Michael Edwards for South Derbyshire

Controversy continues concerning a once "Independent" councillor who has opted to join the Tories, a group whose leader once tried to reduce the number of committees the once "Independent" could sit on to 1. 

I can reveal that at least 3 members of South Derbyshire Labour Party checked out the law and other channels to help develop the case against such a decison, cos it semed unjust; as indeed it was recognised to be, but not before money was wasted on an extra meeting of the full council called in the holiday month of August. 

As said before, the defection to the Tories was not unexpected. 

But interesting to read that only last month, another attack was launched on all main parties by the once "Independent".

Honestly, it's enough to give politics a bad name. 

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Meanwhile, please find an image of an article on the proposed sell-off of South Derbyshire council housing.  "I must say, the expression 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' springs to mind". 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/4307146029_fa5d1d0442_b.jpg 

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Note, December's attack on party politics was a prelude to citing a humourous article on the Physics of Christmas that calculated that Santa Claus has one thousandth of a second to visit each house with a deserving child. 

Meanwhile I was blogging about physics too - er, the discovery of dark matter. 

http://www.labourblogs.com/public-blog/michaeledwards/26777/ 

Do I take things too seriously?  

No, No, No!   I've just heard a physics joke on TV.  Co-incidence or what. 

Heisenberg is stopped by the police for speeding.
  "Do you know how fast you were going sir?"
  "No, but I know exactly where I am."  

Get in.  Er, e-mail me if you don't get it.   

Independents who stand for elected positions invariably trot out lines like “Independents for independence”.

As a brand, it’s pretty tainted as often, independents turn out to have party allegiances after all.

Like South Derbyshire Councillor Lisa Brown joining a Tory group she fought tooth and nail against in elections and in the council chamber, only this Thursday. 

Voters in the ward of Etwall, who thought they casting an anti-Tory vote in the last 2 sets of elections, will feel conned. 

And they will feel slightly ill if they read some of the mutual back-slapping comments between the defector and the Tory council leader published in the local paper. 

And council tenants will be wondering as to whether Cllr. Brown’s stance against the sell-off of council housing has now changed, in return for whatever agreements have been struck for her to re-join the Tories. 

Independents are a bit of a con, cos it’s harder for people to discern what they stand for; and because a feature of a modern society is that we are stronger from the mutual dependency we have upon each other. 

For all that, I suspect Independents are most successful when people think the current party representing them is not playing fair. 

Which is why the point is not that a former fund-raiser for the Tories has re-joined the Tory party, but what is was that made her campaign against them in the first place.  

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For a fuller version of the article published last year, surf - http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2794/4297996857_206c9a6a04_b.jpg      

BBC Question Time was noticeably different in tone and tenor this week.  An opening question on the Iraq inquiry brought strong statements from a right-wing historian and TV presenter Richard Madeley as to the believe that such weapons existed and that Tony Blair was genuine in his concern. 

Indeed, both were to explain that most world leaders believers Iraq had chemical weapons. 

And Saddam Hussain had frustrated inspections for 13 years to keep up the threat on his own people and to other countires.

It was the famous mantra coined by Tony Blair – tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. 

Now it appears that crime has fallen during this latest recession, rather than gone up, suggesting that the focus of the effectiveness of the Police and the new technologies available to both detection and prevention is having an effect. 

Figures show a fall nationally and in Derbyshire over the last 12 months. 

Since 1997, crime has fallen by 39 per cent and violence is down by 40 per cent.

o    The risk of being a victim of crime remains at a historically low level (23%)

o    Overall police recorded crime fell by eight per cent on the same quarter (July-September) in 2008

o    Recorded violence (with and without injury) is down by 4% on the same quarter in 2008

o    The percentage of people who perceive a high level of anti-social behaviour has fallen to 15 per cent, which is the lowest since records began; in Derbyshire, the figure is lower at 12%, a significant drop 

Latest Police recorded crime figures in Derbyshire, for the quarter July to September 2009 , compared to the same period in 2008, show total recorded crime down 6 per cent. 

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The Tories would have stood by and allowed crimes like burglary and robbery to rise like they did in the downturns of the 1980s and 1990s. 

During the 1990s recession, acquisitive crime - burglary, robbery and theft - rose by 19% in 1990 and 18% in 1991.

If crime had followed the pattern of the previous two recessions, over a hundred thousand more homes would have been burgled this year, and over fifteen thousand more people would have been robbed this year, compared to what has actually happened. 

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Compared with 1997, the last annual BCS statistics (to the year ending March 2009, published in July 2009) showed the longer term trends:

o    Overall crime is down 36 per cent

o    Domestic burglary down 54 per cent

o    All vehicle-related thefts down 57 per cent

o    All household crime down 36 per cent

o    All BCS violence down 41 per cent

o    All personal crime down 36 per cent

Britain has the lowest murder rate for twenty years.  Local perceptions of anti-social behaviour are at their lowest since 2001.  Confidence in the police is rising right across the country. 

Britain is not broken. 

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And a reminder of the Tory record when they were in power –

Tory record on crime 1979-1997

·          Crime doubled

·          Violent crime rose by 168%

·          The number of convictions fell by a third

·          The chance of being a victim of violent crime trebled and being a victim of burglary more than doubled

New unemployment figures show unemployment in South Derbyshire down by seven.

South Derbyshire's Tory PPC is quoted as saying -

 “I’m clearly delighted for the seven people who have managed to find a job ..."

We are, I suppose, to be grateful that she didn't try to identify them by name. 

Equating a monthly fall of 7 to 7 people finding a job is bizarre.  The real story is far deeper and part of the reason for a fall at all is the extra resources to expand Job Centre Plus to help people find jobs more quickly.

Most commentators are clear that unemployment is still to rise even though we are set to be declared out of recession. 

The significance of the recent monthly falls in unemployment is that they’ve occurred within 20 months of the first rise in unemployment.  During the 1992 recession, it took 40 months. 

Further, unemployment is currently at 2.9% in South Derbyshire nearly half the rate it was following Black Wednesday in 1992, when it reached 5.5%.

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Nationally, the unemployment figures have now fallen for 2 months, and even though they are predicted to go up again next month, it was interesting that David Cameron chose not to talk about the economy at Prime Minister’s Questions. 

Underlying our drive is a clear understanding that “unemployment is not a price worth paying”.  People not paying in to the system but only taking out does not help public finances or the demand for goods and services that others rely on; the personal cost is harder to measure, but broken relationships, defaulted mortgages and damage to confidence is part of that.   

What has been difficult for manufacturing in this country has been the relative high value of the pound, which has helped the financial sector and the consumer of goods, services and foreign holidays, but meant manufacturers have to have high-quality, high-value products to survive and especially to export. 

The pound has fallen during the recession by about 30% compared to other main currencies and this is part of the star of the recovery. 

As for high-value manufacturing, South Derbyshire has a range of such companies which such goods and products – Rolls-Royce (many of whose workers live in South Derbyshire), the Derby railway technologies cluster, Toyota, JCB (engines made in South Derbyshire), Nestle (new coffee product made in Hatton to serve all of Europe) and concrete specialists further south. 

The creative sector is also very important, which computer games software written in the Erewash area forming a significant part of the world’s market. 

Interesting to note too, that constituents are suggesting that recent practices of firms exporting some of their source components has hit quality and timeliness of supply, and currently firms are drawing back from this. 

Focussing on quality, and anticipating the needs of the future – in particular the growth of the environmental technologies is important. 

As for take-overs, there is a concern that the owners of shares, including pensions funds, do not exercise the right kind of responsibility and accountability, worrying more about market share price rather than the wide range of concerns for a company to develop. 

And the burden of debt that firms have to carry to pay-off the old shareholders is also a concern.

A good management against a wider range of concerns than share price is needed. 

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A report commissioned on Derby and Derbyshire manufacturing suggests the Train, Plane and Automobiles sector could grow by 15,700 jobs - http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/15-700-JOBS-PREDICTION-COUNTY/article-1745638-detail/article.html 

with the railway sector potentially having the largest increase.  

Knowing something of the challnges we face in the Deerby railway cluster, perhaps the report is optimistic, but we should strive to meets its best-case scenario.   

The Tories’ chief treasury spokesperson is still not saying what their aspiration for faster cuts to the public services is, despite repeated pressing. 

Bizarrely, he seemed to suggest that aiming to cut the debt faster could lead to a higher annual budgets for public services. 

Cuts in the next financial year will bring chaos to schools, the Police and council services who will have set their budget. 

So embarrassing when other Tories start answering the questions for them. 

One outstanding feature of the Tory conference were all the right-wing commentators arguing the state was just too big in principle. 

Having seen a programme on the BBC on Tuesday night, complaining about the poor quality of meat in hot dogs and tinned meat, I was intrigued when a researcher asked me on my walk to catch the bus if I was prepared to take part in a tasting exercise of hot dogs. 

And sure enough, I was able to tell a difference in quality of the two offered, in colour, taste, smell and consistency.  The inferior one did indeed look like more of it was made from chicken than pork. 

However, the TV programme seem to want to berate the use of mechanically recovered meat, when many of us have backgrounds of family life depending on maximising the use of the meat / joints made available to us. 

Still I think there are concerns about food not being sufficiently labelled to tell us about the source of the food, the welfare of the animals used, the salt content.  Concerns that MEPs like Glenis Willmott are working on. 

I think in the medium term that British farmers will benefit from an emphasis on quality and animal welfare, because they will be more easily able to demonstrate compliance.  

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Glenis Willmott MEP reports -

Tories play catch–up on labelling

Polly Toynbee has published a withering article on this Tory initiative – one which Tory spokespeople like Caroline Spelman still don’t know how to explain. 

First main argument is that the costs of weddings, and the huge costs of divorces means any initiative to make a significant difference has to be expensive - something the Tories don’t actually want to spend on. 

Then, such a proposal is bound to be unfair, because there are just too many scenarios where a loss of such an allowance would punish a deserving parent. 

Third key argument is that deprivation is a bigger factor in indicating problems, than extent of marriage. 

They have also been teased about Kenneth Clarke’s bewail of Tories having a policy that is social engineering.

But we know that we in the Labour Party are trying to improve society by directing money, help and support to those most in need and to families, and to bringing children on. 

We know too that there are values and codes of mutual responsibility (e.g. respect) that are needed to make any such policy successful.  And those codes are more easily accepted and understood in societies that are more equal.

Gordon Brown has worked with the EU to come up with an initiative on promoting jobs. 

The PM has proposed a strategy to reinvigorate Europe’s economies following the recession. He

met with President Van Rompuy at Downing Street and a summit is planned for February.

TO BE UPDATED 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4018/4305199592_140c832108_b.jpg 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4305199330_fb08ca4b92_b.jpg 

Heavy rain has again prompted concerns about the ability of street drains to take the volumes of water. 

Problems most frequently occur when gully pots are silted up, or the covers getting blocked. 

Once or twice I have kicked away the small branches, twigs and leaves that block a gully pot and it’s quite a sight to see the water drain away. 

What’s probably needed, is proper advice to the public on how best to help their neighbourhoods by keeping gully pot covers clear.

TO BE UPDATED

Boris Johnson was the latest Tory to cite a Swedish political initiative – this time concerning tighter controls on immigration.  No doubt hoping that people forget he believes in an immigration amnesty. 

The Labour Government has introduced a points system, higher criteria for gaining British citizenship, an electronic border control system and various initiatives on finding illegal immigrants are on-going.

In the long term, an i.d. card scheme will do a lot to sort out who is entitled to be in Britain. 

Meanwhile, policies and initiatives that focus on local jobs for local people might avoid some of the problems encountered last year during the construction of a new power station in Nottinghamshire.

And bringing people on so that more can take on the jobs of the future will be key. 

Confirmation today at Derbyshire County Council of a £3.5 million contract to build 2 new sports halls, with the order going to South Derbyshire firm Roger Bullivant Ltd.

The money was part of the money brought forward as part of the Labour Government's initiative to help the construction sector during the recession.   

Another year of progress for children taking GCSEs was confirmed in the official results published this week. 

67.9% of pupils achieved 5 good GCSEs (A* to C) in Derbyshire in 2009, up nearly 5% in a year and up 22% since 1998. 

Congratulations to everyone who worked to achieve the improvement. 

Resources and reform have been key to the improvements. 

There are approximately 120 extra secondary school teachers serving South Derbyshire children, 80 extra primary school teachers, 260 extra teaching assistants and 130 more support staff. 

It is traditional for opposition parties to try to belittle progress, but the line taken by the Lib Dems – that the resources had gone to the cities - doesn’t seem to stack up given the increase in resources shown here. 

As it happens Derby has improved by 28%, although has gone down in the last year.  (I’m not clear if this is consequential upon any decision made by the Derby Lib Dems running the council.) 

But it hasn’t been very long since the Lib Dems have complained about the gap between the very richest and the very poorest getting larger.  Labour has tried to help the very poorest – encouraging people into work, minimum wage, tax credits and minimum pensions using pension credits, it’s a bit galling to have the Lib Dems then criticise policies aimed to boost the capacity of the most disadvantaged to achieve more in their adult life through a better education. 

As for league tables, it’s hard to see how you can avoid results being collated and published in these formats, even if people are concerned about arguably simplistic presentations of how good schools are. 

I do think presentations of schools’ achievements against an indication of the degree of deprivation their cohorts of children should be published, to highlight potential instances of schools coasting. 

But I think the system of inspection that we’ve reached with schools is a very constructive way of judging schools.  Look for assessments of the school’s leadership, its management, its quality of teaching and quality of learning, starting with the school conducting a self-assessment (with actions to be taken on weaknesses identified), and then have inspectors checking the honesty and accuracy of the self-assessment, conducting a full inspection if they have concerns. 

In South Derbyshire, we also need to look out for the quality of school buildings and facilities; and for meeting the demand for schools like John Port school which will grow with the extra housing being planned between Findern and Stenson Fields.  The commitment to renew our secondary schools in this decade, through the “Building Schools for the Future” programme, is so important. 

George Osborne’s warning tonight that he intends to cut next year’s budgets for public services – in year – should be salutary to us all. 

Cutting public services before the economic recovery is secured risks a double-dip recession. 

Yes, the debt built-up will have to be dealt with, cos interest rates in the future will start to grow at some stage, and the cost of servicing the debt will grow. 

And in 1997, we worked hard to get the cost of public debt down to allow more spending one services. 

It’s where we’ll want to be again in the future. 

But debt was used to do a job – to keep businesses going, to keep people in work, to keep families in homes. 

And it worked.  It’s calculated unemployment would be at least 500,000 higher if the classical economic policies had been followed.

More businesses and more people, in work will help us halve the debt in four years.  To go faster will risk a double-dip recession. 

And all our public services will have to re-cast spending in-year.  Not easy if employment levels have already been committed to for the year.  And drastic cuts will be harder to achieve cos redundancies carry a cost that’s hard to recover. 

Over 4,000 new council homes will be built in 2010, with housing for over 8,000 people.

And none of them in South Derbyshire - cos South Derbyshire Tories won’t apply.

Bolsover gets 18 bungalows for the elderly and the disabled.

Instead, South Derbyshire Tories are focussed on selling off council houses, if possible without the support of tenants.

The proposed sell-off was not mentioned in their local elections manifesto in 2007.

South Derbyshire deserves better.

Four weeks of cold weather.  Cold by our recent standards, although I suspect older people remember much harsher winters.  1963?  1947? 

As for memories, I wonder if they remember the last Tory MP for South Derbyshire, Edwina Currie, whose advice as a Tory minister during the cold weather was “wear woolly hats and long johns”.

So a matter for some pride that Labour can show that we offer direct financial help in winter. 

Winter Fuel payments of £250 (increasing to £400 for the over 80s). 

And cold weather payments of £25. 

The Labour government is spending £2,700 million a year to help pensioners meet their fuel bills.  In 1997, the Tories spent £60 million. 

A factor of 45.  And people say there's no difference. 

The BBC reports - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8448930.stm -

Most Afghans are increasingly optimistic about the state of their country, a poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC News and Germany's ARD shows.

Of more than 1,500 Afghans questioned, 70% said they believed Afghanistan was going in the right direction - a big jump from 40% a year ago.

... For Nato troops, including UK forces, support has risen from 59% to 62%.

The survey was conducted in all of the country's 34 provinces in December 2009. 

I'm grateful again to Labour activist Luke Akehurst ( http://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/ )  , who reported back in December about a breifing given to him as a blogger by NATO -  (I was going to point to it, but couldn't find a specific address) -

Following Cameron’s triple flip on Monday, inability to give a straight answer on Tuesday, withdrawal of a pledge on prison places on Wednesday and controversy over his made up face on Thursday, it's now Nick Clegg's turn to withdraw from pledges used in recent years to criticise the Labour party.  

Most noticeably, delaying its long-standing commitment to abolishing university tuition fees. 

Nick Clegg promised to treat people like adults, and was angry about the useless of meaningless slogans. 

Clegg's statement today "Fairness means opportunity is for everyone." does not count cos it has meaning, it's just as BBC Daily Politics pointed out, the grammar is so poor as to make it hard to discern what the meaning is.

And as Dave Hill points out, the closeness of the general election, is bringing scrutiny to the Lib Dems and the Tories at last.    

Over 700 people attended the funeral of David Taylor today. 

His local church was full and whilst many stood in the church grounds, 250 mourners stood in the road. 

The Labour Party was represented by Deputy Leader Harriet Harman, at least 4 Ministers and many MPs; Parliament was represented by the Speaker John Bercow.

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The programme for the funeral at St John The Baptist Church, in his home village of Heather, near Ibstock, prior to a private burial in the nearby cemetery.

People standing the road applauded as the car made a final short journey to the church. 

Each member of the family carried a single red rose. 

Most of the congregation stood outside as it snowed during the first half of the service.  The service was relayed by speakers outside the church.

Larger versions of the photos are available at -

Programme - http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4050/4259566021_5ac9b95a87_b.jpg 

Applause from the public - http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2737/4259562559_9f842980af_b.jpg 

Arrival of funeral procession - http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/4259563137_707a456019_b.jpg 

The congregation in the snow - http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/4260320742_d0fb785bdb_b.jpg

Part of the frustration with the call for a leadership ballot, is that it took away political debate from the focus that Labour had been developing nicely on tax and public spending policy. 

David Cameron had a nightmare on Monday as he changed his line three times on what was supposed to be a flagship policy.  Michael White of the Guardian reports that Cameron admitted "I messed up" and that “Cameron's slip over marriage, symbolically so important to party activists, reinforces the flaky, uncosted quality of many Tory pledges.”

A flakiness that was being exposed by Labour’s scrutiny. 

Gordon Brown had another successful Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.  The success went beyond his joke on Cameron not being able to say “I do” or “I don’t” being better that the Cameron’s “Darling, I love you” joke. 

Gordon Brown had picked up on another Cameron interview -

   The Prime Minister:
       Last night he [David Cameron] was asked,
       “Are you committed to educational maintenance allowances?”
       What was his answer?  
       “Let’s just say I’m not uncommitted to it”.
       He then said:   “Well, we’re in a state of quite severe flux on this whole area…”
       “so I can’t give you a straight answer”.

"So I can’t give you a straight answer" ought to have been the quote of the day. 

And now it’s reported that the Tories have dropped another pledge - to "build 5,000 prison places over and above Labour's plans, taking the total operational capacity in the estate to over 100,000".  Labour has expanded prison capacity but not to the levels Cameron had previously said were necessary. 

Now it’s suggested that some of the public are put off by political parties challenging each other.  I can imagine people being put off by rudeness, or banality, triviality or barbarity. 

But there has got to be a debate over serious matters such as tax and public spending. 

And I’m pleased to see Labour promoting its plans for growth yesterday. 

Ann Winterton (Congleton) (Con): Bearing in mind ... the current weather cycle, which clearly indicates a cooling trend - [ Laughter. ]  (From Hansard)

MPs laughed, but she wasn’t joking. 

As "Tabloid Watch" reports -   “the Daily Express is actually suggesting that because it is snowing in Britain in winter, global warming can't possibly exist.” 

As Tabloid Watch points out, the weather in Britain can’t be taken to indicate the state of the world as a whole, and last year happened to be the fifth warmest on record. 

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The Tory MP went on to suggest that investment in off-shore wind power was a waste. 

Gordon Brown in reply, queried how the Tories could lead on climate change if they can’t convince their own backbenchers.  He pointed out –

“We are now the leading power in the world for offshore wind. We will soon be making announcements that will make it clear that massive numbers of jobs will come as a result of offshore wind.”

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In the world of science, can there be a job as unrewarding as weather forecaster?  Through history we see them in the role of bad guys, responsible for fouling up bomber raids over Germany or delaying D-Day. 

Cue Andrew Neil to rip into the head of the meteorological service for not predicting a colder winter than usual.  Protests that such longer-range forecasts were so difficult to get right that they weren’t part of any performance management system cut no ice, as it were. 

And why, with all the computer power available to them, do they still insist on the obscure view of the Albion which lingers on the fortunes of Cornwall (population 534,000) and skims over Scotland (population 5,168,000)? 

On the other hand, where else is someone’s predictions dependent on something as subtle as a flap of a butterfly’s wings?  (The butterfly effect refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location.) 

After the success of the car scrappage scheme, the boiler scrappge scheme starts today. 

And it's nice to be mitigating climate change (125,000 new boilers will be equivalent to taking 47,000 cars off the road) through measures that will reduce household fuel bills (typically between £200 and £235 a year). 

Over 200 households in South Derbyshire could benefit if they apply quickly enough - more if some of the manfacturers involved come in with offers to match the £400 discount or extend the number of vouchers available, like some already have. 

To find out more about the scheme, phone the Energy Saving Trust’s advice line on 0800 512 012 or surf www.est.org.uk

Meanwhile, it transpires that the Tories' pledge of £6500 loan to improve energy efficiency to every household is unravelling under scrutiny - it's only up to £6,500 (average is now expected to be £1500) and they haven't yet explained how it will be funded up-front. 

Further reading on climate change. 

http://www.labourblogs.com/public-blog/michaeledwards/19945/

http://www.me4sd.com/act-on-co2  

.  

And lo!  Just hours after dismissing Labour's report in 11 seconds flat, David Cameron appeared to change his position on recognising marriage within the tax system  .

Paul Waugh from the Evening Standard reported -

The £4.9 billion 'cost' of the married tax breaks is based on the idea that Cameron will copy the IDS policy ...

[Cameron] told the BBC that he could not guarantee a Conservative government would be able to offer a tax break to married couples, despite having personally supported such a move.

"It's something within a parliament I would definitely hope to do".

That sounded like a policy in real danger of being watered down to the point of tokenism. It sounded like a pledge downgraded to an aspiration, a policy downgraded to a 'hope'.

Given that the Tory leader has made clear publicly and privately just how passionate he is about marriage, this was one tax cut that colleagues was felt to be a certainty.

The Tories counter-dossier ... also states: "We have pledged [note the word 'pledge' there] to recognise marriage in the tax system.  There are various different ways in which that could be done, which may cost much less".

So is it a 'pledge' or a 'hope'? I'm confused.  And again, if the actual policy costs 'much less', then how can the party boast to Middle England that it is taking decisive action to help marriage? ...

What are pledges worth with the Tories?  Like pledging to a referendum on the European Union Lisbon Treaty, despite being warned such a referendum would be meaningless once all countries had signed up.

And Paul Waugh goes on to say -  “Having backed off his environmentalism, there is a danger that this latest revision will leave supporters asking: well, what does David Cameron really believe in?” 

Not a great start for someone who was lecturing us only 2 days ago on being candid. 

Amazing to hear David Cameron talking about extra money for the health service today, when he's set himself the target of bearing down on the public debt. 

The Labour Party today published a report that shows that just by wanting to halve the public debt in 3 years instead of 4, the Tories would have to cut the spending plans by a further £26 billion. 

Labour also publishes figures today that shows a gap in spending plans of £34 billion by the fifth year of a Tory Government based on their plans. 

Cameron hopes it will be enough to call the report a lie, but having called for candour on Saturday, the least he could do is explain the main parts of his tax and spending plans so that Tory candidates don't promise things he can't deliver in his name. 

For instance, Cameron was very clear today in saying he wanted to cut public spending in the next financial year (starting April) yet Tory councillors still don't seem to have realised that this means less money for their councils. 

There's a fuller version of the web-page at http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2682/4244346789_c2b2a66d7d_b.jpg

Also slightly bewildering was the charge against targets within the NHS (unpopular and bureaucratic) with an assertion that new money would only go to the parts of the NHS serving the most needy, if they'd demonstrated that they could deliver.  So rewards for meeting targets?  Go figure. 

As it happens, Labour is moving from top-down targets to guarantees that patients and the public can expect the NHS to deliver to, such as minimum times for operations and seeing cancer specialists.  

Will Hutton today asserts that unemployment would have been half a million higher if the Government had followed Conservative responses to the economic recession.  That’s around 750 jobs per Parliamentary constituency. 

Key points are –  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/03/uk-economic-recovery   -

·         this will be a year of a steadily improving economy; 

·         over the last nine months, the stock market has recorded the third biggest rise since 1693, [and is likely to] be the biggest sustained rise for 317 years; 

·         the Office for National Statistics reported that unemployment as measured by the numbers applying for the Jobseekers' Allowance (JSA) had fallen 6,300. (Though he notes, it is only a one-month fall.)  In no post-war recession has unemployment ever fallen so quickly, just 20 months after the rise began. (It took 40 months before the first fall in the early 1980s.)

·         Unemployment has risen much less than anybody expected [during this recession];

·         for example, the claimant count rate has been decelerating since the spring – from 25,000 a week to 3,000 a week now.

·         [From a study] of banking crises, the average rise of unemployment in countries experiencing major systemic banking crises since 1930 is 7% of the workforce. In Britain, this would have meant an unemployment rise of around 1.75 million.
Unemployment will certainly carry on rising in 2010, but the eventual rise will be around 1.25 million; serious, but not as cataclysmic as it could have been.

·         “Companies and workforces have moved heaven and earth to protect jobs. Part of the story is wage freezes, wage cuts and working fewer hours, but top companies have decided that they would rather cut investment in plant than cut their investment in people. In a knowledge-based economy such as ours, skilled workers who know the company, its operations and its customers are ever more valuable, expensive to fire and expensive to replace when times get better. Business investment on the other hand can be deferred.”

·         The Labour government ... has poured resources into the Jobcentre Plus network to increase its capacity.  

·         55% of new claimants are leaving the register within three months and 73% within six months – only fractionally lower than in normal times. 

·         30%-plus devaluation, ... the largest since Britain left the gold standard in 1931.  ...  Imports are relatively expensive and are dropping fast, while in 2010 exports will start to accelerate, especially as the world economy, led by Asia and the US, rebounds.  

·         The industry we have left is highly competitive; it had to be. Growth in Britain from the dark days of the 1991 recession to the end of a disastrous 2009 has still averaged a solid 2.1%. 

·         Two more sources of vital stabilisation are the £200bn of cash printed by the Bank of England to flood the stricken financial system and the £178bn budget deficit.  Again, these are unprecedentedly big, but faced by near banking collapse, no other response was possible.  

·         The Bank of England has had to be radical about avoiding a calamitous contraction of the money supply, and the government has had to be no less radical in maintaining public demand as private demand risked going into free fall.  The banking system has been bailed out ...

·         “How would a Conservative government have fared? It is difficult to imagine it would have been so aggressive. I doubt it would have spent £5bn on trying to cap unemployment; it would never have implemented the timely and targeted VAT reduction; its hesitations over bailing out the banks could have seen a bank collapse; it would have been a reluctant endorser of quantitative easing; it would have tried to cap the necessary rise in the public deficit. Had it been in power, Rogoff's and Reinhart's projections would been borne out – and nearly half-a-million people more would have lost their jobs.” 

There more analysis in the article itself. 

Talking on the doorstep, it’s a bit harder to be optimistic about the efforts being made to keep experienced workers in jobs, given some of the concerns I hear is of the “casual-isation” of workers. 

On the other hand, the article doesn’t mention the international co-ordination agreed (and often led by Gordon Brown) so that such initiatives weren’t strangled by other countries choosing to deflate their economies to attempt to balance their government budgets.

But the Labour Government has worked to save jobs, businesses and mortgages and been very radical to do it. 

Meanwhile, David Cameron keeps on about debt – “Today, there is one issue that looms larger than any other in British politics: the amount of government borrowing. ”

And people still say all the parties are the same. 

David Cameron discussed cutting the use of Government cars yesterday to save public money.  Nice.  The thought triggered no doubt by cycling and being followed bya government car carrying his stuff. 

Cameron spoke of candour, saying next year’s public spending must be cut, cited examples in the world of politics amounting to £120 million, and then, after acknowledging that this figure was very low compared to the public debt he’s concerned about, stopped. 

So not speaking with candour over which budget areas are to be cut. 

And then this morning, the news was, he will annoucne his desire to divert more money to the NHS serving the most deprived areas.  Billions apparently.  From what it was being diverted from is not said. 

A Happy New Year to you all! 

Had a sweet moment yesterday when an 82 year old lady rang to say how she’d just read the letter we’ve been circulating, saying she agreed with every word, and that the Tories stance on hunting was wrong (although she was a bit more evocative than that). 

A nice moment. 

Here's web versions of the letter; click on the following to see larger versions -  

Priorities leaflet   

The Tories are stuck in the past!  

My priorities