Tag Archives: david cameron

David Cameron: dumping his support for sexually abused kids?

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David Cameron outside Downing Street. Picture courtesy: Guardian

David Cameron outside Downing Street. Picture courtesy: Guardian

Politicians like journalists can be  creatures of the moment. Flitting from issue to issue – today will be the decision on implementing Leveson  on press regulation – they sometimes forget the bigger picture in the adrenalin rush of a crisis or a story.

Eleven years ago David Cameron, then a backbencher sat alongside Tom Watson, Labour MP, as a member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. Together the two MPs signed up to a report on historical child abuse. One of the key recommendations of the report ( for those who want to read it all, the link is http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmhaff/836/83602.htm ) was that when the police ” trawl” for abuse victims and witnesses  those who are interviewed should get support from day one.

The recommendation states: “complainants should be offered appropriate victim support services, such as
counselling, from an early stage of their involvement in the investigation.”

Now 11 years later the police seem to be working overtime investigating historic child abuse cases. Operation Fernbridge – the police investigation into sexual abuse of children in the care of Richmond Council and their links to Elm Guest House in Barnes – has at least 16 potential children in its sights. The aftermath of the Savile inquiry could bring  many others into its scope and the don’t forget  Operation Fairbank investigating other child abuse  allegations and at least 30 investigations into child grooming across Britain. The scale of abuse is obviously much higher than people realise.

Officially the police and it now appears Downing Street believe all these former kids, some now in their 40s, are getting support. But evidence from two people who can be expected to be important witnesses in any trial involving the Richmond scandal suggests otherwise.

Details were published yesterday in the Sunday People and on the Exaro website. You can read the article in the People here (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/vip-child-sex-ring-victims-1768956)  and the harrowing view of two witnesses here (http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4897/witnesses-in-operation-fernbridge-plead-for-support-service) .

Suffice to say they are both highly critical. One, Sam, not his real name , says the help he was given : “as “inadequate, ill-conceived and suffered from a complete failure to understand what they (the authorities) were doing.”

He doesn’t blame the police who appear to have been sensitive in interviewing him but just left him with a list of referral agencies to fend for himself.The other is also having to find his own care while his GP prescribes sleeping pills.

I put this direct to Downing Street – including sending Mr Cameron’s office a heart-rending quote from one of them – and reminded him of what he signed up to 11 years ago.

The reply was :”Sexual abuse is a devastating crime and the Government is committed to ensuring that every victim has access to the specialist support they need. This is why the Ministry of justice is providing £10.5million in Government funding over three years to provide services to support victims of these heinous crimes.

“The Government funds 78 Rape Support Centres across England and Wales. These provide confidential and expert support, advice and counselling for victims of these heinous crimes. More centres are in the process of being established and expected to open soon.

“The Government is committed to providing a justice system that protects, supports and reaches the highest possible standards of care for victims. There are a number of measures which already exist to protect vulnerable and special victims, including rape and sexual abuse victims, throughout their involvement with the CJS, and a number of reforms are under  way to improve the system further.”

 The rape crisis centres are not dealing with these particular Fernbridge cases or any historic childhood sex abuse and therefore Downing Street is misleading people by suggesting that all this money is going to help victims of child sexual abuse.

 No answer was given to my main point – did David Cameron  support what he had signed up to 11 years ago. And the suggestion is that this support is not there on the ground nor is it co-ordinated.
 This is stupid, short-sighted and frankly callous. Tom Watson, who has been approached by some of the witnesses who suffered child sexual abuse about lack of support, believes Cameron should use his power to make sure this is properly implemented and people have support from day one.
For a successful prosecution of people who committed these heinous crimes some 30 years ago, the government must ensure that the people who complained and will be witnesses are properly supported. It is no good  having witnesses in the court who can’t sleep, feel sick or can’t cope.
Shame on you Mr Cameron if  you sign up to reports and don’t do anything about it when you are in power yourself.

The bonkers logic of “Life of Brian” Leveson

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Lord Justice Leveson: Bonkers logic

Lord Justice Leveson: Bonkers logic

Now I have been given carte blanche by the Leveson inquiry to write what I want on blogs without any regulation I am going to take full advantage with some tough words for this judge on his lack of logic.

Like Lord Hutton before him who exonerated Labour over Iraq his report exonerates the current great and good in government and the media bosses from blame for the current crisis. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, is cleared of bias over Murdoch;  News International’s Rebekah Brooks of undue lobbying of Cameron over the McCann inquiry or anything else; Cameron and his government of any  favours deal with the  Murdochs and the police of widespread corruption. Cameron can be trusted to introduce reforms to make sure  public perception is changed.

But go further into this report – see http://www.exaronews.com today.  Go to Volume Four and Appendix Five – and get one of the most devastating critiques of the incestuous relationship between top politicians and the media I have ever read from a High Court judge in my 26 years of political journalism.

Unlike Hutton he really puts the boot in. Here and I quote he attacks what he calls the ” inappropriate  closeness” between media bosses and successive governments not just now – but for over 35 years. Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron are all indicted in a damning charge sheet.

He baldly states “ politicians have conducted themselves in a way that I do consider has not served the public interest”.

He accuses them of being vulnerable to unaccountable interests, missing clear opportunities to address  public concern about the culture, practices and ethics of the press and  seeking “ to control ( if not manipulate) the supply of news and information to the public in return for expected or hoped-for favourable treatment by sections of the press.”

He concluded that all this gave rise to “legitimate perceptions and concerns that politicians and the press have traded power and influence in ways which are contrary to the public interest and out of public sight. These perceptions and concerns are inevitably particularly acute in relation to the conduct by politicians of public policy issues in relations to the press itself.”

Now where does he get that view. By page 1971  as a good judge he cites his sources. And guess who gets reams of footnotes, one, Rebekah Brooks, from the McCann inquiry to Brown ,Blair and Cameron – the very person in the main part of the report is absolved from dirty deals!

Perhaps I have misread this million word treatise –  Brian Leveson is  actually auditioning for a Monty Python script or to help revive Bremner, Bird and Fortune for Channel Four.

His other glaring lack of logic is the treatment of the internet as of no consequence. I have a sneaking suspicion he thinks the internet is tun by techy teenage geeks playing war games and mad loud mouths. In fact it is now becoming a powerful antidote and rival to the dead tree press as a forum for discussion and breaking news. The battle for future generation politics is being fought  between Owen Jones and Harry Cole  on-line every day.  And there would be no way this small one man blog would get 158,000 plus hits in less than three years if the internet has been ineffectual.

On the main issue of  regulation or no regulation, I am reserving judgement. My heart is with those who argue that a free press is just that, a free press. My head is revolted by the despicable practices of some of the tabloid bosses who may well now go to prison. I applaud  the idea of a journalist’s conscience clause and his views on treatment of women and people from ethnic minorities and a new  arbitration service that will give justice to Joe Public as well multi-millionaires. But I want to see what this new press act will look like before going down the road to statutory backing. Let debate begin.

Revealed: How Birthday Boy Dave really wooed Sam Cam

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Samantha and David Cameron

Early on the Tuesday morning of the Tory conference while dosy hacks were still sleeping off the effects of late night parties,  a dapper 46 year old man was doing a spot of  exclusive shopping.

Taking advantage of privileged access to the most secure shopping mall in the UK  PM Dave and  his minders were planning a surprise present to placate his long-suffering wife. It might be his birthday but  Sam, the love of his life was getting a mite fed up with Devon B& Bs and kicking her heels  in airports waiting for easyJet flights. She was none too pleased that the birthday meal had to be at a simple Balti to assuage the austerity instincts of the  British people when there is fine dining  all over the Cotswolds.

Luckily for the PM the Birmingham conference plays host  for some of the most exclusive niche stores possible. Harvey Nicks, Tory donating Crombie and Quo Vadis, a   Birmingham jeweller, which makes unique  and exquisite pieces from precious stones.

Now what would Dave choose. Was it to be a 100 per cent cashmere ladies shawl wrap coat –  in Sam Cam’s fashionable black – retailing at £1275 from Crombies? The most expensive coat in the rack.

That could please her and a Tory donor to boot.

Or was it to be an exquisite piece of jewellery – the most expensive brooch  in the stall by Quo Vadis. This brooch of an ocean-going liner was made from an Australian boulder opal stone, its decks were made of diamonds and it had three 18 carat gold funnels. It was also the most expensive item in the shop – retailing at £5800.

Purchase this and a small businessman – the bed rock of the Tory Party – would be thrilled. But it  might remind Sam Cam of the Titanic, not an auspicious moment.

And then there was Harvey Nicks. They could sample their £50 of late bottled port and their champagne was not that exclusive, only up to £42 a bottle.

Perhaps the answer was a packet of wild jasmine tea – at £8.50 sufficiently exclusive – with the flowers searched out by hunter gatherers, true entrepreneurs  prepared to go the extra mile to find the petals and not strangled by  the EU bureaucracy of the social chapter.

Of course it can’t be said with the Leveson inquiry into press behaviour pending, exactly what Dave brought for Sam. It would be an intrusion of privacy. But what is not fiction are the prices of the goods on sale for the Tory faithful  in this secure shopping venue at a time when  people have difficulty making ends meet. As the woman from Harvey Nicks told me: ” We only come to the Conservatives, we don’t do Labour or the Liberal Democrats”. Enough said.

Wake up Red Ed, Canny Cam is running rings round you

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raise your game, red ed.Pic courtesy Belfast Telegraph

 

If I were David Cameron I would be sorely tempted to start planning now for any early election. Friday’s election results were a dream ticket for the Tories. They must have thought they had woken up in paradise. They managed to rout their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, on their core issue, electoral reform and get the electorate to blame them for the coalition’s broken promises. They destroyed much of the Liberal Democrats core base in Tory heartlands.  They actually GAINED council seats and councils when they were  already by far the largest party in local government.

In Wales, – Labour did brilliantly in South Wales – but the Tories are now in second place , having regained Mid Wales to add to Pembrokeshire and North Wales.  The only thing that marred the party was Alex Salmond’s spectacular win in Scotland, but there they can take comfort to see Labour stalled ( Labour’s vote held up but they lost seats because people turned to the Nationalists and not them).

 Only in the North where Labour’s  stellar performance did a similar demolition job on the Liberal Democrats ( some of the swings in Newcastle at 22 per cent were equivalent to old style Lib Dem by-election gains) were the Tories not in the picture.

While Labour’s 800 gains look respectable effectively they piled up votes in Liverpool , York Humberside, the North East, and the East Midlands. The victories in the South, Gravesham and Ipswich, were isolated. They failed to get back Dover, lost seats to the Tories in Dartford and Hemel Hempstead and failed to make a serious impact in Watford, Thurrock and Harlow. Gloucester, a bell weather election seat, saw its council go Tory.

 If there was an election tomorrow  Ed Miliband would get the Labour vote up but in many cases it would just increase existing Labour majorities or take Lib Dem seats. And that will not be enough to win. The Tories with more Lib Dem seats to gain already have an advantage, let alone their simple but wrong narrative that the cuts are all the fault of Labour. So while Ed’s strategy to get back disillusioned Lib Dems has been a good start, it is only a start.

The party needs to do two things. Find out what the Tory’s new-found friends in the South and Midlands really want from government and the issues where the Tories are really vulnerable. Labour will not win by only talking to itself. Ask why there was success in Gravesham but not Dartford.

Labour need to up their game and go on the offensive. Polite pussy footing around and sympathy will not win elections. Unless they take the Tory narrative head on and work out an alternative and believable narrative of their own they will get nowhere.

If they don’t do this they will be written out of the  script. They needn’t just use conventional media – which is slowly dying – to get their message across, they have the whole internet at their disposal and it’s free.

So get your act together, Ed. A new nose job is not enough to get you through the door at Downing Street.

Dirty Tricks at the green ministry

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The true Conservative green logo: Replace the tree with a belching exhaust pipe.Pic:courtesy auto.howstuffworks.com

Six weeks ago I  had a particularly critical look at the antics used by David Cameron and Boris Johnson to delay tough new air pollution rules to avoid the Mayor having to pay out £300m in fines to the European Union. (see http://bit.ly/f2wB4j)

Now word via Whitehall has come to me  that a recent government initiative to curb ” red tape” to help business is about to be used as a further battering ram by the coalition to undermine  the so called commitment by both parties to a greener Britain.

My old Guardian colleague Allegra Stratton has already exposed the government’s move to incorporate all 278 environmental laws into the review (http://bit.ly/j6eVY6) . And it has  alarmed environmentalists.

Whitehall sources are telling me that the way civil servants in the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have been instructed to review the laws is extremely detrimental to green campaigners.

Effectively they have been told to concentrate on the BURDEN green legislation and regulations place on business and ignore the BENEFITS it brings to general health and well-being.

And this is from two ministries, business and energy and climate change , headed by two of  the Liberal Democrats in the Cabinet, Vince Cable and Chris Huhne.

Given the review cover issues like climate change, national parks, wild life protection, waste regulations, to name but a few areas, the only people  thrilled by this will be  libertarian think tanks like the Adam Smith Institute and the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party.

If we pursue this line of argument we would never have bothered with energy conservation, banned lead in petrol ( they  all cost money to business in the short-term) and been quite happy to keep landfill going and see animals and plants become extinct. Luckily some of this stuff – like phasing out landfill , clean beaches and air pollution, depend on  directives from the EU, so even the most brown nosed civil servant in Defra is going to have difficulty telling his political bosses it is OK to forget the benefit to the environment.

And the government seem to have forgotten that not all business will be pleased if it is successful. There are 880,000 jobs in the environment industry dependent on existing regulation.

 As Adrian Wilkes, chairman of the Environmental Industries Commission, points out: “This is a potentially major threat to the UK’s environmental industry, which lives and dies by the regulatory framework. Government intervention is a vital ingredient in the creation of the environmental markets of the future.”

So once again, just like the row over privatising the rest of the forests defeated by the campaigning group 38 degrees, the coalition has put its foot in it. Unless that is, they never really believed in the green agenda in the first place.

Armchair Audit: Brian Coleman- One of Britain’s highest paid councillors

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This is the first of an occasional series of blogs auditing the work and wealth of public figures

Brian Coleman - a councillor with expensive tastes

who are shaping the destiny of thousands if not millions of people during the age of austerity. Taking my cue from David Cameron, who will be thrilled with the idea of this blog, it is part of making sure we are all in it together.  I am sure he will applaud the  checks on those at the top. Everything here is obtained from public documents and websites. Nothing, Andy Coulson please note, has been acquired from tapping personal mobile phones.

 Tory Brian Coleman, 49, has been in the news over a bitter dispute with London fire fighters over their hours. He accused them of holding down ” two jobs” and he brokered bringing in a private company, Assetco, to fight fires when the firefighters went on strike. The company is now in serious trouble-see other blogs on Assetco on this site.

HIS  INCOME

 Brian Coleman holds down four jobs all funded by the taxpayer. They are:

Member of the London Assembly                                                      allowance: £53,439

Cabinet member Barnet Council                                                         allowance: £38,177

Chair London Fire Brigade                                                                   allowance: £26,883

Chair LGA* fire services management committee                    allowance: £10,365

Grand Total from the taxpayer                                                                                £128,864

*Local Government Association, a voluntary body funded by councils from council taxpayers.

EXPENSES

Brian is a great expense claimer never knowingly underclaimed. He can claim for expenses for three of his four jobs – the LGA don’t allow him.

Last financial year his expenses as a London Assembly member and chair of the London fire authorityreached in excess of £3500 and that does not include his Barnet expenses which he declines to disclose on-line. Included in this are claims for the congestion charge – a tax that MPs are even barred from claiming and which might be challengeable by Revenue and Customs.

 He is a big patron of London cabbies claiming once over £10,000 a year  from the London Assembly on trips (2006-07). He is now more modest – claims have varied between £8000 -plus a £1700 travel card (2007-08) and £345 for 2009-10. All from the taxpayer.

His fire brigade expense claims are not much different.These include a £119 taxi fare to the Fire Service Awards Ceremony in  May 2009 and £143 to attend Westminster’s Lord Mayor’s reception for the Lord Mayor of London. He also spent £402 on a  rail ticket to go a LGA conference in Manchester. Little difference in 2011 -with a £145 taxi fare for him and his mum to go to a  firefighters service of remembrance  and meetings in London.

His red letter claims day is May 12 last year – where he managed to claim car mileage, congestion charge and over £67 in taxis  for a dinner -all on the same day.

For the current  financial year he is already on track to meet his usual high spending record- having claimed £1650 so far from the London fire authority. This included £145 for taxis one one day to go to St Pauls and back for the National Firefighters Remembrance Service in September and another £155 to go to and from a remembrance service for a colleague.

This year he has been entertained to lunch by two prominent Tory lobbyists – unsurprising given it will be election year in 2012 for the London assembly. They are Alex Challoner, managing director of Cavendish Place Communications, who masterminded Steve Norris’s ill fated bid to be London mayor, and Tony Hutt, of Four Communications, who is a lobbyist for major planning schemes in the capital.

His gifts include four dinners (three of them before the company won the contract) and a £350  Harvey Nichols hamper from the head of AssetCo, John Shannon, the company which has a £9m PFI deal with his authority and provided strike cover.

On Christmas Day he started to eat and drink everything in this picture.

Brian Coleman’s huge Christmas hamper: courtesy HarveyNichols

You can keep abreast of his latest expense claims and gifts by clicking these links  http://bit.ly/bRWy6Y and http://bit.ly/9IfKHi  for the london fire brigade and http://bit.ly/9DoqLs for the London Assembly. He has opted out of declaring his gifts and expenses at Barnet Council -see http://bit.ly/b5ADWV

He and David Cartwright have also been busy being entertained to £50 a head dinners by  Danish private fire company Falk, and British private outsourcing giant, Serco.

HIS HOME

Brian Coleman represents Totteridge in Barnet but lives in West Finchley, N3.  He is a member  of the Finchley Methodist Church. They are his landlords and his flat has a registered fair rent of  £546 a month since 2008. That is about £125 a week. This is the Valuation Agency document.Scan_Doc0002 . According to local estate agents, the market rent for 2 bedroom flats is £1200 a month in his and neighbouring streets. Mr Michael Giles, the minister in charge of the charity, has declined to comment on the huge difference.

ODIOUS TOAD AND OTHER CONTROVERSIES

Never short of a sharp word. Most of his exchanges are recorded on his wikipedia site.See all on http://bit.ly/dvA5P5

To get an idea of what he is like see this exchange that closed down a council meeting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsA2EIVCsPk

 He also has had a spat with single mum who went to him for help but ended up being told to live in the ” real world” when she was faced with a £150 a month rent rise – paying double what Coleman pays on his subsidised flat.

CONCLUSION – ALL IN IT TOGETHER?

Brian Coleman’s  decisions will have a huge impact on thousands of families – both in his campaign to cut back on firefighters terms and conditions of work and his role as a team player  at Barnet Council implementing Easy Council solutions for  residents which will affect the lives of the poor, vulnerable and many of his middle class constituents. He is  going  to curb the right of backbench and Liberal Democrat councillors to speak at council meetings with the backing of the Barnet Mayor.

In the meantime he defends his income and expenses from the taxpayer. 

“I work about 100 hours a week and have had three days off since Christmas. I’m not pleading some special case, just saying that … these salaries are not unreasonable.”

Tell him what you think. You can ask to be his friend on Facebook but he keeps his comments there private.

 You could also  email him. His Barnet Council and London Assembly e-mails are:

I am sure he will be very much in favour of David Cameron’s policy of accountability and be delighted to respond. You can also find on this site armchair audits of Gareth Bacon, chair of  London fire brigade’s  performance management committee and David Cartwright,  the Mayoral appointee to the London fire brigade.

Meanwhile any comments on this blog are welcome.  Contact me if you think who should feature next.

To “Red” Ed:Some advice from a “has been” Hack

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Ed Miliband: The need to be ruthless and brave Pic: courtesy peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon

Journos love a drama and nothing better than a fratricidal battle between two brothers. But the coverage by my colleagues of  ” Red” versus ” Dead ” Miliband has  been well over the top.

Basically the argument goes like this. Ed has already been defined by his enemies as  red in tooth and claw, only in power because of the machinations of  union barons who duped their members into supporting him to ditch his brilliant elder brother.

Now with Joe Public  well briefed – and with only that difficulty over spending cuts which a public  will reluctantly accept after being told Labour is to blame – the Tories will be able to romp home in four years time.  Just offer the  squeezed middle classes big tax cuts from selling off the banks.

This cartoon portrayal  is likely to go badly wrong. I have no inside knowledge of the Ed Miliband team but I do talk to a lot of contacts who deal with him – and if he is astute enough he has a winning card.

Some people are obviously up to a job, others grow into it. Ed is the latter. As a special adviser to Gordon he seemed frightened of the media. As a Cabinet Office minister the Whitehall view was that he was indecisive about what to do. But as climate change and energy secretary, Whitehall revised their opinion. He took  them on over   emission targets and won, and there is nothing more they like than a minister with a firm agenda.

It was similar in the leadership election campaign. His address to the Parliamentary Lobby lunch was OK, but lacked blood and fire. But through the large number of  hustings, his performance improved and  he was steadily winning the argument. It is a myth  to say that he won the vote because only union bosses backed him. It was his arguments that convinced the individual union members to vote for him and pushed the leaders into backing him. David Miliband – as an article about to appear in The Journalist will reveal – campaigned equally ferociously with the unions but lost the argument.

So where does that leave him? For a start with four years to establish his personality, policies and identity thanks to fixed term Parliaments. The mood  music will then be quite different. We are still in the phoney war over the cuts and higher taxes. From January when VAT goes up, we will face a rolling programme of higher taxes, lower benefits and unthinkable cuts to public services- defended equally by two major coalition parties.

His first speech suggests that he will fight a number of the cuts but not offer to restore every one. He will have to be fleet footed, ruthless, know his own mind and be able to create not just an alternative policy but an alternative narrative that can be believed by the general public. On some issues he will need to be brave, because  the policy may not be instantly popular. He needs to use focus groups not just to tell him what people think but how he can influence people to think differently.

 He should not  underestimate his main opponent David Cameron. Behind  the public relations manner is a ruthless brain – just look at how he handled the expenses saga, leaving Gordon looking flat footed.

One Tory contact of mine at the conference  –  who  I have known for years- had a chilling insight into the right wing agenda. He said he did not mind if it was a one term coalition – because by 2015 they would have dismantled so much of the state – that  a Labour government would never have the money to put it back. His money comes from the Far East and the oil rich states surrounding Russia- so he doesn’t care if the UK does not really prosper – as he thinks  India and China will be the wealthy power houses of the future. That if nothing else should be warning to Ed of what he has got to do.

Roast beef rebels plan Cameron Stew

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Will Tory Roast Beef Rebels carve up Cameron? pic: courtesy BBC

Today’s first tranche of  spending cuts  will be small beer to rebellious right wing Tories  who are now heading for a serious  battle with David Cameron.

Already angry the he has given too much away to his new coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, Tory conspirators are already gathering in Commons dining rooms to plot the blue lines he should never cross.

The full story is in my blog at http://www.progressonline.org.uk/ in my Tory Tracker column.

  Cameron may have won a vote  by rewriting the election rules for the 1922 committee to allow fellow ministers to vote but his decision infuriated his own whips and some of his own Cabinet colleagues – who seem to have been given no prior warning. And it could come back to haunt him this week. 

All this is going to do is to  further anger some of  his biggest  critics -the Cornerstone group- the Thatcherite No Turning Back Group and  Conservative Way Forward.

The first lot are now dominating Dining Room A  in increasing numbers   where they plot over traditional English Fare -like roast lamb and beef – hence the name the ” roast  beef rebels”. Their champions  vary from Iain Duncan Smith, the new works and pension secretary, to young right of centre Tory blades like Greg Hands.

They are starting to attract support from mainstream Tories who are reporting bad news from the golf courses as angry middle class  Conservative activities find out they may well be paying 40 per cent capital gains tax on their second home or seaside flat – which had been earmarked as their ” second pension”.

One of them faced with people saying to him ” I did not vote Tory for this” had to lamely reply ” It is a Liberal Democrat policy”.

The growing anger means that Camerom will find it an increasingly rocky road- as cuts and tax rises bite. Today covered the easy cuts, tomorrow will be different. And Cameron will have to be careful that the roast beef rebels don’t turn his new coalition into an overcooked stew.

Election debate: Why you should treat Dave,Nick and Gordo like dodgy car salesmen

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nick clegg:pic courtesy daily mail

gordon brown:pic courtesy apoliticus

david cameron: pic courtesy greenpeace

Tonight is the last time you can see the three party leaders go head to head before polling day. The subject for the last TV debate on BBC1- the future of the economy – could not be more important for you, your family and your future.

 This time don’t treat the clash like watching the X factor. Instead think of your vote as the equivalent of writing a very big cheque at a car showroom for a dream motor or at a department store for a designer kitchen. You are going to spend a lot of money. You want a good product that lasts, is not going to cost you a bomb to service or repair, and some guarantee that you can afford to pay for it.

Now treat the three party leaders not as politicians but like the salesmen you would encounter on the forecourt or in the shop and take a very critical view of how they pitch their sale to you.

On the economy you already have your own independent Which? report provided by the Institute for Fiscal Studies about the huge hidden failings in the product. Look it up before the debate. In short you will discover, just like many salespeople, the politicians may not have deliberately lied, but they have seriously misled you about the huge cost of the product you are about to buy.

They have not told you the price they will charge you to bail out the bankers either in lost services or higher taxes and charges.

 The scale of their deception is highest among the Tories, pretty bad from Labour and slightly better from the Liberal Democrats.

David Cameron – the smoothest of the salesmen – has concentrated on the nice extras you will get from the Tories – an extra £3 a week for married families, no extra bills on your national insurance, a freeze on your council tax.

But he has not told you how you are going to cope with a whopping £52.4 billion in public spending cuts- beginning weeks after May 7. It’s like 

a salesman diverting you to look at the car’s funky stereo system while not telling you the motor does five miles to the gallon.

To get such cuts the Tories will have to go much further than anything they have said. You are looking at things like a dramatic rise in the retirement age – not their stated 66 but more like 70 – or doubling commuter rail fares if they  have to remove the transport subsidy. Or VAT will have to go up. Their unfunded cuts are the largest of any party.

 Labour’s salesman, grumpy Gordon Brown, has promised to exempt front line staff in the NHS, schools and the police from cuts. What he hasn’t told you is that this means you are going to face much steeper cuts to find the £52.1 billion of savings from other departments like local government, the arts, housing, transport, social security and  defence .And this is on top of higher national insurance. Or again VAT will go up. The problem with Labour is that you have to pay more to safeguard what they have promised to exempt and this will happen from next April.

The Liberal Democrats salesman genial Nick Clegg is the nearest the IFS find to being anywhere near honest. They have to find the lowest sum – some £34.5 billion.

They may not have to introduce more tax increases but they will have to introduce more cuts. Their policy sees a meaningful tax cut worth £700 a year to anybody earning between £10,000 and £113,000. Those earning less than £10,000 including many pensioners on low incomes will be exempt from tax altogether.

Better off families with children will lose out on child tax credits, lose their child trust fund and the NHS, schools and the police will not be exempt from cuts unlike Labour. What you have from the Liberal Democrats is the nearest to a consumer product guarantee but you still don’t know the call out charges.

By the end of the debate it is likely that none of the leaders will have  genuinely spelled out the real cost of their policies to tackle the deficit. It is up to you to decide which is the least worst option. Unlike a disgruntled shopper, you can’t entirely walk away because you are going to get one of the products anyway.

You also should not forget that these were the people who conned you over their expense claim system and you should not allow them to con you again. Also ignore the distractions over hung Parliaments, that is a problem for the politicians not you.

Remember also there are other candidates standing from the Nationalists,Green Party, UKIP and independents. It’s your vote.

This blog also appears on the UK site  of MSN’s general election feature page.

Has Cameron blown it?

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Cameron- what's going wrong: Picture courtesy Greenpeace

In an election that began competing with the Icelandic volcano for volatility and unpredictability, it is probably tempting fate to write any epitaph for David Cameron midway through the campaign.

 Yet what has become clear is that Dave has not “sealed the deal” with the electorate and has squandered a ten point plus lead which should have ensured that he easily formed a government on May 7, albeit with a small majority.

If he fails he faces a damning post mortem by his party but the seeds of his own potential destruction have been around before the campaign even started. They lie in the weakest links in his own shadow cabinet- George Osborne, his chancellor, and Chris Grayling, his shadow home secretary.

The  rise in Liberal Democrat support following the first debate is not so surprising when you compare the quality of the two key spokesmen backing Clegg with their Tory counterparts-Vince Cable dominates Osborne and Chris Huhne, a former leadership contender, outsmarts Grayling. The weakest link in the Liberal Democrats was until then Clegg who? Then came his first performance on our TV screens, reinforced by the second.

Osborne has been tainted ever since a Parliamentary investigation into the undeclared funding for his office during the last session (Tenth report  Standards and Privileges Committee. Conduct of Mr George Osborne HC 560) revealed that it had received some £487,000 of donors’ cash to fund his office from high fliers in the city and a scion of the Rothschild family.

What is extraordinary is that these huge sums to fund research and the access he had to brains in the City have failed to produce an economic policy to challenge Labour. Instead there seems to have been a combination of policies that would particularly benefit the donors (the big hike in the threshold for inheritance tax), a rush to introduce public spending cuts and a claim that a £6 billion jobs tax would snuff out the entire economic recovery..

The latter appeared to be holed last week when Sir Terry Leahy, the head of Tesco’s, announced he was not supporting a Tory co-ordinated call to cut the job tax – but was creating 9000 new jobs in the UK despite it. No explanation from Mr Osborne on that one.

Grayling has been effectively marginalised by Cameron during the campaign. He is symbolic of the fault line dividing the attempt by the leader to present a new “green blue” caring Tory agenda and the traditional Tory “ slash and cut taxes” backwoodsman – still the majority of old Tory voters. Expected to toe the new party line on gay tolerance, his mask slipped when he defended a Christian B&B owner turning away a gay couple.

Grayling is an Old Tory in New Conservative clothing – and the electorate are rumbling this. They don’t know where the Tory party really stands or if they are traditional Tories, what they stand for. This made the vacuous “Time for Change” slogan open to easy hijack from Nick Clegg.

Of course, Cameron might just bounce back to squeeze a minute majority by polling day, but time is now against him. Votes can be cast by post from this week so by the time the third debate takes place  it will be too late to sway millions.

The right wing press attack on the Liberal Democrats also had a fatal flaw – the majority of the new voters attracted to Clegg are the internet savvy under 35 generation.They don’t buy the papers anyway, so it would have zilch influence.

Whatever happens in this election – short of a miracle doubling of the Tory lead- Cameron has thrown away the Tories best chance for 13 years.

This blog is also on the Progress website.