Month: August 2008

It’s typical that at a time when the issue is Why is the government spending so much more and borrowing so much more than it forecast some should want the issue to be Tory spending plans.

The issue today must be How can this government get a grip on the public finances? It wrongly thinks spending borrowing and wasting more is the right approach, when it will make the squeeze and the Credit Crunch worse.

My comment to the Sunday Telegrpah said that the Tories should not yet produce spending and taxing plans, because the rate of deterioration in public finances is so huge and we cannot be sure yet just how bad an possible inheritance will be come 2010. Instead we must highlight the large black hole in the governent’s own numbers, and urge them to take corrective aciton – not by cutting nurses and doctors, teachers and police, but by stopping so much waste and needless bureaucracy. Above all they need to stop the losses at Northern Rock and return it to the private sector so it can make mortgage advances again.

There will be a crisis in public finances if the government carries on at its present rate of overspend and overborrowing. It is crowding out an already emaciated private sector, and intensifying the squeeze on incomes. It will leave the government as both unpopular and incompetent.The first thing they should do is place a recruitment freeze on more burearcrats, as we are groaning under the weight of their salaries and pensions.This country is one of the worst placed to tackle the global imbalances, because it has such a top heavy government with so little being achieved for all the money spent.

What I said to The Sunday Telegraph was if Labour wanted to get back to their budget plans they had to stop spending money like water and cut out waste and less desirable spending. They are going to need an emergency package to put right all the damage they are doing by wasting and borrowing too much, and to cut taxes like Stamp Duty and VED which they raised too high.
I think George Osborne has been exactly right to refuse to offer us the 2010 or 2011 budget in advance, given the huge Labour black hole already apparent in the figures. THe likely development is an even bigger black hole in the government’s figures, given the way they are spending.

The government’s own “Fuel poverty” adviser has been on TV and radio telling us that we will have more people in fuel poverty this winter than at any time for the last ten years. Well, there’s a surprise! I wonder how much he and his staff get paid to come out with such obvious statements. If energy prices go up by a third or by half, and people’s incomes scarcely keep up with general inflation, of course more will find it difficult to pay the fuel bills. Apparently fuel poverty is when your fuel bill is more than 10% of your net income. They will also find it more difficult to pay the Tax bills, having to pay for all those fuel poverty advisers and civil servants workign out the figures. Fuel poverty should be set alongside food poverty, travel poverty, and TV poverty, when those things rise too high as a proportion of income, or alongside my favourite and the most common, Tax poverty.The truth is there is Poverty, pure and simple, and it’s getting worse thanks to this government’s failed economic strategy.

Of course I think it is worrying that many people this winter will fear both the fuel bills and the food bills. The recent price rises have hit those on low incomes and no incomes harder than those on higher incomes. But if you don’t want to call it simple poverty why not call it Tax poverty, for the 10 p tax band abolition hit many of those people very hard, as does the increased petrol tax and the prospective rise in VED on older cars. If they paid less tax, people on lower incomes would have more to pay for fuel.

We need not wonder why the Government’s Fuel Poverty expert was let loose on TV. It clearly means a benefit package is coming soon. The PM is preparing a benefit pay out to people struggling with fuel bills, to show he is in touch and cares. No worry that the nation cannot afford any more public spending. No surprise if it has to be paid for out of increased borrowing rather than from making savings elsewhere. Do not expect a proper programme to increase energy capacity and to generate more power at home any time soon. The government has been dithering for 10 years without a proper energy policy, waiting for the lights to go out as power stations age and give up. This is the government which has given us more dependence on imported oil and gas and then wonders why it is all so dear.

Clearly the PM still has not learnt anything from recent by election defeats and from the sorry run of Opinion Polls. The more of our money he spends, and the more he borrows, the less popular he becomes. People on low incomes do not want one off winter hand outs to see the government through a political hole. They want an economy with job opportunities to lift them out of low income altogether. They want energy industries that are expanding capacities and putting prices up by less.They want enough money to pay all the bills.

George Osborne produced a very detailed and well researched speech this week demonstrating that people from low income areas and low income backgrounds are doing worse educationally and in terms of job opportunities now than when Labour first came to power. Far from narrowing the gap, they have allowed the gap to grow. The gap has not just grown because the rich have got richer – nothing wrong with that – but the gap has grown because the poor are struggling more and even less likely to get A levels, get a degree or get a decent job – everything wrong with that. It is the failure to lift and boost the poor that matters. A decade of throwing more money into regional aid and into benefits has failed. More fuel poverty, according to the government’s own adviser, is just a small part of the wider truth. There is more poverty. It’s a poverty of achievement and ambition as well as a shortage of money. That’s why we need a new approach to schools, to training and to incentives for work. That’s why we need to tackle tax poverty, for too many people at the bottom end of the income scale are trapped by Labour’s benefit and tax system.

You would have thought after all the fuss over data loss so far under this government Ministers would have got a grip by now. The hapless Home Secretary once again has to apologise for the incompetence of her department, after all her lectures and promises to have put it right. This is another serious data loss. It shows Ministers are not in control of their departments.

The more this government takes action to make us “secure” the less secure I feel. I will feel a lot less secure if they carry on with their ghastly 1984 plan to put us all on a central ID computer base, at enormous expense to taxpayers. We might as well publish all our personal data the day it goes live, on their record so far with other people’s data. If The Home Secretary wants to keep her job she shouold cancel the project so we can dance in the streets about that, if nothing else.

This is one reason why Parliament should be allowed to sit – to cross examine her. The war in Georgia is another.

As one of many people who is delighted by the huge success of UK competitors in Beijing my delight is the positive one for them, not the negative one that we are beating the Aussies. The rash of stories saying that the true competition is between us and them, and our victory over Australia is sweet is far from the Olympic spirit, and certainly does not chime with my feelings.

There are two things I like about this Olympics.

The first is to see new faces on TV of people I have not been told much about in the mainstream media, winning Gold and Silver medals. It is stunning that so many Brits are the best in the world at their chosen sports, and have reached that pinnacle without the media boring us all rigid with details of their private lives, the contents of their fridge and their behaviour on their last night out. Celebrity may sell papers, and personal lives exposed may be what many want, but there are people like me who want to read about what people are good at without having to wade through endless details about which supermarket they use and what they wear. Usually we hear about just two or three competitors who have a “profile” – and sometimes flop at their event. This time we are hearing about an army of great sportsmen and women who have the blessing of little profile, but are just great at what they do.

The second is to see just how many people from the UK can excel at what they do through their own graft and application. We are told that it’s the money and the coaches and the facilities. I am sure they help, but you can’t get away from the fact – and should not want to – that it is also down to the guts, determination, and will to succeed of a new generation of British sports people who will not take losing for an answer. No coach can make a person win a medal unless they make the mental commitment to wanting one, and put the time in to benefit from the coaching. So let’s hear it for our athletes.

The joy is no greater for me because we are taking more medals than Australia. Indeed, I apply a different kind of cricket test to who I support. If there is no Brit in a final then I would naturally support the runner from Jamaica or the swimmer from Australia, as I like to see the cricket playing countries of the world do well. I find I am always welcome in them, that we can do a lot of business in them, and that there is a natural camaraderie and friendship.They do not want to lecture me about the need to change the way my country is governed.

For those who do like joy at others’ failings it is more likely for Eurosceptics to be in our position well above all those EU countries that are constantly lecturing and hectoring us to be “better Europeans”, to learn from their success using the “European model”. Whenever I visit many continental countries I am made to defend my Euroscepticism and told that I am wrong to want a freer Europe with less government and less petty minded officiousness everywhere. The more they lecture me to love “European solidarity”, to sign Lisbon, and give away the remaining birthrights of our freedoms, the more I feel the opposite. I suspect many Brits who do harbour negative feelings are keener to beat some European countries than Australia.

Today brings the judgement of the Competition Commission on the BAA. As an early advocate of competitive airports for London, I look forward to being able to offer at least a couple of cheers for getting some of the way there at last. In an ideal world there would be different owners for each of the three BAA London airports at Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick. Failing that, the Commission should demand that BAA chooses either to own Heathrow, the major airport, or the other two. Even requiring the sale of one would be progress.

Why does competition matter? The current level of service to airlines and to travelling passengers is not good enough, and the prices charged are high. If airlines and passengers have some choice of airport under competing managements, each airport will have to try harder to raise service standards and to cut prices. The current owners of BAA have substantial borrowings. New owners might have more borrowing capacity, to make faster and more substantial improvements that require capital outlays.

Improving the service requires new technology and new thinking. It requires collaboration with the government to raise their game over Passport Control and Security. How many times coming back into England do people face long queues to have their passports checked, simply because there are not enough staff present to deal with the numbers? For outbound passengers the delays are mainly at Security, where too few lines are offered and where the checks are clumsily managed. Passengers who do not know the routine are not asked to use their time in the line to prepare themselves for sending their belongings through the machines, so more time is wasted when they do reach the staff. Each time a disaster or attack occurs more retrospective checks are added on the odd assumption that the next attack will mimic the last one. Instead of using intelligence and detailed checking on people more likely to be terrorists, the system produces general checks on everyone. In contrast Customs where there are never queues target their searches and enquiries, choosing sensible random checks to supplement Intelligence driven thorough checks on people they suspect.

A new owner could seek a sensible security review with the government to seek to streamline the service and make it more effective at the same time. It would also allocate more space to the security checks function so we could have more lines for whatever checks are needed. Passport Control probably has enough space, it just needs more people some of the time. A new owner would talk to airlines about streamlining their check in systems, and raise the game on baggage handling. Above all it would provide more capacity, to cut wasted fuel and delays through aircraft having to circle or taxi awaiting a stand. That would be greener as well as better.

Let’s hope the Competition are bold. This could usher in a much needed improvement for the UK’s airports. Maybe they will even demand a similar disposal in Scotland. It will be interesting to see Scottish reactions. Usually MPs from Scotland favour monopolies rather than the “waste” of competition, and favour more rather than less government involvement in things. That is one of the reasons why Scotland remains poorer than England. Perhaps this time they will be offered a dose of something that works? Will they like it? Could it ever prove catching in the Northern air? It will be an interesting challenge for the Scottish economy, and for Labour struggling to explain the poor economic performance of Scotland compared to London .