Category: Blog

Last night I heard a speech by the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser. It was more evidence of the government’s bulging wasteline.

Without a reference to the Credit Crunch or the borrowing disaster he told us he was just completing his project of hiring a Chief Scientific Adviser for every government department. With no sense of irony – or doubt about the wisdom – he told us the Foreign Office has just hired one for the first time. If we managed to get through the World War and the Cold War without the Foreign Office having its own Scientific Adviser, why do we suddenly need one? Why can’t the Foreign Office if it needs scientific advice ask the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, or draw on the science skills in the Ministry of defence?

The main purpose seemed to be to combat the loneliness he feels in the EU, where apparently only Ireland has an equivalent job to our Government Chief Scientific Adviser. Germany, with better controls over public spending and with an excellent science based industry we were told sees no need for such a role.

I would be happy to settle for keeeping a Chief Scientist for the government as a whole, but doubt every department needs its own. No wonder we are short of money, when there is this kind of bureaucratic expansion going on.I remember having to stop the Welsh Office appointing more economists to do forecasts – I said to them I was happy to use the Treasury’s which taxpayers were already paying for.

I am glad to have helped push the ID card and ID computer system to the top of the media list for spending cuts.

Given the way this government does everything for political effect, they may now well cancel the ID scheme themselves “to shoot the Tory’s spending fox”.

I don’t mind if they do. We can always then promote another big unpopular programme. Step forward unelected regional government and the public sector rich list.

Yesterday was a good day for democracy – for a change.

One of the few Ministers who does believe in Parliament, Jack Straw, came to the House. He had held a consultation on building 3 Titan prisons. Most people had said a big “No” to the idea. Jack has scrapped the proposal. Amazing. Simple. Couldn’t possibly catch on with the others.

Meanwhile the usually absent Two Homes Secretary failed to turn up again to make a Statement on prying into all our emails and web visits. She made a written statement so we could not cross examine her, although she was available for media interviews.

It was good news that she has dumped the idea of a big national computer system at public cost to monitor us even more. It was bad news that she wants the private sector to do some of the job for her. That is presumably why she was not going to submit herself to questioning in the House. We would have asked her how many more obligations there will be on private computer firms? How much will it cost them? How much more intrusive is it going to be? In the media interviews I saw I did not hear her being asked that. She was just allowed to pose as a believer in civil liberties! What a racket.

The far away Prime Minister was also busy U-turning. Hour by hour we learnt from the media that more of Gordon’s expenses package for MPs was heading for the waste bin. Sky News was a better source than the Commons tea room. By the close of business the Attendance Payment was dead. So well done bloggers on this site- your silly names for the payment must have been the last straw for this proposal!

I have been thinking about what we should call Attendance Allowances for MPs.

I first thought they should be ASBOs – Arrive, Swipe, Be Off.

Then I realised they are LILOs – Log In, Lope Off.

Do you have a better proposal?

David Cameron made an excellent speech yesterday, calling for a new approach to public spending. He called for value for money across all departments. He demanded a culture change at the top, where Ministers are rewarded for spending less, not encouraged to spend more. He wishes to see better schools and hospitals, and to strengthen important public services through more devolution of power and less expensive centralised meddling. He identified several examples of the cuts he wants to see elsewhere- Regional Assemblies, regional Planning quangos, ID cards, national databases, bloated advertising budgets, numbers of Spin doctors. It was on the money and about our money.

Some of his lieutenants then seemed stumped by the media asking the Labour question, What exactly would the Tories cut, as if David had not clearly set out yesterday and elsewhere many of the things he would do without in government. So for those collagues who have missed David’s speeches and statements on this crucial issue, I list below some of them so next time you can get through the interview by answering the question. The media too, might like to read the Conservative work on controlling spending, instead of parroting the new Labour lie that the Conservatives have failed to come up with any proposals.

1. ID cards and the National Identity database
2. New centralised NHS computing schemes
3. Regional assemblies
4. Regional Planning quangos
5. Reduction in the number of Special Advisers
6. Reduction in the number of MPs
7. Reduction in size of civil service through natural wastage
8. Reduction in Tax Credits to higher earners
9. Reform of welfare payments to put more people into work and off benefit
10 Cuts in government advertising budgets
11. Cuts in government purchasing of consultancy services – £4 billion of contracts currently out to tender
12. Cuts in MP expenses by reducing the number of items they can claim for
13 Removal of Learning and Skills Council bureaucracy
14 Removal of £1 billion plus overhead monitoring and interfering with local government from Whitehall
15 Accelerated sale of assets
16 Greater role for private finance in housing
17 Make future public sector pensions more affordable for taxpayers
Etc etc

Whatever we say Labour will both claim Conservatives have no ideas on how to cut spending, and that Conservatives intend to massacre essential services! Same old Labour lies.

Today we may hear more about the Home Secretary’s proposals to snoop on all our emails and web activities.

I have commented before on this disagraceful attack upon our liberty. If she had any understanding of how the public feels, and any belief in freedom, she would send the computer salesmen packing. The answer must be “No”.

This morning I want to raise the issue of how much all this is going to cost. This government has plunged us into huge debt with many expensive over the top centralised computer systems. Why should this one be any different?

Can the Home Secretary please go back to concentrating on her personal expense forms. We might be able to afford a few more items for the second home. We certainly cannot afford her spending time signing national computer contracts on this scale.

The government wishes to make second jobs an issue in the argument over allowances, requiring MPs to state how much time they spend on their second jobs. This is another boomerang for Labour.

A backbench MP has a full time job in the sense that you could not do it properly in less than 40 hours a week 48 weeks a year. But it is a demanding job with very flexible hours and demands. You do not do it 9 til 5 five days a week. For example, most MPs accept that they need to work at week ends, when constituents are available to meet them and invite them to events. If you wish to make a case on the media it is no use saying you do not do week-ends. We all accept that we should be at work at 10 pm in the evening on Mondays and Tuesdays when there are often votes. I answer emails, letters and blog postings seven days a week 50 weeks a year to avoid delays and build up.

However, the whole system is also based on the proposition that it is normal for an MP to do a second job. There are five types:

1. Official jobs that carry a substantial taxpayer paid salary and require the MP does no other outside job
2. Official jobs with a lower salary.
3. Unpaid official jobs.
4. Private jobs with salary
5. Private jobs without salary

Well over a third of all MPs have jobs in the first three categories. Labour seems to approve of these jobs. All Ministers, Government Whips, Senior Opposition Whips, the Leader of the Opposition and the Speaker are paid substantial salaries for their second jobs, with a rule that they may not hold other paid employment to avoid any conflicts and to demonstrate that these are very demanding second roles. If you have an exective second public job of course you should not also be in paid employment elsewhere.

Other MPs have paid official jobs as Chairmen of Committee business or Chairmen of Select Committees. These attract extra pay, but do not require the ending of all outside interests. They do naturally restrict the type of outside interest that would be possible.

Around 100 MPs have unpaid official jobs as Shadow Ministers and Opposition Spokesmen. The senior jobs within this group are very demanding and can require someone to avoid or resign from outside jobs. Contrary to common belief there are no cars, civil servants or other official assitance in the way there is for Ministers.

Most MPs would like a job in one of these categories. Most would prefer one in the first category. However, to make the system work you need maybe half of all MPs with no such jobs to cross examine those who have these jobs. They can only do this when Parliament is in session and when the people we wish to cross examine are appearing.

If Labour now wish to have an accurate statement of how many hours MPs spend on their second jobs, it could make fascinating reading. For ten years of my time in Parliament so far I have had demanding second jobs as a Minister or Shadow Minister. More recently I led the Economic Policy Review teams as a pro bono job. I found it meant I needed to work long hours and most days, to ensure my constituents did not suffer a worse service as well. When I see how some of these current Ministers operate I wonder how many hours they are devoting to their highly paid Ministerial second jobs. We could easily find out how many hours they spend on them, as the civil service keeps detailed and accurate diaries for all Ministers.

I wonder if Labour’s enthusiasm for transparency on second jobs is going to extend to telling us how much time Ministers have spent on their roles? Somehow I doubt it, as I suspect in some cases the answers will prove to be embarrassing. Labour thought it would just be a debate about category 4 second jobs. More MPs are covered by the other four categories, and the first category is by far and away the most important and most interesting.

Someone sent me this speech by Cromwell to dissolve Parliament. I can’t think why I should be sent this now.

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone!

So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

Best regards

The decision to raise the higher rate of tax from 40p in the £1 to 50p is a spectacular boomerang.

Those intellectual giants, Brown and Balls, plotting in the bunker at Number 10 thought a 50p tax rate would split the Tories and with luck unite all but the very rich against the Conservatives. If David Cameron backed it, surely Tories would queue up to condemn him. If he opposed it, surely the country would flock to Brown’s side. They never thought that David Cameron would reveal it for what it is – a tawdry piece of juvenile and foolish politics at a time when we needed a budget for national recovery and solvency.

Instead of it being a major new weapon to define politics in a way favourable to Labour, it has become a huge and looming Labour bomerang. Blairites are queueing up to condemn it. Moderate Labour MPs wanting to keep their seats are amazed at the vitriol being poured against them for the budget. Many Labour MPs who individually might like a soak the rich approach know that the veneer of New Labour and the Blair magic was important to their past victories, and new feel very naked with the New decisively and finally stripped from the brand. Economists and forecasters are pointing out that higher rates may result in less revenue. Wait for the news of businesses and entrepreneurs moving abroad. Read the figures the government has produced to show the collapse of revenue we face anyway.

It all underlines Labour politics in the age of McBride. It is cynical, nasty, and all for effect and spin. Many decent Labour MPs need to send signals to their electors that they do not go along with all of this. 50p tax turned out to be as divisive and effective as Mr Brown hoped, but not at splitting the Tories but at splitting Labnour.

For his sake,the sooner he U turns the better. I suspect he will not, so his civil war will intensify.

To change the metaphor, his big gun against the Tories has recoiled and done great collateral damage. Where will he try next? His list of broken election pledges is now long. The public will remember for a long time the cynical destruction of the offer of a referendum on Lisbon, and the way he set aside the pledge not to raise income tax rates.