CentreRight

Has the Summer of Rage arrived early?

Think the colour scheme needs a bit more work . . .

Myners' pension reported as being with RBS

The Evening Standard reports that Lord Myners, who signed off for the government on the deal that gave Sir Fred Goodwin his notorious pension, himself has a pension with RBS valued at £4m.  Of course, since I want the government not to renege on its deal with Sir Fred (at least, not until after it has already reneged on its deals with bondholders in RBS), I have no objection to Lord Myners keeping his pension.  But can the same be said of others?  Presumably, since his pension is with an institution Vince Cable states is bankrupt and ought to pay no pension above £27,000, the same would apply to Myners?  Does Harriet Harman think it is "unacceptable and won't be accepted" that Lord Myners pocket a pension of £242,000 per year, benefitting from a failed institution?  Will the government be seeking every legal avenue available to see whether they can avoid making this payment to him?

Hat Tip: James Forsyth

Arise, Sir Chappaquiddick - it's more than your victim can do

Senator Edward Kennedy is to receive an honorary knighthood.  I struggle to see why.  As she saw many aspects of his character, I wish I could ask Mary Jo Kopechne what she thinks.  But of course, I can't.  She can't do anything, thanks to Sir Teddy.  I can't see his corpulent face or hear his name without thinking of that poor girl.

Thatcher and Geldof discuss post modern government

Baroness Thatcher was on top form at the Centre for Policy Studies last night for the annual Keith Joseph Memorial lecture. Engaging Sir Bob Geldof and CPS Chairman Lord Saatchi in animated conversation over drinks afterwards, it was clear she was enjoying herself far too much to slip away quietly.

Peter Oborne, who gave this year's lecture, delivered some harsh criticism of today's political classes, especially the 'truth-creating, post modern' approach of the Labour government, and concluded by quoting the great Lady on the importance of honesty when facing the electorate. ‘In politics' she declared 'integrity really lies in the conviction that it’s only on the basis of truth that power should be won — or indeed can be worth winning.’  Words spoken thirteen years ago, at the first Keith Joseph lecture, but very timely advice for politicians of today.

And as he paid tribute to Sir Keith as a man who engaged in truth telling even at the expense of his own political advancement, Peter threw down a challenge to the Conservative party of 2009. If they are to to govern effectively in a bleak economic climate, they must 'not only dismantle the apparatus of postmodern government but also reclaim the truth, and look back to their own roots in the British empirical tradition.'

One question remained unspoken: are today's politicians held in such low regard that the British public is no longer prepared to believe any of them?

ITV loss could herald another industry wipe-out

Yesterday's losses from ITV showed that it isn't just banks and manufacturers that risk being wiped out in the current downturn.

The mouthwatering £2.7 bn loss was large made up of capital write downs. But the £167m trading profit from last year was for the calendar year 2008, with the slump in advertising spend only taking effect in the last quarter. With spend down around 20% this year, ITV is effectively trading at a loss. As most likely are both Channel 4 and five. And that's just the broadcasters. National newspapers are in a terrible state and things are even worse for local papers, more than 50 of which have closed since the recession hit.

The downturn in advertising is one problem - but structural change is an even bigger one. Advertisers are increasingly switching their spend online. Last year in the UK Google's revenues exceeded those of ITV. In fact only the only media players in reasonable shape at the moment are the BBC, cushioned by £3.4 bn of guaranteed income from the licence fee and Sky, which had the foresight to develop a commercial model based on subscription as well as advertising.

If media companies start dropping like ninepins, the implications are profound. Quality and choice in media isn't just about giving a better choice to consumers: it is actually about maintaining an open, free and healthy democracy. Stephen Glover is right to sound the alarm on this in today's Daily Mail.

But sorting this out is much less about government hand-outs than looking at the regulatory structure that was constructed for a pre-internet world. Unfortunately the government seems more interested in publishing endless reviews than actually sorting things out. The risk is that by the time they get round to doing anything there may not be much of a media sector left. Britain has some of the best choice and variety of media of any country anywhere - but it is hanging by a thread.

I'm not the only one who misses President Bush

Hat tip to Andrew Bolt.

The ONS was right to publish the population data

I should declare an interest. I spent the best part of 15 years as a member of the Government Statistical Service. Indeed my initial training was as a statistician. I went into the statistical service because I felt strongly that any public policy debate should be informed by the impartial analysis of the relevant unbiased data. The data should be employed to illuminate and inform and not as the old adage states “as a drunk uses a lamppost – for support rather than illumination”. Moreover, the relevant data should be freely available for any issue, however “controversial”. Of course, figures may be abused and misinterpreted but they should be available for all to see. Let us see the figures and then we can make our own minds up. Anything less is the crude manipulation and suppression of information. 

Sadly we have all become familiar with the corrupting spin and dark arts employed by New Labour since 1997. Of all New Labour’s ghastly litany of errors I believe that it is this dishonest spin and suppression of the “truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” that has been the most damaging. And I say that as we sit among the smouldering ruins of the banking system, the public finances and other swathes of the economy. When public debate loses its openness and honesty, integrity is lost. When any attempts to discuss openly the economic and social effects of large-scale immigration or question the current religion of man-made global warming are howled down by slanderous and tendentious insult, it is time to recognise that honest debate is under severe threat.

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"I can no longer pretend that the army of teenage mothers living off the state is anything other than a national catastrophe"

I have long been an avid reader of the blog written by Tom Harris, the Labour MP for Glasgow South, who is one of the most personable MPs I know. His writing is candid, insightful and humorous, and the way he writes his blog should be a model for MPs of all parties. It gives you a real feel for what makes the man tick, both as a politician and as a human being.

But a post he has written today particularly deserves wider attention for its honest assessment of an issue which has been in the news of late: teenage motherhood.

He writes:

"I can no longer pretend that the army of teenage mothers living off the state is anything other than a national catastrophe... Such young women see parenthood as one way of achieving a level of independence and self-worth. And they’re right, because that’s more or less what they get: a flat and therefore some privacy, an income for the first time in their lives. And in fact, many of them make a decent job of parenthood despite the awful circumstances. But even they are nevertheless rearing the next generation in an environment where the main adult isn’t working, but claiming."

"People shouldn’t be ashamed of their circumstances, but neither should we avoid making value judgments about others’ choices, especially when those choices result in a greater burden on the state, and lead to the continuation of the underclass. Teenage girls shouldn’t be having underage sex. Why? Because it’s wrong. Teenage girls shouldn’t choose to have babies as an alternative to getting an education and a career. Why? Because it’s wrong. Parents shouldn’t teach their children that a lifetime on benefits is attractive or even acceptable. Why? Because it’s wrong."

In deciding where to proceed policy-wise after reaching these concusions, he says that he intends having a coffee with Frank Field to discus idea for reform.

I also suggest he meets up with Iain Duncan Smith, the author of the Conservative Party's Broken Britain report, as I suspect that IDS - and David Cameron for that matter - would also agree with every one of his conclusions.

A tale of two websites

Screen captured at the same time.

Cyberbullying truths

The Mail today claims that facebook and twitter 'fuel' cyberbullying. While cyberbullying is a serious problem and sad reality [apart from when Guido does it!], I would argue that these sites do not fuel it. Yes they offer the cowardly bully a medium through which they can torment, but to accuse them of promoting it is simply to shoot the messenger.

The much more serious point here is that 50% of mental health problems begin in children under the age of 14 years and that will certainly rise if we don't take responsibility for protecting children while using this great software. There have already been tragic cases of suicide after experiences of cyberbullying. I would suggest there are three significant contributors to this neglect of responsibility.

Firstly many [most?] parents don't or don't know how to set security & privacy settings for their children's computers, mobiles or social networking sites [which have an age limit of 13 years anyway]. The recent cybersurvey undertaken by Mr Manning at his school revealed a scandalous level of neglect by parents in this domain, both in the unlimited terms of access and time [more on that another post - and there is another clue to obesity in there too]. Whether through ignorance, weakness or deliberate some of this is another consequence of the undermining of parenting by Labour.

Secondly, children are not taught how to be safe online when they use IT - surely this should a basic priority for teachers in the primary school PHSE curriculum. And lastly kids themselves need to behave responsibly, although a large part of this is having the emotional intelligence to be able to block unwanted calls and 'friends', and that often depends on whether their parents have bothered to instil it.

Picking up the pieces is unsustainable - psychiatry colleagues are currently being told to find cuts in their mental health service provisions. We need to start somewhere, so how about a high profile campaign led by the likes of the Sun, Mirror and Mail with cut-out 20 things to make your home pc safe along with a school-centred awareness campaign that kid's mental wellbeing is at stake paid for by the software/networking companies. What a great chance to demonstrate their CSR! Now, who's ready to get this one going?

Rush Limbaugh Republicanism

Rush Limbaugh was on sparky form at CPAC* last week:

...but David Frum fears him becoming the main public face of the Republicans:

"Here’s the duel that Obama and Limbaugh are jointly arranging:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time."

If the Republicans are to have a future they must resist Coulterisation.  The base may love it but it'll never work as an electoral strategy.

* An annual gathering of conservative activists in Washington DC.

Demonizing your opponents

With no apologies at all to Jenni Russell...

For 100 years anyone who thought themselves vaguely on the right has been able to rail against the worthlessness of Socialism. We deplored their devotion to the politics of class, their hatred of the market, their callous indifference towards all those who aspired to flourish in a tough, competitive world. We detested their xenophobia (cf anti-Americanism), racism (cf Kenyan Asians), sexism (seen many women Trades Union leaders?) and inverted snobbery. We knew, from grim experience, how willing they were to let the economy crumble and public services become at the same time poor in delivery and massively over-expensive to run. We exhorted (and still exhort) them to abandon their disgraceful politics - but remain comfortably certain that they never will.

Americans on edge of seats as Brown flies to Washington

Well, not quite.

I've just had this email exchange with the editor of an American website:

Them: Morning Monty. Can you write something for us on Geert Wilders and UK Muslims?

Me: Sure. How many words? Can't do it today though. BTW Would you be interested in a piece on Brown as background to his Washington visit?

Them: When's Brown coming?

Me: Today. He's meeting Obama.

Them: No offence but no thanks. He's hardly box office. Send over the Wilders piece as soon as you can.

Who on earth (or elsewhere) do they think they are?

Harriet Harman, speaking yesterday on the Andrew Marr show:

Sir Fred Goodwin should not be counting on being £650,000 a year better off because it is not going to happen. The prime minister has said that it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted.

And it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in.

What??  So now the Labour Party deputy leader does not accept the rule of law?  She simply does not care whether he's legally entitled to the money, because she thinks she has "the court of public opinion" with her and so little things like the law don't matter and she feels able to state categorically that his she-concedes-perhaps-legally-entitled pension "is not going to happen"!

This is terrifying.  What's she going to take against next, stir up public opinion in opposition to, and then over-ride the law if necessary?  Will she decide that I've been paid too much and just take away my property in the way she proposes to take away what she concedes might be Sir Fred's legally-defended property?  What about if someone does something she doesn't like but happens not to be illegal - is she just going to have them locked up because public opinion is on her side?  Is that where we are now in Britain - mob rule, and to hell with the law?

UPDATE (2.30pm): The Treasury and Number 10 appear to have been desperately rowing back on this this lunchtime, emphasizing that they will be bound by the law.  Good.  Is Harman's position now tenable?  Should she resign?

Monday contradictions

Reading the paper this morning, I was struck by the contradictions of the Labour Government.  Pictured right, in her dreams, the aristocrat Harriet Harman, dressed in the robes of a tribune of the people, supreme champion of human rights. And then we have the contradiction - she wants to pass what amounts to an act of attainder on Sir Fred Goodwin.  That hasn't been seen in the UK since the 18th century. The irony is that it is contrary to the Protocol to Article 1 (deprivation of property) of her beloved European Convention of Human Rights.

Then I was struck by the following question.  Why is it not on for a man who cares passionately about the fight against crime to sponsor a crime fighting telly programme aimed at keeping us all safe, but OK for an Islamic conference to be held at a state funded primary school where banned cleric Omar Bakri, who passionately wants to harm us, rages down religious hate on our country?

Are we now moving into arbitrary government of "people we like, people we don't like". Anyone got any other contradictions? The winner with the best one gets to pay me £10 . . .

Derek Draper and Labour blogging

I spent yesterday afternoon at Canary Wharf at Progress' Labour 2.0 conference.  I took part in a panel discussion on whether Labour could dominate the internet while still in office (my answer being 'no').  Also on the panel were Prospect magazine's James Crabtree (thank you James, btw, for the very generous remarks about ConHome) and LabourList's Derek Draper.

Derek Draper has had a lot of cyber sh*t poured all over him - to use his expression - over recent weeks and a good part of it has been deserved.  His suggestion that Iain Dale is in any way racist is nonsense to all who know Iain.  Iain doesn't have a bone of prejudice in his body.  DD has also got into unnecessary scrapes with others - not least his attack on MessageSpace which rightly angered LibDem-inclined Mike Smithson.  I do wonder, however, if all the attention that the right-wing blogosphere has been giving LabourList and its creator is counterproductive.

PR Week has already noted various leftist new mediacrats who have rallied to Derek Draper's side.  The clear impression I received from yesterday's Labour 2.0 conference was that the right-wing's hostility to him was encouraging many left-wingers to embrace him.  Right-wing blogs could hardly have given him more links and publicity.  And - you know what - despite some teething problems, LabourList isn't all that bad.  It is beginning to include a diverse mix of articles.  If DD can cut out the student politics he might turn LabourList into something significant.

Despite the title of my panel session the real opportunity for the left-wing blogosphere will be after the General Election when Labour is very, very likely to be in opposition.  To an enormous extent the debate about Labour's future will take place online.  The lazy Westminster media won't have to travel to cold church halls and faraway working men's clubs to take the temperature of Labour's grassroots. It'll all happen in the blogosphere.  LabourList and John Prescott's GoFourth will then be significant powers in the Labour movement. My guess is that that will be when things will get very interesting (and potentially most useful for the Conservatives). The Democrats' netroots were unhelpful to their party until the Obama effect overwhelmed everything.  The Dems' fractious online army attempted to pull the party to the unelectable margins of political debate.  Labour will struggle to resist the same forces in opposition.  Years of frustrations will boil over.  It'll be interesting to watch Derek Draper attempt to keep New Labour's values alive in that cauldron.

PS Interesting that Labour held a conference (and a good one at that, with one of Obama's web gurus) on internet strategies yesterday.  The Tory edge in all things www won't be maintained if we are complacent.  Thinking caps on please!

Picking Jindal was a big mistake

What on earth processed the Republican leadership (assuming there is still is  leadership) to pick Gov Bobby Jindal to deliver its response to Obama's Congressional address on Tuesday? Obama set out a grand socialist plan for the largest peace-time expansion of the US government since WWII, with so much low hanging fruit for the GOP to pick off, and Jindal starts by giving his bio and then talking about how the Republicans expertly dealt with Hurricane Katrina! Unbelievable!  And what's with the grin and talking to the American people as though they command the vocabulary skills of four-year olds?

Big mistake by the GOP leadership.  Next time you get a such a big opportunity find a guy that can connect with the people, has integrity, experience and gut conservative instincts....someone like, wait for it....John McCain.  Yes, really.

A weekend drive

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to amble up West to take in the Van Dyck exhibition at the Tate. No congestion charge on Saturdays, so thinks, why not drive? Big, big mistake.

I left my corner of South East London at 3pm. I arrived back in the evening at 8.10pm. Of this 5 hours 10 minutes, a paltry 1 hour 50 minutes was spent not in the car. The distance I travelled, by the way, was under ten miles each way.

Before you reach for your keyboard to suggest using public transport, I would say that I have manfully tried that on two recent occasions. Two overland trains cancelled for no apparent reason, the full suspension of the Jubilee line and the part suspension of the Circle line amounted to just another level in Dante's hell.

Our vibrant, dynamic, blah blah city is slowly packing up. A decade ago, this car journey would take 50 minutes each way on a bad day, 35 on a good one. At the weekend, it was usually a bit less. Now, all these times have more than doubled in length.

Why should Ofcom be intervening to stop Lord Ashcroft's commendable efforts to solve crime?

A story to make your blood boil features in today's Sunday Telegraph: Ofcom has put a stop to the forthcoming Channel Five programme Crimestoppers Live, a Crimewatch-style show seeking to solve crimes through reconstructions and public appeals for information.

And Ofcom's reason for making them cancel the show? It was to be part-funded by a donation from Lord Ashcroft, who - many people may not be aware, as it is not in his nature to brag about it - was the founder of Crimestoppers UK, which has helped solve literally tens of thousands of crimes through its phone line and website over the last two decades.

Lord Ashcroft is irate - and so he should be.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, the reason given by Ofcom for its intervention is that the programme would have fallen foul of rules stopping "companies or individuals from 'plugging' their own products on TV programmes - but which also seem to apply to charities."

So what if a programme trying to solve crime promotes a charity whose stated aim is to solve and reduce crime? It is surely to be applauded.

When I was still working for the Telegraph, I exposed how the Government had spent £800,000 of taxpayers' money sponsoring two series of a programme promoting Police Community Support Officers - for which ITV was later censured for failing to make clear that it was funded by the Home Office.

But in this new case I fail to see a single reason that would make any right-thinking person object to the airing of Crimestoppers Live, regardless of how it is funded.

If the rules need to be changed to allow it to be aired, then whichever authority is responsible for writing the rules needs to change them - and fast.

The rising role of the State

I've previously tried to convinced you that we should aim to have public expenditure in 2010/11 some £95bn or more less than the government's current plans.  I sense that few of you were really convinced.  So I want to express the matter another way.  Forget the niceties of fiscal management and complicated thoughts about sovereign risk.  Just concentrate on an idea I hope is politically familiar: the role of the State.

Click on the graph above to see it full size.  The government's current expenditure projections imply a truly astonishing rise in the role of the State over the next couple of years.  Even on its own figures in the pre-Budget Report (PBR) in November (see Chart B.2 on p209 here), and setting aside the support provided to banks, the government intends to raise public expenditure from 41% of the economy in 2007/8 to 44% in 2009/10.  This compares with 36% in 1999/2000 - a rise of 22% in the size of the state, relative to the economy, in just ten years.  But, of course, no-one believes those projections, because they were based on hopelessly optimistic growth forecasts.

New Labour is no friend of ITV

Written by Ed Vaizey MP, Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Minister.

Every one is predicting dire results for ITV next week.  The credit crunch has led to an advertising freefall, and the internet and multi-channel TV has diminished audiences.  But there is another culprit - the Government.  As Neil Midgeley makes clear in today's Telegraph, the Government's refusal to relax any of the regulations that govern ITV has led this former broadcasting giant to fight with one hand tied behind its back.

Midgeley mentions product placement, which is a good example of the Government's attitude.  Amazingly, this is one regulation Brussels wants to relax.  No one is saying it is a panacea - it would only raise about £15-25 million a year even in the good times.  But despite a formal consultation, Andy Burnham has said no.  His attitude reveals two problems with the Government's broadcasting policy.  First, a complete misunderstanding of the urgency of the crisis, and the need to act swiftly. Secondly, a desire to put politics ahead of common sense.  Burnham has attacked us for supporting relaxation, and conjured up images of newsreaders with McDonald's coffee cups on their desk.  Leaving aside that news programmes would be exempt, this caricature is exactly that.  British broadcasters should be trusted enough to use the rules appropriately so as not to alienate audiences, not tied up in out-dated regulations because of out-dated politics.

When ITV announces its results next week, blame the credit crunch, blame multi-channel TV, even blame ITV.  But don't forget New Labour's role as well.