Unfit To Govern

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.

After the Tories campaigned that crime figures were  well up, once again it has been proved that Britain was not ‘broken’ under a Labour Government.

Official figures released today showed that crime fell by 9 per cent last year, reducing fears of a “recession crime wave”.  In fact it has been reported that crime in England and Wales is at a 29 year low. Because the figures were good, not what the Tories wanted, Theresa May, the Home Secretary,  claimed that “these statistics offer a partial picture about the true level of crime”.  Oh I guess the figures must be wrong then!!

No, these figures indicate that the massive investment in policing by the Labour government is continuing to pay off.  Unfortunately these excellent crime figures have been released on the same day that Tim Brain, the former spokesman on finance for police chiefs, raised the “worst-case scenario” amid fears the policing budget could be cut by as much as 40 per cent, the equivalent of 60,000 police officers.   Although a worst case analyses it would be a brave person that claims that front line services will not be affected by the drastic cuts ahead.

This leads me to fear that the improvements in crime figures are going to go into reverse.  I therefore predict that crime figures will rise from the later half of 2011 onwards as the police cuts begin to bite, further  fuelled by a ‘double dip’ recession crime wave which is likely to occur as a result of the ConLib spending cuts.

It’s too early for the actions of the ConLib Coalition to have any effect on the Unemployment figures.   The figures released today are the biggest drop since August 2006 (only tempered by the fact that there is a large rise in part-time working). Thus the continued fall in unemployment must be due to the actions of the previous Government. But, we won’t hear any such utterances from the Coalition.  Instead they will continue to blame Labour for ‘everything’.

Unfortunately, I fear that the fragile recovery is about to end.  We may see a continued fall over the next few months but after that the Unemployment figures are likely to rise as the unnecessary extreme ‘austerity’ measures start to kick in when winter approaches.

Does anyone seriously believe that the private sector will be able to absorb the ensuing public sector redundancies plus associated ‘knock-on effect’ redundancies in the private sector?

From time to time in these Blog Posts I will make a  prediction which will appear in a static Predictions page.  The first is that unemployment will start to rise as we head into the winter of 2010 and will continue to rise throught most, if not all the expected term of this Coalition Government (assuming it remains intact that is).  By Autumn 2011 the jobless total will be heading toward 3 million which will continue to rise and peak at about 3.5 million.   However, just maybe, the Coalition will be forced to do some form of a U-turn and stimulate growth by decreasing the rate at which it intends to reduce the defecit.  Egg will and truly be on their faces if that happens.  Although I suspect the Coalition may have disintegrated before we get as far as that.

Click here for the full BBC News item on the Unemployent Figures.