Unfit To Govern

It seems, that as far as the Tory  Party is concerned, it’s quite alright to accept bribes in the form of donations to the Conservative Party. For those who can afford to pay for it you can gain preferential access to ministers or indeed the ear of Prime Minister himself.  The best the rest of us can hope for is to send an email or letter which, if we are lucky, will be answered by a junior secretary.

For a £50,000 donation per year to the Tory party you can buy access to the Leaders Group including David Cameron himself, a bargain for any wealthy individual or business who wants to make sure their view is heard. If you can only afford £25,ooo per year then you can join the Treasurer’s Group. This continues right down to Fast Tracks which will cost you a measly £21 per month.

S0 it seems that the Conservatives will listen to you as long as you are wealthy enough to pay for the privilege, and the more you can afford  the higher up the political tree your access.  Fundamentally these are the people who have the largest input to influence Government.  Is this what Tory and Liberal Democrats voted for?

Further reading; Guardian: Dinner with David Cameron?, Labour List: Slicing the donations knot

Well, it’s been interesting watching and reading the coverage of the first 100 days of the coalition.  Those that are pro coalition said how wonderful they were but I didn’t see any details of any good that had been achieved.  For those, like myself, who believe that the coalition is going to bring the country to it’s knees it was very easy to cite examples of poor government, blunders, arrogance and downright incompetence. Here’s a reminder of a few of these;

David Laws’s resignation. The new coalition government was plunged into its first crisis as the Liberal Democrat cabinet minister charged with cutting the £156bn deficit resigned following revelations about his expenses.

NHS reorganisation. Government has embarked on massive NHS restructuring, even though Tories said before the election that these restructuring exercises caused “terrible” disruption.  For further details see the UTG blog posts on this subject.

The Michael Gove fiasco of the cancellation of the ‘Building for Schools Programme”. Michael Gove should get the incompetence prize for the way he announced the cancellation school building projects. See UTG Blog posts.

The economy.  Despite many warnings Osborne and the coalition are bulldozing ahead with their cuts which is almost certainly going to result in a ‘double-dip” recession.  The plan relies on new jobs being created in the private sector to replace the 600,000 or more which will be lost in the public sector as a result of the cuts. Cloud cuckoo land.

Refusal of the £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters being challenged. Its chief executive said directors were willing to sell shares, contrary to what Cameron and Clegg said.

Capital gains tax. Coalition agreement said CGT would go up to rates “similar or close to those applied to income”, but George Osborne only raised it to 28%, not 40%.

VAT increases to 20% in January.  Despite the Lib Dems stating they were against a VAT rise in the run up to the election the Chancellor  announces the poor targeted inflationary VAT rise.

Stabilisation of Fuel prices ruled out. Back in the summer of 2008 Shadow chancellor George Osborne told the BBC the party was looking at plans to cut fuel duty when oil prices rise and increase it when prices fall. This has now been ruled out.  Another case of saying one thing in opposition and another when you get into power.

Abolished The Film Council. This is the body which promoted the British film industry and provided funding for many top British films.

No Crackdown on Tax Avoidance.  There has been a complete lack of any announcements regarding how the coalition is going to plug any of the Tax Avoidance loopholes.

Cancelling The Child Trust Fund.  Stopped this progressive idea which has been copied by other countries.

Scrapped the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) – the Commission’s latest (and last report) shows that even the modest measures that the previous government introduced to save energy and water and reduce waste have cut the state’s annual bills by £60m to £70m.  See UTG Blog Post.

Scrapping of ASBOs. Abandoning the whole ASBO system suggests the ConDems are returning to a  mentality where  police will only act after a crime has been committed.

Abolition of the Regional Development Agencies. This decision will once again centralise regional decisions in London reversing 10 years of gradual de-centralisation which is being adopted by other European countries.

Scrapping of ID Cards.  Political decision with no real rational behind it.  This will make it harder to catch criminals and terrorists than it would have otherwise been.  Also to illustrate the arrogance and  unfeeling nature of the Government they have refused to refund the relatively few people who have signed up for the trial.

Scrapping of Home Information Packs. This one affected me directly as it closed down my expanding business at a stroke without warning. This move alone increased unemployment by 3000 people with a total of 10,000 being affected. This was done without embarking on a 100 day consultation period which was promised prior to the election.  In doing we have returned to our old, slow and  inefficient house buying and purchasing system.

Announcing a spending review which will result in job losses of at least 600,000 in the public sector. All department (except NHS and overseas aid (why overseas aid)) have to find between 25 and 40% budget savings.  A conservative estimate puts resulting job losses at, at least 600,000.

The Abandonment of Regional House Building Targets.  Desperately need more housing, despite this the Coalition has abandoned targets which aimed to have 3 million more homes by 2020.

I really do hope we do not have 100 more days of the above.  Unfortunately I fear it can only get worse.  The polls indicate that at the moment it appears that it is possible to fool most of the people all of the time.

Further Reading: 100 facts about the coalition’s first 100 days, LabourList 50 mistakes series

The Retail Motor Industry Independent Petrol Retailers Association (RMI Petrol) said rises in VAT and fuel duty were forcing up costs at forecourts. It said prices could increase by 3% this month (August) and 8% by the start of 2011.

Back in the summer of 2008 Shadow chancellor George Osborne told the BBC the party was looking at plans to cut fuel duty when oil prices rise and increase it when prices fall. He was reported as saying;

“What this would mean is that when the price of oil goes up, fuel duty comes down to help families, but the quid pro quo is that when the price of oil falls the duty goes up” and  “So government is sharing the pain of rising oil prices, but the government is also sharing the gain when oil prices fall.”

Looks like Osborne and the Conservatives say one thing when in opposition then quietly forget about it when in power.  It’s a shame as it actually looked like a good idea.

Further Reading; Tories propose fuel duty changes     Anger at Looming Fuel Price Rises    George Osborne U-turn on Tory low-fuel pledge

Today, Lloyds (41% taxpayer owned) posted a first half-year pre-tax profit of £1.6bn.  Lloyds is the 3rd bank this week to post positive news and follows Northern Rock (also taxpayer owned) and HSBC.

Part of the good news at Lloyds was due to job losses resulting in a reduction of costs by about £1bn.  Lloyds stocks are currently up 2.4% at 73.65 since opening. HSBC and RBS are down slightly.

Obviously these banks have been improving under the policies of a Labour Government. It will be interesting to see how the banks are doing this time next year (Aug 2011) after the Coalition policies have had a chance to bite.

Meanwhile RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland Group who also owns NatWest) is to sell 318 branches to Spanish banking giant Santander (I personally feel very sad about this as it’s yet a another part of British business being sold to an oversees business).

Main source: Politics.co.uk

In the climate of swinging Tory cuts we learn today that accounts released by the Electoral Commission show that the Conservatives spent £37.1m in 2009 compared with Labour’s £24.7m, an additional spend of over £12m.

The most amazing thing about it is that the Conservatives still didn’t manage to secure an overall majority despite the huge spending.  Looks like poor value for money spent.

For the record the Liberal Democrats received an income of £6.4m and spent fractionally more – £6.6m.

The commission also said that The British National party and the Christian party failed to submit their accounts.

Read the full article in The Guardian

The BBC has reported that Lib Dem MP Tim Farron has attacked the 'toxic Tories'. He asserts that the reason David Cameron gave the Lib Dems such a good deal was "….first of all, we are providing some cover for them. The reality is that David Cameron has a toxic brand….His brand, including most of his MPs, are toxic."  He further said "Our identity is going to be potentially compromised if we are not careful."

This last point is so blindingly obvious.  Support for the Lib Dems is falling as reported in recent Polls. 

Tim Farron's comments is surely an indication that cracks in the support for the ConLib (ConDem?) coalition by the rank and file Lib Dem MPs are beginning to widen.  How long is it going to be before a significant group of Lib Dem MPs defies the Whip or defects to Labour? Nothing like this is going to happen until the Labour Party have got their leadership election out of the way in September. However, I predict that such an event will happen before the Xmas recess.

Read the full BBC News article here.

David Cameron once again tried to explain his "Big Society" concept in a speech in Liverpool.  He describes the idea of empowering communities, as his "great passion".

OK, so what's behind this concept that no one but himself pretends to understand.  The way I read it is that he is hoping that people will give their time free to take over from services currently provided by charities and local councils, both of which are going have their budgets so severely cut that they can no longer provide these services.  Fundamentally if people are doing these things free you don't need to pay people to do them.

To take just one example; the idea that you form a committe to run a local post office is preposperous.  People just want the basics; a job which brings in sufficient money to pay the bills, a roof over their head a stable family life. Whilst there are a few who want to get involved in local politics most expect the Government to provide adequate local services so that they can get on with their lives.

I also understand that funding will be found to send in civil servants to 'guide' and 'train' local representatives? This funding will come from dormant bank accounts  At a time when we are being told that decreasing the deficit is the first priority why, oh why are we embarking on yet another costly wacky idea? (We've already learned that about £2 billion is going to be found to fund the restructuring of the NHS as posted here.).

You can read more in this BBC News article.

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David Cameron is, not surprisingly, against any changes to the current 'first past the post' voting system and will campaign against changing to any form of 'Alternative Vote' system at the referendum which is expected to take place next May (2011).

One has to wonder the possible effect on the ConLib Coalition no matter which way the vote goes.  If the vote goes against the AV system then, as voting reform is the key goal of the Liberal Democrat Party it will not be in the Liberal Democrat Party's interest to continue the coalition.  If, the referendum votes to change the voting system then we will have a situation where the party with the most seats is expected to impliment a change which they are openly against.