Month: February 2008

As Obama pulls ahead of Clinton in the race for the democratic nomination, there are signs of more people in the US wishing to get away from the alternation of the Presidency between the houses of Bush and Clinton that has characterised the last two decades.

The US Presidency is a curious amalgam of the ancient and modern. Like an old monarchy, the President is Head of the armed forces. In the more modern UK in this respect, the professional heads of the armed forces report to a middle ranking Cabinet Minister, the Defence Secretary, who in turn reports to a senior cabinet Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and to the Prime Minister.The UK has long enforced the seperation of the armed forces from politics, and has had a fear of standing armies.

Like a modern republic, the US President is Head of State as well as Head of government. He is also a modern King – the titular Head of the country and the unifying presence for times of national celebration or grieiving, as well as head of the executive.

It would not be healthy for this very powerful post – 3 jobs in one – to become hereditary. US politics has certainly been baronial if not monarchical during my adult lifetime. The Kenendy dynasty rose in the 1960s, the Bush in the 1980s and the Clinton in 1990s.

I have been criticised for changing my mind on Obama. I see nothing wrong with changing your mind if the sutuation changes, or if you learn something new of importance. I try to learn something new each day. On this occasion, however, I have not changed my view. From the beginning I said I thought his anti Washington anti politics campaign was great, and would represent a strong challenge. I always thought he could win but was not sure he would win. I still have the same view.

I also always said I did not like his policies to the extent that he had revealed them. I do not believe he would live up to his fine rhetoric in power, as I do not believe he knows how to make government smaller and more responsive, two essentials if we are to tackle the disillusion with big party politics on either side of the Atlantic.

There are good civil liberty objections to the government establishing a data base for young people’s qualifications, which is coming across on the airwaves.

There is also a simpler, financial one. When will this government stop dreaming up expensive centralised data computer schemes? Does it not realise, even today, that the extra spending has to stop? Does no-one in government know where the spending tap is, and know how to turn it down?

We need a a year of no new spending initiaiitves, a year of trying to get more out of what they are spending, a year of cancelling some of the stupid, wasteful and spiteful projects that are already running. Ruth Kelly could cancel some of the lorry loads of intrusive technology her department revels in at transport, the Home Office could cancel the ID scheme, and the Treasury can stand down the accountants who were about to march into the offices of the Non Doms.

Best of all, they could cancel the orders for more CDs to lose in the post, and fail to replace any ciivl servant leaving one of the jobs where all they do each day is dream up more ways of prying into our lives and putting us under surveillance. We are not only fed up with them making Britain into a kind of prison camp for all of us inmates, but for sending us the extortionate bill for it.

I do not go in for gesture politics. Prime Ministers apologising for events of over a hundred years ago, often with a patent lack of sincerity, with the media in full attendance to make a political point leaves me cold. I am fed up with people expecting England to apologise for battles fought centuries ago when standards and attitudes for so different everywhere. If challenged on such an apology, I usually say I will wait for the French to apologise for the Battle of Hastings first.

The Australian Prime Minister’s apology for the more recent treatment of native people in his country was different. It can help heal wounds that are of more recent origin. It was clearly wanted by people whose own childhoods were changed fundamentally when they were taken from their mothers at an early age. It does not lead to financial compensation and will be criticised by some for that, but it is recognition that modern Australia has a different approach, and wishes to unify its people.

I welcome that, and trust it will be reflect a spirit of apology and forgiveness on both sides of the divide.

All good things have to come to an end. The benign environment where China and India delivered an ever more stunning array of goods at fabulous prices is changing into an era when Chinese and Indian demand puts substantial upward pressure on raw materials. At the same time the West’s insatiable appetite for these goods based on leveraged credit has been hit by the Credit Crunch.

During an era of transition – from rapid credit led growth to slower growth, and from low inflation to higher inflation – there are always conflicting signals for policy makers. Some look resolutely back, seeing the build up of inflation that has come from past monetary excess: they demand the donning of a tougher hair shirt in the forms of high interest rates and more intense regulation. Others look forwards to the slow down, seeing that the credit crunch itself will in due course reduce inflationary pressures and slash asset prices, which in turn depresses demand more.

The latest inflation figures for the UK are poor, with RPI inflation running above 4% compared to the old government target of 2.5%, but they should have come as no surprise. The next couple of months will see further energy and food inflation flowing through. No one believes the 2.2% increase in the CPI reflects family experience of their daily budgets, and adds to the feeling that the government and the monetary authorities are out of touch.

Tne government itself is under pressure on the Non doms issue. Many in business now believe the government’s addition of more scrutiny and detailed rules on savings income to the idea of a flat fee will scare people away. If the government persists they will discover the hard way that there is one thing worse than having rich people here not paying full amounts of UK tax, and that is not having the rich people here paying any tax at all. The government needs more revenue to get closer to matching its bloated pattern of expenditure. It is not a good time to pick a fight with people who are making some contribution to the tax collected and to London’s successful economy. Sometime reality needs to take precedence over ideology or senses of fairness.

The government also eneds to tackle the obstinate problem of little or no growth in public sector productivitiy. Now we have such a large public sector it is more important than ever that its productivity should start to rise by at least the average growth rate for the economy as a whole. Manufacturers needs to raise their productivity considerably faster than 2.5% a year to stay in business in a very competitive world. It is high time the government found ways to use the new technology and better management techniques used widely in the private sector to deliver more public service for less.

The pound has been falling for some time against the Euro, and is now also falling against the dollar. Whilst this helps exporters to set more competitive prices, it means more imported inflation. The Gordon Brown devaluation is now shaping up to be bigger than the devaluation after the damaging Exchange Rate Mechanism experiment in European monetary co-operation, recommended by all three poltical parties and foolishly adopted by a previous Conservative government. The Bank of England will have to take into account this drop in the pound when it makes its interest rate decisions, as a falling currency does loosen monetary policy and relaxes inflationary disciplines.

The UK is going to have to pay a substantial premium in the form of higher interest rates than the USA, Japan, and Euroland for some time to come. That is the price of too large a government deficit, too much wasteful public spending, and a failure to raise productivity in the public realm. The UK is less well placed to offset the Credit Crunch than our main competitors because the government divorced Prudence many years ago. The government’s newer Valentine is its very own flexible friend, the Borrowing Requirement, as it continues to spend money it does not collect in taxes. Government borrowing is deferred taxation. We will all be paying the bills for years to come.

The government is worried about the persistent inflation rate in this country, at a time when we really need to cut interest rates to stimulate the economy and take some of the pressure off borrowers.

It has the answer to the problem under its own influence, as much of the high inflation rate is coming from public sector taxes and prices. Today we hear of the campaign to resist the 2p extra tax the government is proposing this April on petrol and diesel. This follows a totally unnecessary extra 2p on fuel last autumn.

These increases are vengeful against motorists and hauliers. The government’s tax take on fuel has soared anyway, thanks to the big increases in market prices which gives the government more revenue automatically from the ad valorem tax. If the government still believes fuel burn by travellers is the only part of the carbon dioxide problem it wishes to curb, it should recognise just how far its taxes and the Middle East oil situation have jacked prices up. People now need to be given time to adapt, to buy their more fuel efficient vehicles and scrap the older ones. They cannot afford to change their vehicles because the government is squeezing them too much, and they cannot afford the sky high train fares either.

The government has also stoked the inflationary fires by its mismanagement of the nationalised industries. Postal charges have surged, as a result of the government taking so much other government business away from the Post office. The very well paid management they have put in has decided that using monopoly pricing power is the easiest way to pay their bonuses, so the rest of us are suffering.

The nationalised railway track company has pushed up its costs and charges hugely since it came into public ownership. This is now being partly passed on in much higher fares to passengers for many journeys. The nationalised railway is no longer thought a suitable means of carrying much of the post around the country. We have the ridiculous sight of one nationalised industry refusing to use another on grounds of cost and efficiency, with the Minister when I last asked explaining to me that was the reason! You would have thought a government which defines being green as going by train would at least make the nationalised post go by train.

A whole series of fees and charges are regularly shoved up by more than inflation as the government seeks back door ways of taxing people. Local government too is on to the same trick, with its planning, building regulation and other fees. Council taxes are just about to go up by much more than the 2.1% inflation rate of the government’s official figures.

So what should the government do, to curb inflation? Instead of penalising us with high interest rates for its own inflationary actions, it should have a period when the costs government imposes go up by less than 2.1%, not by more. They could start by:

1. Announcing no further 2p increase in fuel taxes this spring.
2. Cutting fuel duty by the amount needed so the total tax take came out in line with the original budget figure, before the huge increases in prices we have seen in recent months swelled the total.
3. Telling Post Office management they should cancel the postal price increases and make up the money by efficiency gains. If they cannot, they should change the management to someone who can. It would not be difficult to do so in such a badly led organisation.
4. Putting the railway track company back under private sector discipline, to grapple with its bloated costs and inefficient use of contractors. In the meantime tell the regulator to prevent the above inflation fare increases, and stop the attempts by Network Rail to charge the rail operators too much for its poor service.
5. Reducing the costs imposed on local government, by cancelling much of the performance and best value regime, which in total cost Councils much more than £1 billion a year. Then demanding that they get their Council Tax increases down.
6. Putting a freeze on all other costs and charges imposed by the public sector for the next thirteen months to assure people the public sector is turning off its inflation machine.

Only if the government takes action like this can we regard it as serious in its stated wish to curb inflation. Only if it does this will the Bank of England have sufficient scope to lower interest rates, as it needs to do to tackle the Credit Crunch. We live under a rip off government. Please give us a break.

Tomorrow the Synod of the Church of England meets.
It has the power to change its agenda to deal with topical matters.
It should organise an early debate on the remarks of the Archbishop.

The Archbishop himself should suggest this, and should lead it. It would give him the chance to explain his "nuanced" positon to the Church, and to correct the more extreme claims of his critics. He after all wanted this debate, so it would be strange not to use the Church’s very own Parliament to further the debate.

The Archbishop could show wisdom if he apologised for allowing many of us to think he wanted to introduce features of Sharia law here with a parallel legal system, and could withdraw the phrases and statements that led to that belief.

Alternatively, he could use the platform to make his case in his own way, explaining why he thinks he was right all along, whatever his critics may say.

I fear the Synod instead will ignore this. That will lead to more fevered speculaiton in the press. It will lead some to ask why did he start this debate if he does not mean to carry it on? And why complain that the debate is not being conducted in the way you would like, if you yourself are not prepared to join in?

It is time for Dr Williams to emerge from hiding behind websites and spin doctors, and to take to the airwaves himself. The Synod would give him a fine platform – I bet the cameras and microphones would turn up if he agreed to put on a show. The Church should grasp such an opportuntiy with welcoming hands.

The Archbishop has got himself into a fine mess. It is curious that despite this I read and hear everywhere that he is intelligent and wise. Intelligent he may be, but he lacked judgement and wisdom on this occasion. It is strange that someone is such a senior position, with access to good advice, should have made such elementary errors in handling the media.

The hostile interpretation of his speech began before the speech was made. It was obvious from the first briefings about the speech both that the Archbishop wished this speech to attract attention, and that it was going to attract the wrong type of attention. Why didn’t the Archbishop review the way it was being presented before he made it, and adjust the text to make it safe?

Why did he allow himself to "assent" to a question which drove him further in the direction of appearing to recommend alternative law codes, when it must have been obvious by that stage how such proposals were going to be received by press and public?

Why did he then refuse to give further interviews the next day when the press had torn into his remarks? Wasn’t it time to come out fighting, to defend what he had said in person, or better still to withdraw the offending comments and end the storm?

Any politician or person in the public eye knows that journalists love to push you further than you wish to go. They understandably want good copy, and good copy is extreme or whacky copy. If you are an opposition politician every day you are faced with a cruel dilemma. Do you say very sensible things that most agree with – in which case you are unlikely to be reported – or do you say something that challenges, that takes the debate on – in which case you will be reported but with the danger of massive retaliatory spin against you from the affected interest groups or the alternative party? Oppositions have to choose their ground carefully, but they have to take risks to be heard.

Government Ministers and Archbishops are in a stronger position. Some of the things they say and do have to be reported, even if they are sensible and boring. They need take fewer risks. Their words reflect actions that affect many people’s daily lives, so they are newsworthy anyway. They also do not need to be in the media in the way an Opposition needs to be in the media. They have power to do good and make changes without reference to the media. Oppositions need media coverage to try to win people over to gain power. Establishments can get by without coverage, or with the lower level coverage that comes with doing the job sensibly.

It makes the Archbishop’s decision to want to lead a public debate on the issue of Sharia Law particularly strange to understand. You would have thought the Archbishop would be working away behind the scenes, out of the limelight of the national media, on how to unite the Anglican movement worldwide during a difficult time. You would have thought he would plan his use of the national media aorund Christmas and Easter, when the Church has more ready access to the news,to find new and better ways of communicating a positive Christian message. The Anglican Church is in retreat, losing communicants and struggling for a role in many communities. Some leadership on why Anglicanism matters would be appreciated. Some moral leadership on the big issues of the day might help. There is an important role for the leader of the Established Church, but he needs to first to secure his base rather than taking such risks as he took this week.

I spent the morning yesterday talking to people on doorsteps in my constituency, as I often do on a Saturday. It reminded me of the appeal of Barack Obama, sweeping to victory in three more states this weekend, taking his tally to 18 out of the 28 contested so far. Hillary Clinton is still in the race because she has won in the more heavily populated states by the sea in both the east and the west, where there are more delegate votes for the Convention. Obama’s appeal is that he is the anti Washington, anti establishment candidate – the man who tells the USA that unless they vote for change politics will remain as frustrating as it is today.

On the doorsteps in the UK there is a feeling of powerlessness. Here people are fed up with their government. They are resigned to having to put up with another couple of years of its tax grabbing, it wasteful spending, its crude authoritarianism, and its unwillingness to be honest about everything from the EU to the wars it makes us fight. I was told by several that their incomes are badly squeezed by high taxes. I heard a litany of complaints about waste in the NHS, in quangoland and in other public services. Some said they did not vote when there was an election on and saw no point in talking about political matters when there is no election. The growing army of single people are often out when you call, scurrying around to do the shopping in between their time at work or with friends.

People here hate big money politics. They hate the way the main political parties raise their money, and they hate the way they spend it. They are fed up with slick spin doctors making politicians play back to them their own views, sieved through polling and focus groups. They are fed up with people in power saying some of the right things but delivering nothing. They doubt the politicians are in charge, and are not sure any longer they care about them being in charge.

Here in the UK we want lower taxes, so we get higher taxes. We want the money to be spent better on our priorities in health and education, only to wake up to find so much of the money has been wasted on Metronet, Northern Rock, cancelled computerisation schemes, ID cards and Network Rail. We want our local Post Offices to be available to serve us, only to find that after the government has taken much of their government business away so they have to close. We want the best of our institutions preserved and cared for, only to find this government destroys so much of its inheritance in its desperate bid to bring us into line with the EU. We want fair minded and competent administration. Instead we get a benefits and tax credit system that lets so many people down –by overpayment and underpayment on a grand scale – and an amalgamated Revenue and Customs that seeks to maximise its tax take by any means.

The irony of the Obama campaign is that no doubt his fine words are crafted by expensive advisers. It is doubtless based on considerable polling and research. He can articulate the sense of frustration many Americans feel about the old firms, Bush and Clinton, who have dominated US politics for two decades as if it were an inheritance based system. He can point to the disillusion with Iraq, the anger with the sub prime crisis, the sense that there are still too many Americans who do not get the most out of the great society. He may be able to forge a coalition from the dispossessed and those who hate Washington, but he will be fighting apathy for many will think he too will become part of the problem should he be elected. I like his anti government rhetoric, but I doubt I would like his policies. The problem for the anti government campaigner is how would he make change stick? What changes would he make? Creating slimmer, better,more responsive government out of the huge bureaucracies the great democracies have now grown is not going to be an easy task.