years and this is all they have to show for it?  And 'peaking' suggests going up, whereas their share of vote has fallen from somewhere in the 40s in 2010 to the low to mid-thirties now.  That isn't peaking, it is bottoming out.

Or at least, they'd better bloody well hope they've bottomed out.  There's still plenty of numbers smaller than the ones they are on just now.

More rubbish stupid Tories

Back in 2010, George Osborne made some rather stupid promises:

The formal mandate we set is that the structural current deficit should be in balance in the final year of the five-year forecast period, which is 2015-16 in this budget.

And:

In order to place our fiscal credibility beyond doubt, this mandate will be supplemented by a fixed target for debt, which in this parliament is to ensure that debt is falling as a share of GDP by 2015-16. 

Of course, Osborne can argue he can meet the first target, because it isn't actually a promise to eliminate the structural deficit in five years; it's just a promise to forecast the structural deficit will be eliminated in five years from the date of the forecast.  Basically, he's promising to say that the deficit will be eliminated five years from when-ever he happens to make a forecast.

Which isn't quite the same thing as actually getting rid of it, eh, George?  It's always jam tomorrow, if only we work harder and suffer gladly today.

In the real world, not the fantasy land five years from now Osborne wants us to inhabit, things are not looking good for this most optimistic of chancellors:

After seven months of the 2014-15 financial year, borrowing is more than 6% higher than it was in the same period of 2013-14, despite being slightly lower this October than last.

Whoops! Things are not going quite as scripted. At the time of the budget, George Osborne was expecting the deficit to decline by 12% this year, to a little over £85bn.

And here's a pretty picture to go along with it:

Meanwhile, as he manfully fails to make the deficit disappear by the power of positive thought, the debt continues to build up, faster than the sluggish recover can eat it away.  Currently, public debt is running at 90.6% of GDP.

GDP, in fairness, is growing.  Even George Osborne can not keep the economy in permanent recession, though he certainly tried his best.  Fortunately, other countries are doing okay, so pulling Britain up; also, by running a deficit, Osborne has probably, unintentionally, helped stimulate the economy.

Basically, the British economy is doing okay-ish because we're the only country unlucky enough to have George Osborne and because he's too useless to manage to inflict his own insane dreams upon the nation properly.

So Britain may manage to shrink the debt mountain by growing the economy - as GDP increases, so debt will be reduced as a share of GDP.  So having increased debt to over 90% of GDP - the level we were assured (by the Tories) would send the economy into some sort of death spiral - Osborne could claim some feeble vindication by reducing the debt from 90.6% of GDP to 90.5%.

But even that's looking dicey, with the global economy wobbling and the British Chnacellor tryig his best to destroy the British economy by choking off domestic demand.

They lied about the deficit.

They lied about immigration.

They lied about being "all in this together."

They lied about being the greenest government ever.

They lied, and lied, and will carry on lying.

And their self serving allies in the media will continue to try to distract and bamboozle the voters with SHOCKING news about Ed Miliband eating a sandwich.  Or some Labour shadow minister taking a photograph of a house.

Tories admit they are stupid liars

From the Guardian:

Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, May said: “It is of course unlikely that we are going to reach the tens of thousands by the end of the parliament. Why is that? It is because we have seen increasing numbers of people coming from across Europe, partly because our economy is doing better than other economies across Europe. We have been doing what we can in relation to EU migration, but there is more to be done.”
May’s remarks contrasted with Cameron’s unequivocal declaration in April 2011 that the government would bring down net migration to below 100,000. 

Cameron said at the time: “I believe that will mean net migration to this country will be in the order of tens of thousands each year, not the hundreds of thousands every year that we have seen over the last decade. Britain will always be open to the best and brightest from around the world and those fleeing persecution. But with us, our borders will be under control and immigration will be at levels our country can manage. No ifs. No buts. That’s a promise we made to the British people, and it’s a promise we are keeping.”

I don't know which is worse - the easy cynbicism with which they lie, or the dumb eagerness with with people believe the lies.

Time for Dishonest Dave to go.

No ifs.  No buts.

Osborne grinds the faces of the poor in the dirt

That's probably a metaphor, but might be an actual headline describing literal events, the way things are going.

More than 270,000 of the poorest households in England face council tax hikes of £80 a year as the government's safety net is withdrawn, a survey of local authorities has revealed.

Using freedom of information requests, research for the Joseph Rowntree Trust has found that from April another 48 local authorities are reducing protection for vulnerable residents. 

Ministers cut funding for the means-tested benefit by £500m, around 10% of the total, last April and instructed local authorities to decide how the reduced benefit should be distributed. 

However, to cushion the blow ministers offered £100m in subsidies to councils that designed schemes that would offer some protection to the poor. This scheme has not been renewed, with the result that this year will be the first that the government will no longer provide a dedicated stream of cash to take the poorest out of council tax. 

The result of this – and further cuts to local authority budgets – is that more than a quarter of a million working-age households will see bills rise by an average of £78 a year, taking the amount of yearly council tax that they will have to pay to £176.

The true nastiness of this government is becoming clear, as 'safety nets' are taken away and who will be most affected by Osborne's bloodthirst becomes clear - the poorest and most vulnerable.  Afterall, they would never vote Tory, would they?  I think the scorecard needs to be updated ... that'll teach him!!

-1 ... Local government cuts, ordered by central government, hitting the poor. 

-1 ... Taking 500 Syrian refugees, which acknowledges there is a catastrophe, but only doing enough to generate a positive headline in the Daily Mail.  Was even Tony Blair this disgustingly cynical?

OVERALL: -6/10 Their heartless and wrong-headed domestic agenda and their humanitarianism-as-PR gives a truly nasty edge to the coalition.

Stupid Tories

And when they aren't busily re-announcing spending-as-usual as new spending, the Tory Liars are trying to cover up the fact that their (few) policies have failed.

While serving in opposition, the shadow Housing minister, Grant Shapps, promised Tory backing for people who built their own homes to kick-start a house building “revolution” in the UK.

Two years later in Government, he launched an action plan to double the number of self-build homes within a decade.

Hurrah! Encouraging people to build and invest, making money flow about the economy and ending the recession! Not a bad idea, for Tories. But wait ...

But when Labour attempted to find out how the Government was getting on with its pledge, senior officials in the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) attempted to prevent the release of statistics showing how many self-build homes had been started.

Bizarrely, they tried to claim that they could not provide the information because to do so would “prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs”.

“Officials and Ministers need a safe space in which they can offer free and frank advice and exchange [of] views,” they wrote.

“It is reasonable to acknowledge that data from a variety of sources will form an important part of this essential process and therefore should have the same degree of protection as other information.

“If this data was made available at a premature stage it would result in weaker discussions, poorer decision-making and the closure of policy options.”

Shy Tories, hiding their light under a bushel! Fortunately, the shadow Housing minister, Hilary Benn decided the Tories should not be cheated of the credit they were due for pursuing good policy with dogged determination, and for helping ever increasing numbers of people achieve the Tory ideal of home ownership. So he told the Information commissioner that the Tories were too coy to reveal their excellence to the world.

In his ruling, seen by The Independent, the Commissioner roundly rejected the argument put forward by DCLG officials and demanded that the information be released.

“The exemptions cited by DCLG require more than the possible inconvenience in responding to queries about disclosures,” he wrote scathingly.

“The Commissioner considers that DCLG has not provided arguments which demonstrate that disclosure would inhibit the free and frank provision of advice or the free and frank exchange of views for the purposes of deliberation.”

And what did it show? In a short table released to Labour it showed that the number of people who begin self-build homes had fallen since the depths of the recession in 2009 under Labour from 11,800 to 10,400 in 2011.

Oh dear. What have we here? Good policy helping people into home ownership? Nope. Blatant abuse of power, with idiots trying to hide their incompetence from scrutiny. By all means be useless. But don't try to hide the fact. And if you are going to try to hide it, do it competently so you don't end up being exposed as incompetent, untrustworthy idiots.

An even better idea - have good policy that works.

Quotes from the Indie.

Tough on crime, tough on those who deal with crime

Britain will see a reduction in police numbers by 6000, according to an analysis of the effect of the cuts.

This marks something of a change of tune (to put it mildly) for the Tories, for whom waiiling about feral youth, police men spending more time on paper work, and the whole Hell in a Handcart routine is bread and butter stuff:

Police numbers are likely to fall by a minimum of 6,000 this year because almost every police force in England and Wales has put a freeze on new recruits, according to research published today by the shadow home secretary, Ed Balls.

He said the research showed that 6,000 officers leave the force each year or take early retirement, and would now not be replaced by new recruits.

Policing minister Nick Herbert responded by saying there was no link between police numbers and crime levels. In remarks that startled Labour, he said: "I don't think anyone – and no respected academic – would make a simple link between the increase in police officers and what has happened to crime. There is no such link." (1)

What happened to getting more bobbies on the beat and controlling our unruly youth?

Note that they aren't falling back on the standard defences of "Labour's figures are wrong" or "We'll reduce bureaucracy so police can spend more time policing."

Doubtless, these platitudes have been, and will be, recited by David Cameron and his cabinet cronies. Nick Herbert needs to get 'on message,' though I suspect he's a bit closer to reality than Cameron. Sound bites are fine in opposition when you're in opposition, or a gurning figurehead. I suspect the luckless Mr Herbert is less keen to make promises he can't keep.

Meanwhile, the Indie commemorates the 10th anniversary of the death of 10 year old Damilola Taylor, stabbed in London. It describes the difficulties faced by the youth so easily demonsied by the Tories:

At the age of seven, Francisco Augusto's life was turned upside down when his friend and football teammate Damilola Taylor was killed. His death was followed by Francisco's parents splitting up and another move to a new school. Together these events filled the little boy with rage he didn't understand and couldn't control. He was excluded from school aged 11 and arrested by police within a year.

But ...

He could well have been on a path similar to that of the boys who killed Damilola. But he caught the attention of a local youth worker, Roger Jalil, himself only 22 at the time. Through playing football together, Roger became Francisco's confidant as he tried to make sense of Damilola's death, his worsening relationship with his father, and all the anger he couldn't articulate.

Last year Francisco passed 11 GCSEs at grade A to C and hopes to study sociology at university. He hopes to set up his own youth projects and is being mentored by two businessmen after taking an entrepreneurial course with London Youth – all inspired and encouraged by his youth worker. The love and respect between Francisco, 17, and Roger, 27, is uplifting.

"Whenever I remember Damilola, I always see him smiling and playing football," says the teenager. "Even though he was older than me he saw I was having a hard time at school after coming here from Angola, so he took me under his wing and got me playing football. And that's how Roger got me involved, playing football, treating me like his little brother until I started opening up to him.

"If it wasn't for Roger, the Adventure Playground and London Youth, I wouldn't be here now. If people in high society really wanted to stop youth crime then they could, by making sure every young person who needs help has someone like Roger to help them. Every year on the anniversary of Damilola's death I take some time and think about how I can do better the next year, and make his memory last even longer." (2)

I wonder how many youth workers and projects like Adventure Playground and London Youth will be getting cut in the ideologically motivated War on Debt?

1 - "Police recruiting freeze likely to shrink force by 6,000 this year, says Ed Balls," by Patrick Wintour. Published in The Guardian, 21st of November, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/21/police-numbers-to-drop-by-6000)
2 - "Remembering Damilola: The killing goes on, but the fightback is under way," by Andrew Johnson and Nina Lakhani(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/remembering-damilola-the-killing-goes-on-but-the-fightback-is-under-way-2139882.html)