CentreRight

"What kind of government is it that thinks it’s right to provide lessons to 13 year old girls on how to place a condom on a banana and not realise that the subliminal message is 'now go and try that yourself'?"

From Nadine Dorries MP's blog.

Discuss.

The state he is in

At first I thought it was Twitterish hysteria, when on my commute home yesterday I read that Brown had announced plans to lock up young mothers in hostels. But it's true. He does want to do this. Mothers of legal age but without a male partner will be put into hostels, under the 'care' of social workers.

This is how it ends. But how did it start?

OK first you have to pretend that you don't actually subscribe to any fixed view about the correct way to raise children. It'll take a few decades for this to notion to bed down and become a norm, so start early.

It'll help you if you create an industry which provides succour and income to the likes of Beatrix Campbell OBE, a woman whose intellectually incoherent columns for the Guardian never mention the role she played in creating the current climate of hysteria about child-care and the family. You can enlist the BBC to pump out a sequence of dramas and soap operas whose plots will pivot on - surprise! - a hidden case of child abuse. The 'work' of this industrious cohort will help embed the idea in the nation's subconscious that there's something frankly suspicious about the family unit.

Harriet Harman launches heated attack on The Sun for abandoning Labour... and acts nasty against George Osborne

The BBC has a report:

"Let's face it, the nearest their political analysis gets to women's rights is Page 3's news in briefs. We are all angry about the Sun this morning but I say to you: don't get bitter, get better. Don't get outraged, get out there. Don't get mad, get mobilised. Yes, we may be the underdog but we will not be bullied. This underdog is biting back."

She said The Sun knew "nothing about equality".

1.30pm: Paul Waugh has spotted the Deputy Labour Leader's slur on George Osborne.  Ms Harman said that the Shadow Chancellor wanted to replace a SureStart in every community with a lapdancing club.  How much lower can you go, Harriet?

Tackling anti-social behaviour is a favourite of Prime Ministerial conference swansongs

After Gordon Brown announced a crackdown on anti-social behaviour as a key theme of his speech this afternoon, I thought I'd have a look into what John Major had announced in his final conference speech as Prime Minister in 1996.

Here's an extract of the report from the following day's Independent:

On law and order, Mr Major offered an attack on truancy, and announced experimental plans to put electronic tags on "young tearaways", imposing curfews on offenders aged from 10 to 15 years. "If we know a young trouble-maker is out there, night after night, disturbing the peace and committing crimes, we'll make sure the courts have the power to order him to stay put. At home, and off the streets," he said.

Major's "disturbing the peace" would surely translate into New Labour-speak as "anti-social behaviour".

The paper also reported John Major's attacks on Tony Blair as "a man who had never done a "real job" of work in his life", with the Prime Minister accusing him the Opposition leader of "using the language of crusade, dream and passion as a cover for lack of substance."

I need not remind you what happened at the following general election...

Guess who doesn't love the NHS

Here's a break from the coverage of tumbleweed blowing around the Labour Conference in the form of a quick quiz. The question: who pointed out that Britain's NHS isn't the envy of the World but actually the worst health service in Western Europe and gave the following quote...

"As the Netherlands is expanding its lead among the best performing countries [on healthcare], the index indicates that the Dutch might have found a successful approach. [The secret of their success is that they] combine competition for funding and provision within a regulated framework. There are information tools to support active choice among consumers. The Netherlands have started working on patient empowerment early, which now clearly pays off in many areas. And politicians and bureaucrats are comparatively far removed from operative decisions on delivery of Dutch healthcare services...forward-looking governments start using healthcare information and choice to engage patients in the decision-making, building a pressure from below for improvement."

Such a quote and painful league table - Britain placed 14th in Europe, lowest in Western Europe - is usually dismissed with a smear against the person who dared to question the national religion, who dared to deny the wonder of the NHS or failed to declare unquestioning love of it. Who could say such a thing and compare the NHS to that of 15th placed Slovenia? Must be some crazed head banger bent on profiteering from illness or denying care to "the poor", keen to bring in the feared "competition" and "choice" to "break up" the NHS. Was it Dan Hannan? Was it the Reform think tank? Was it me?

Or was it someone completely different.

Brown really does believe in recycling

A brilliant spot from my colleague Dylan - the teen mother borstal plan is a recycling of a Blair plan from 1999

Songs for Gordon Brown

I was astonished to hear that the geniuses behind the Labour Conference had chosen to introduce Gordon Brown with the song "Sit Down" by James.  If they'd actually read the lyrics, they might have realized what a massive failure of stagecraft this was:

Now I’m relieved to hear
That you’ve been to some far out places
It’s hard to carry on
When you feel all alone
Now I’ve swung back down again
It’s worse than it was before
If I hadn’t seen such riches
I could live with being poor

If that last couplet isn't all about the financial crisis, I don't know what is.  And then there are the lines that seem to sum up the Cabinet, sitting alongside Gordon Brown:

Those who feel the breath of sadness
Sit down next to me
Those who find they’re touched by madness
Sit down next to me
Those who find themselves ridiculous
Sit down next to me
In love, in fear, in hate, in tears
In love, in fear, in hate, in tears
In love, in fear, in hate, in tears
In love, in fear, in hate.

Twitterworld's reaction to Brown's big speech

Twitter was a great way of following Brown's speech...

Ryan Robson: Middle England has turned its back on Gordon Brown

By Ryan Robson

Today the Prime Minister made a last ditch attempt to win back Middle England. He launched a new war on anti-social behaviour. He said he’s taking Britain on the fast road to recovery. He tried to act like he’s a winner. It didn't work. Middle England has fallen out of love with Labour. Too many promises have been broken, too many dates missed, too many words, too few deeds.

It was always an unlikely relationship.  From the start there were worries about whether you really believed in the same thing. But like so many romances these concerns were lost in the heady days of courtship. Today the flashing white teeth, tanned torso and easy charm of Tony seem distant memories. The good times, the cool parties, the lavish spending seemed like they would never end. You bought a new car and moved to a bigger house. There were a few rows about the company he kept and about his foreign adventures but you were largely content and excited about the future.

It was a blow when this dashing suitor fell out with his work mates and left you.  There was always a nagging doubt that he thought he was better than you and this was confirmed when Tony fled to foreign climes and the celebrity circuit. So it seemed strangely natural to be comforted by Gordon. He wasn't handsome but he was reliable. He couldn't make you laugh but he had strong values. And above all he worked hard and had a way with numbers. The house and the kids would be secure.

Wrong! Now not only are the foreign holidays, spending money and luxury goods gone but these strange bills keep popping through the letterbox - when the postman’s not on strike that is. The last one was addressed to the kids and was for £25,000 each.  The neighbourhood’s lost its sheen too. There are for sale signs everywhere but no one’s moving fast. More and more local shops are boarded up and the even the Dog and Duck has closed down so you can't drown your sorrows.

And if that wasn’t enough there’s Gordon. He disappears without telling you where he’s gone or how long he’ll be away. He’s never around when the dishwasher goes wrong and you are forced to call on his new friend ‘Perfect Peter’ to fix things. When Gordon is home, he never says a word to you he just buries his head in a book or stares and shakes his head at the TV.

For old time’s sake you’ve tried to talk things over and sort it out. He promises life will be different. He says he’s got a new plan to make things right. But every time you believe him another crisis happens. Even the mini break to Brighton couldn’t raise your spirits.

Your friends have told you many times. He’ll never change. Sometimes you think he’s unlucky, sometimes you even feel sorry for him. But now you know that it’s him or you. It’s time to move on.

Random observations from Brighton

In no particular order:

My only two arguments outside of the fringe have been with the right-wing press! Peter Hitchens could see no right in Cameron when I bumped into him on Sunday Night.  Yesterday I learnt that The Telegraph isn't talking to me because of my criticisms of their political coverage.  I've asked a question about The Telegraph in the monthly survey to test whether I'm representing grassroots feeling towards that newspaper.

Of half-a-dozen BBC journalists I've spoken to, not one backs Andrew Marr's "painkillers question" to Andrew Marr Gordon Brown.

The mood is definitely more like the Tory Conference of 1996 (on the eve of defeat) than 2003 (when the plotting against IDS reached fever pitch). There is resignation, not fight here.  A very accurate blog from Fraser Nelson: "Ministers, who would once pass journalists aloofly, now stop to say hello. This is how oppositions behave."

The obsession with the Conservatives is overwhelming.  There is no sense of attempting to own the future.  Just as we were once caught in the headlights of the Blair phenomenon Labour activists are transfixed by the Cameron effect. Fraser Nelson, Philip Blond and I spoke to a packed Fabian meeting yesterday on "the new Conservatives". 

Labour don't like David Cameron but they loathe George Osborne.  George should be honoured. 

They also loathe the Tory pledge to support marriage. I guess this could be a big Labour campaigning theme.

The activists here are well to the Left of the leadership.  The biggest applause of every fringe event are for the most redistributionist, don't-cut-spending noises.

My funniest moment so far.  A Labour activist during a Q&A: "It's definitely true, it was in The Daily Mirror."

Funniest photo so far (from Dizzy):

Labour advertising: brilliant spot by Tory Bear and his readers

Tory Bear and his gang have played an absolute blinder.

Here is Labour's much-derided image used for their conference:

And here is where they nicked it:

http://www.16-25railcard.co.uk/buy-16-25-railcard

When was the last time a speech made a difference?

Over at the WSJ, Iain Martin teases that the media always bill a party leader's speech as make-or-break and today's speech from Gordon Brown is no exception.

I doubt that there is anything that Brown could say this afternoon that will alter his party's opinion poll position for more than a few days.  I'm not convinced speeches ever make much electoral difference.  Ten times more important are economic conditions, the overwhelming sense of people wanting change and, of course, stories like the horrific tale of Fiona Pilkington.

Cameron's speech next week does matter in terms of it being his last, best chance to tell the nation what kind of government he will lead.  I doubt, however, that it will have a great impact on public opinion.

When was the last time a speech made a difference?  My offering is David Cameron's speech of 2005 at the Blackpool Party Conference.  Hot-on-the-heels of David Davis' flop-of-a-speech the Cameron performance transformed the Tory leadership race.

Have you an idea about reform of the Lords, Parliament or the EU which you'd like to pitch at a Dragon's Den event at conference?

I will be chairing an event at the party conference in Manchester which has been organised by Conservative Action for Electoral Reform and the think-tank, Respublica.

Loosely based on the TV programme of the same name, the Democracy Dragons' Den will see a variety of MPs, journalists and activists pitch ideas about how to revitalise democracy to a star-studded panel of dragons including Dan Hannan MEP and Eleanor Laing MP, shadow justice minister.

And ConservativeHome readers are invited to take part!

Here's the brief: if you have an idea about Reform of the Lords, Reform of the EU or Reform of Parliament, outline your ideas in no more than 400 words in an email to Janice Small. The best will be chosen to pitch to the dragons at the event in Manchester, which will take place between 12.30pm and 2pm on Wednesday 7th October in Exchange Room 2 of Manchester Central (the main conference venue). 

Please ensure that you have a conference pass for the secure area and are available for the event!

Encourage marriage by reducing the cost of weddings

It has become common for the cost of weddings, including wedding dresses, flowers, receptions, dances, etc., to be of the order of (or even exceed) £10,000.  Many people now cohabit for an extended period until they can afford a wedding (in some cases for five or even ten years).  The costs of weddings has thus become a material barrier to marriage and hence an issue of public policy interest.  I propose that if David Cameron is serious about his commitment to encourage marriage (as I believe he is) then one of the first actions he should take in government - perhaps even before tackling the "couple penalty" in the benefits system - is to tackle the excessive and socially damaging cost of weddings.

I note that what follows is intended completely seriously, and I consider it a matter of great policy significance.

This Sun ad van is touring Brighton...

"Don't you know there's a bloody war on?"

The DNA database: a part of you, forever in the Government’s hands

In the European Court of Human Rights 2008 decision S and Marper v the United Kingdom, in the course of finding unanimously against the UK, the court rejected the legitimacy of this country’s policy of indefinite retaining DNA samples taken from individuals that had not been convicted of any offence.

It was acknowledged that DNA profiles can of course help law enforcement, but, rightly,

"The only issue to be considered by the Court is whether the retention of the fingerprint and DNA data of the applicants, as persons who had been suspected, but not convicted, of certain criminal offences, was justified...”

The court went on to say that “weighty reasons” would have to be put forward by the UK before the enormous difference in treatment of the private data of suspected but unconvicted people, and that of other unconvicted people, would be justified. Having found that the UK had failed to provide such reasons, the court concluded that such retention is a disproportionate interference with the right to respect for one’s private life and cannot be regarded as necessary in a democratic society.

Typically, the UK government has made a show of accepting the validity of these criticisms and made some proposals in response, including allowing for the destruction of samples once they have been converted to digital profiles for storage. As the Court noted: "The retention of cellular samples is particularly intrusive given the wealth of genetic and health information contained therein."

In New Labour Britain, you can no longer look after a friend's children without being branded a criminal for not telling the Government about it

A story featured in many of today's papers concerns two people - both police officers in fact - who have been prevented from looking after each other's children because the state didn't know about it.

The Guardian summarises the case thus:

The women, both 32, have taken turns looking after each other's daughters twice a week for the last two and a half years while they worked a ten-hour shift at Aylesbury police station in Buckinghamshire.

However, the pair were reported to Ofsted by someone – thought to be a neighbour – and an investigation was launched. New legislation means that people who baby-sit for more than two hours at a time or on more than 14 days a year should be registered and follow childminder rules, including undertaking first aid training and following the so-called "nappy curriculum" for under-fives.

According to the education watchdog, the rules apply in cases where parents receive a "reward" for the child care – which can include money or simply free baby-sitting in return.

I suspect most ConHome readers will share my incredulity at the story. The responsible minister at the DCSF is, of course, quick to cite the "safety and wellbeing" of children to justify the law.

But is it not just another example of the Government branding hard-working people trying to do the right thing by their families as potential criminals until such a time as the state gives them an all-clear?

12.30pm update:

Shadow children's minister Tim Loughton has issued the following statement:

“The Government’s rules stopping two policewomen from looking after each other’s children defy common sense. The Government’s review is all very well, but these are rules that Labour ministers made law just three years ago.

“There is no better illustration of the overly bureaucratic nature of this Government’s regime for childcare, which is driving childminders away from the profession and now stopping parents and friends sharing childcare duties. After the recent ISA rules governing adults dropping off children to play in football teams, this latest case demonstrates yet another intrusion into the lives of ordinary people caring for children.”

Windows into souls

I've started to write this post on a number of occasions, but drawn back each time, because I don't want to add to the noise on the blogosphere about a topic I find innately distasteful. Tom Harris MP on his blog suggests that even to mention the subject of the Prime Minister's health is to add to the rumour-mongering, and I have a great deal of sympathy with that view.

However Andrew Marr asked 'the' question of the Prime Minister yesterday (according to Iain Dale, he asked specifically "A lot of people use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through, are you one of those people?) and Nadine Dorries MP wrote what I thought was a splendid response to him this morning. If you read no further, read Nadine's thoughts. They're more or less the same as mine. I think 'prescription painkillers and pills' was a surrogate for 'antidepressants'.

Alternative Investment Directive - the impact on hedge funds

The rise and power of hedge funds represents one of the biggest changes to the global economy over the past half century.

Predominantly limited liability partnerships, most hedge funds are exempted from much of the regulation that applies to investment banks and mutual funds, and as pools of highly mobile capital they have fast developed the reputation of being able to move financial market mountains by anticipating future expectations. Hedge funds thrive on volatility so the crux of the controversy surrounding them is the degree to which they either cause or affect fundamental shifts in financial markets.

This unpoliced, unsupervised and until recent years low profile sector of the financial services world is now firmly in the sights of the European Commission. However, its proposed Directive to regulate hedge funds and the private equity sphere betrays a lack of understanding of the workings of the business. Critics of these proposals regard the onerous reporting and disclosure regime as predominantly politically motivated.

Some thoughts on the German elections

The BBC was reporting even some hours after the exit polls were pointing strongly to a CDU - CSU - FDP coalition that its correspondent says "there is no great appetite for such a coalition and that people prefer the status quo."

At the German embassy "Wahlparty" ("election party") yesterday evening (pictured here), and unlike the BBC, few were surprised by the outcome. Many were relieved, especially with the end of the unloved Grand Coalition of the CDU/CSU and the SPD.

At the embassy, Baroness Neville-Jones and I flew the Conservative flag. Of Labour and LibDem politicians, there was no sign.

ConservativeHome carried an excellent post yesterday on why Angela Merkel and Germany would both benefit from a so-called black-yellow coalition (CDU/CSU and FDP together), and I wouldn't digress from that opinion, except to say that:

1. Diplomats at the embassy tonight are expecting little change from the new coalition in terms of policy. It will be more stable, but Merkel will still be in charge, and she will want to stay in the centre ground, even though her new coalition partners are now generally to the right of her on economic issues at least, not to the left.

2. Fundamentally, Merkel has faced some criticism about the German economy, but has done much better with the public finances. I have blogged before from the CDU Party Conference of how Germany did repair the roof when the sun was shining, eliminating the budget deficit in the good years of 2005 - 2007.

3. The result is not in itself a total success for the CDU and especially the CSU - their vote shares are actually down on 2005 - but it is an unmitigated disaster for the SPD, Labour's sister party. Not only is their vote share a record low, but they are now out of government entirely for the first time in eleven years. Their two left wing rivals - the Greens and the Left Party - both hit record highs. The CDU and CSU are certain to remain the leading centre right parties. The same cannot be said of the SPD on the left.

4. In the long term, the German political system is suffering from its PR voting system, and the five-party politics it has thrown up. This is especially true when there is one party of the five - the Left Party - who nobody else wants to team up with. I have blogged about this before here.

5. Despite our differences over the EPP, Conservative - CDU/CSU cooperation remains strong. Merkel in particular will welcome seeing some budgetary sense coming from London under a David Cameron government, after the months of denial from Gordon Brown. Meanwhile, everyone is looking forward to what I think will be a unique time next year when all four major EU countries are led from the Centre Right.

Labour are now copying the Tory stage set

The combination of Union flag and blue sky have been the Tory design for some time now. This was Cameron speaking in Cheltenham at the Spring Forum:

It seems that Labour have yet again decided to copy the Conservatives. This from their stage set in Brighton:

Cameron doesn't do panic

I've arrived in Brighton and about to go and hear Mr Iain Dale appear on a Question Time-style panel with Ed Balls MP, Caroline Flint, Sunder Katwala and Gaby Hinsliff.

Labour's aim is to get a 5% boost from this Conference in the hope that they can produce (1) a change in the media narrative and (2) a little panic in Tory ranks if the Tory lead dips down to single figures.

The 2007 Tory Conference should have taught them that Cameron does not do panic. 

So we're all spending cutters now!

Three months ago I wrote about the disastrous state of the public finances and, faced with Gordon Brown’s intransigence over the need for the scalpel, urged the Conservatives to get backing in order to push through the necessary policies to cut public spending. And that backing included the IMF. But three months is an extraordinarily long period in politics and even Gordon Brown has now conceded that spending will have to be constrained. 

As he told the TUC a fortnight ago, he would “cut costs, cut inefficiencies, cut unnecessary programmes and cut lower priority budgets”, which begs the question as to why costs are so high, inefficiencies are endemic, unnecessary programmes are there in the first place and, given the fact that the public finances have been looking rocky for some years, lower priority budgets were ever given any priority at all. Even a casual perusal of the quite excellent work done by the UK Centre for the Measurement of Government Activity (UKCeMGA, to be found on the ONS website), shows that the performance of public sector productivity has been atrocious over the past decade. According to UKCeMGA’s data healthcare and education were two of the worst culprits. If such a performance were replicated by any private business in even a faintly competitive market it would have effectively signed its own death warrant.
 
And, lo, I read in today’s “Sunday Telegraph” that the Prime Minister has a plan “to bind this and future governments into years of severe spending cuts – and potential tax rises – to reduce the [public sector] deficit”. Leaving aside the fact that Governments cannot bind their successors, this indeed is a Damascene conversion for a man who has spent the last 5 years (or so) chanting about Labour’s “investment” in public services versus “Tory spending cuts”. Mr Brown will in future be arguing that it is “fair and responsible” to bring in a “Fiscal Responsibility Act” which, apparently, will probably be introduced in the next Parliamentary session. Well better the sinner that repenteth…

Labour plans to serve up Grandmar's apple pie to win the election

Gordon Brown's announcement that he intends to introduce some kind of binding legislative means of reducing the national debt might make the headlines for a while and strike us as strange - who is it binding upon and what are the consequences of breaching it? - but reminds me of another struggling Labour Prime Minister and, more importantly, suggests the battle lines of the next general election's media wars.

In 1974 Harold Wilson appealed to his ministers for ideas that cost little and were insignificant in governmental terms but had a large emotional aspect. The ideas may be small, they may be frankly bizarre, and they may breach a wider ideology, but to the average voter or a specific demographic - localised or interest based - they appeal. It was an appeal to the "little things", to people's hearts rather than heads. Wilson planned to nationalise small local breweries to save them from mergers, improve access to waterways and lochs for fishing enthusiasts, make May Day a Bank Holiday (achieved in the end of course), protect caravan owners and restrict rent increases. All small, all insignificant, in many cases wrong - breaching property rights in the case of waterways - but all examples of "Grandmar's apple pie". Who could be against Grandmar's applie pie and such things as saving local breweries and going fishing?

And so in 2009 Brown has promised this debt reducing law, and a guarantee of all cancer patients seeing a cancer specialist within a week, and no doubt will promise many more ficticious legal frameworks to counter specific political bogiey men and announce more attention grabbing shifts of resources. The aim is simple: they grab the media's attention and corner the opposition, forced to back the idea and be accused of playing catch up, or oppose it - whether on practical grounds or not - and risk the media wrath of opposing an apple pie issue.

As Labour gathers for it's conference in Brighton the strategists will have their thinking caps on. Rather than eating the humble pie and admitting the many mistakes they have made - something which would actually be popular - they will instead be attempting to serve up political apple pie. It's going to be a long wait until the election...

It's 1996 all over again at the Labour Conference

Listening to Labourites on the radio this evening it's all so reminiscent of 1996.

Peter Hain has just been on Five Live suggesting that people look behind the Cameron smile. We used to go on endlessly and fruitlessly about Blair's fake grin.

On the PM programme, a union leader (Derek Simpson, I think) was talking about Brown being great in private. If only more people could see the real Brown, he complained. Tory Cabinet ministers said exactly the same about 'the private John Major'. If only he could meet every voter in the country, we said, the Tories could still win. [In John Major's case it was a lot more true].

There's John Prescott attacking the Labour leadership for not talking about its achievements. That was the standard complaint of the average Tory activist in 1996.

And then there are the constant attacks on the Tories. There's no positive Labour message. We, in 1996, were obsessed with New Labour, too.

How long until there are crying lions and devil eyes?