Tower Hamlets council give £64,000 and a recruiting base to Unite

By Mark Wallace
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Campaigning journalist Ted Jeory, who keep a close eye on politics in east London, has an interesting scoop. 

Having clocked that Len McCluskey of Unite and Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman had suddenly become best buddies earlier in the year, Ted did some digging through the council's papers. 

Lo and behold, Tower Hamlets have given £64,000 of taxpayers' money to a Unite community centre (the union is putting in £140,000 and Barclays is contributing £60,000).

The stated aim of the centre is to help people find work or gain new skills. However, it has another purpose:

"The Unite Community Centre is also a Unite recruiting office. The staff are all very friendly, but also very enthusiastic about their employer. The office is stuffed full of leaflets on the negative effects of Coalition cuts and how to join and fight these. One man who’s been in there said he was encouraged to join during a discussion on how the centre could help him."

So this isn't just the commissioning of public services from an outside body, it's a taxpayer-funded platform for political campaigning, too. It's a classic entryist tactic - go in with an apparently respectable mission, then use your newfound status (and cash) to pursue political ends.

British taxpayers' money to be used in a new Greek bailout – another reason to give Brussels the boot

By Mark Wallace
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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports in today's Telegraph that not only will Greece be given a new EU bailout, but this time British taxpayers' money will be used in the doomed fight to keep the Euro intact.

"The Greek daily Kathimerini said Athens and Brussels are negotiating the use of EU structural funds that draw on the collective EU budget, co-funded by the British taxpayer and other non-euro states."

"Most of the rescue aid so far for Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, and Spain's banking system has come from the eurozone's rescue machinery, outside the EU treaty structure. Britain has provided bilateral aid to Ireland, and is involved in EMU debt rescue policies through the International Monetary Fund, but has otherwise stood aloof."

It is right that Britain has mostly stayed out of such bailouts. We took the wise decision not to join the single currency, and the policy of strapping Greece into the Euro in order to satisfy Germany's economic interests and Brussels' political obsessions is both immoral and unsuccessful.

"I'm afraid there is no money" - the note itself comes to light

By Mark Wallace
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At last, the famous note written by Liam Byrne to David Laws, his successor at the Treasury, has come to light, courtesy of ITV's West Country Political Editor:

Liam Byrne is never going to live down those fateful words - "Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards and good luck! Liam" - and nor should he. 

One tax-cutting friend of mine suggested this afternoon that all Chief Secretaries of the Treasury should get the text as a tattoo, to form a permanent reminder of the fate which befalls those who splash too much taxpayers' cash.

Perhaps Mr Byrne might be the first to try out such a policy?

Lambeth Labour face further questions over taxpayer-funded propaganda

By Mark Wallace
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Lambeth Council - whose high taxes I have the misfortune of paying - have a long track record of propaganda at taxpayers' expense. In the past they have run poster campaigns making political attacks on austerity and welfare reform, and published costly newspapers attacking the Government, all the while complaining that they don't have enough money for actual services.

This time, they've sunk even lower - which by the standards displayed so far is pretty low indeed. A new series of leaflets and posters seeks to scaremonger about changes to the fire service - presenting as a news headline a completely fabricated story about children dying in a Lambeth school fire.

After I tweeted the latest misuse of taxpayers' money on Wednesday night, the issue has been taken up by the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail.

Labour must answer questions about why taxpayers' money is being used in such a disgraceful fashion by a supposedly cash-strapped Borough.

It's no use passing it off as a council campaign or nothing to do with senior Labour figures, either. The council's posters are conveniently being used as free materials for Labour's party political campaigns, including the Save Clapham Fire Station Facebook page - where the below picture has surfaced:

According to the caption, it shows "local residents concerned over these massive cuts". Some  may well just be ordinary residents, but the lady slap bang in the cenre in the red jacket is none other than Councillor Lib Peck, Labour Leader of Lambeth Council. The gentleman to her right is Labour Councillor Christopher Wellbelove, who leads the party's campaign against Boris' Fire Station policy.

This is all very useful for Lambeth Labour - the council they run coincidentally churns out and distributes alarmist leaflets at taxpayers' expense on a topic which they happen to also be campaigning on in the run up to next year's elections. When local residents spontaneously meet on the issue, there are Lambeth council posters aplenty, the council Leader centre stage among them and a photographer on hand to supply pictures for the Labour Party's Facebook publicity.

So what of Labour's other prominent figures from Lambeth? Does rising star Chuka Umunna, the Shadow Business Secretary and MP for Streatham, endorse this behaviour by his local Labour councillors? How about newly elected Croydon North MP Steve Reed, who until he won the by-election in November was the Lambeth Council Leader who oversaw the start of this culture of taxpayer-funded propaganda?

Labour's Denis MacShane found guilty of submitting 19 false invoices

4.40pm: And almost at the same time Mr MacShane did resign:

“In the light of the Parliamentary Commissioner’s decision supported by the Committee of Standards and Privileges to uphold the BNP complaint about expenses claimed in connection with my parliamentary work in Europe and in combating anti-semitism I have decided for the sake of my wonderful constituency of Rotherham and my beloved Labour Party to resign as an MP by applying for the Chiltern Hundreds or as guided by the House authorities. I have been overwhelmed by messages of support for my work as an MP on a range of issues but I accept that my parliamentary career is over. I appreciate the Committee’s ruling that I made no personal gain and I regret my foolishness in the manner I chose to be reimbursed for work including working as the Prime Minister’s personal envoy in Europe. I want to thank the people of Rotherham for allowing me to serve as their MP and the Labour Party for allowing me over the years to fight for the causes I believe in. I have received so many messages supporting me from Labour and Tory MPs as well as members of the public but I love the House of Commons and I hope by resigning I can serve by showing that MPs must take responsibility for their mistakes and accept the consequences of being in breach of the House rules.”

4.30pm update:

Tory whip Greg Hands MP has called on Ed Miliband to call on Denis MacShane to resign as an MP:

"Ed Miliband needs to stop dithering and take action right now and call on Denis MacShane to stand down as an MP right away. Further, it is amazing that Ed Miliband and Labour restored the Party Whip to MacShane back in July, when it was clear that the case was not yet closed. This is weak leadership from Ed Miliband."

***

By Tim Montgomerie
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Labour MP Denis MacShane faces a 12 month suspension after "a parliamentary committee found he had submitted 19 false invoices which were "plainly intended to deceive" Parliament's expenses authority." The BBC has a full report and Guido lists the full charges against him, described by the Standards and Privileges Committee as “the Gravest Case Which Has Come to Us for Adjudication”.

In a statement on his website Mr MacShane made this comment:

"Clearly I deeply regret that the way I chose to be reimbursed for costs related to my work in Europe and in combating anti-semitism, including being the prime minister's personal envoy, has been judged so harshly. I remain committed to work for progressive values, for Britain playing a full part in Europe, and for combating anti-semitism even though I can no longer undertake this work as a Labour MP. I am consulting family and friends as I consider my position and study the full implications of the report. I am obviously desperately sorry for any embarrassment I have caused my beloved Labour Party and its leader Ed Miliband whom I greatly admire."

The Labour Party has suspended Mr MacShane but the committee's findings seem so serious that the MP for Rotherham should resign from parliament. Most members of the public, including in his constituency, will undoubtedly think he deserves much tougher punishment than losing his job.

Ed Balls and Co spent like drunken sailors before the recession struck

Tim Montgomerie

Interesting to watch Ed Balls today and his attempt to blame Britain's appalling deficit on the world recession. He cannot be allowed to get away with that lie.

This graph from Peter Hoskin shows that Labour was spending too much in the good years, when it should have been saving for a rainy day:

• We were borrowing in good times and in fact had had a structural deficit (ie not related to prevailing economic conditions) for the seven years before the recession even began.
• Labour entered the financial crisis with a larger structural deficit than France, Germany, USA, Japan, Italy and Canada.
• The vast majority of the deficit - £123bn of the £156bn borrowed in 2009/10 - was structural.
• By the time Brown, Miliband and Balls left office Britain had the largest deficit in the developed world.
• National debt doubled during the Labour years.

Under any measure Britain under Labour did worse than other countries. Having gone into the recession unprepared we then suffered the longest recession of the world's twenty biggest economies and suffered the deepest in our recorded history.

The over-spending might have been half-excusable if things had got better but Britain slid down league tables for educational competitiveness. Youth unemployment soared. The welfare state became a maze of complexity. Extreme poverty grew. NHS productivity fell. Defence procurement became a shambles. Britain missed its green targets.

***

For those wanting more background on this I recommend Andrew Lilico's June 2009 Policy Exchange paper, Controlling public spending. The graph below captures how Government spending as a percentage of GDP took off in Britain much faster than competitor economies (we are the blue line):

Andrew puts it this way:

"The main driver of the deficit rise was that Labour stuck with plans to raise spending considerably (plans set in 2007 - mainly driven by rises in health and education spending) even when it became clear that the economy was going south.  Now what the other guys say is that that means it wasn't the spending rises that caused the deficit, but the economy going south.  I say that is like the claim of a man who had planned to buy a ferrari hoping to win the pools, didn't win the pools but decided to go ahead with buying the ferrari anyway, and then said the reason he had a £400,000 debt wasn't that he had bought a ferrari - it was that he *hadn't* won the pools!"

Labour bashing Chris Grayling reveals that 1.4 million Britons have NEVER had a job

By Tim Montgomerie

Last Friday Paul Goodman wrote about Conservative HQ's "summer of scrutiny into Labour's legacy" that never was. He accused CCHQ of "disarming unilaterally".

One man who cannot be accused of disarming is welfare minister, Chris Grayling. Throughout the summer he has been exposing Labour's failure on jobs and benefits.

In today's Sun he publishes the extraordinary fact that 1.4 million Britons have never worked. That's one-in-thirty. 800,000 of these are aged over 25. Mr Grayling told The Sun:

"This is a shocking waste of human talent. It cannot be right to leave so many people to spend their whole life on benefits without challenging and pushing them to do something better."

In the middle of August Chris Grayling revealed that "nearly 900,000 Brits have spent TEN YEARS on the sick." The annual cost to the taxpayer equalling £4.2 billion a year.

At the beginning of the month in another Sun story he unveiled the fact that 100,000 young people live on sick pay.

The window for blaming Labour for the Coalition's inheritance is closing. As Paul Goodman wrote, CCHQ's sleepiness over the summer was inexcusable. Ministers should have been publishing Domesday-style analyses of the challenges left behind by outgoing ministers. Unfortunately the government does not have enough ministers with Chris Grayling's instincts.

The CCHQ press office is back and ready to put the summer heat on Labour

By Tim Montgomerie

There are certain ministers who don't need any excuse to bash Labour;

• Eric Pickles has repeatedly uncovered stories damaging to his profligate predecessors (eg here and here and here);
• Chris Grayling wins the front page of today's Express and this in The Times (£) for his press release noting that MORE THAN HALF-A-MILLION people have been FALSELY on sickness benefits for a full decade.

Since the Tories moved into government there has been little other such activity and that is why it was good to see last week's joint press conference from Sayeeda Warsi and Chris Huhne, attacking Labour's debt legacy.

Speaking to the CCHQ press office this morning I'm assured that this fortnight will see an intensive round of attacks on Labour and regular operations thereafter. Good. We cannot let the new Labour leader wriggle away from his responsibility for the mess the Labour Cabinet created (of which he was a part).

FYI, pasted below is today's CCHQ press release:

Exposed: Labour ignored crucial warnings over pensions raid
 
Newly released documents dating from 1997 expose the dangerous arrogance with which Ed Balls and other Labour Ministers ignored official warnings that their plans could cut the income of millions of pensioners by up to a fifth.
 
The uncovered documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show how the Labour Government was warned that changes they were planning to the tax system for pension funds could result in a 20 per cent fall in share prices, with a massive knock-on effect on pensions. Labour Ministers ignored these warnings and proceeded with the changes.
 
The decision to abolish dividend tax credits has been estimated to have cost British pensioners up to £150 billion, and was described by one Pension Fund expert as the ‘biggest attack on pension provision since the war’.
 
Commenting, Conservative Party Co-Chairman Sayeeda Warsi said:

“Labour’s pensions raid turned the British pensions system from one of the best in the world into one which is struggling to cope, leaving 2 million pensioners living in poverty.
 
“As Gordon Brown’s key adviser in the Treasury in 1997, Ed Balls should come clean about his involvement in Labour’s unfair pensions raid. How can he claim to lead the Labour Party forward when he can’t own up to his past mistakes?”

The cost of politics rises to £650m under Labour

The Sunday Times highlights some key findings from Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, an expert on political finance and senior research fellow in politics at Brunel University:

• "Payments to politicians and advisers now cost taxpayers nearly £650m a year and have been rising faster than inflation."
  "MPs’ expenses rose to £109m in the year to April 2009, an increase of 5.7%."
• "Only the House of Lords showed restraint. Expenses and administration costs received by the 706 peers entitled to claim fell 14% to £104m last year."
• "State funding of the regional assemblies rose by several times the rate of inflation last year. Parties at Stormont received £787,000 from the taxpayer last year, 17% more than in 2007-8. The Northern Ireland assembly now employs 485 staff — an increase of 100 in two years. At Holyrood “short money”, the term used to describe public money paid to opposition parties, increased 8% on the previous year to more than £521,000... Expense and administration spending by members of the Scottish parliament rose 8.7% to nearly £11m."

David Cameron has promised a 10% cut in the number of MPs and a 5% cut in ministers' pay.

Tim Montgomerie

Labour's mismanagement of big state projects has cost £22bn

Working with Taxpayers' Alliance research this morning's Independent on Sunday has published the extent to which the Labour government has mismanaged public spending projects. The costs total £22bn or £330 for every person in Britain.

Listed below are five of the worst examples of Labour wastefulness:

Project: NHS national IT programme

• Budget £2.3bn
• Current cost £12.6bn
• Percentage overspent 450%
• Established in October 2002, under Alan Milburn, scheme to link 30,000 GPs in England to nearly 300 hospitals has been derided for huge costs and technical problems.

Project: 2012 Olympics

• Budget £2.4bn
• Current cost £9.3bn
• Percentage overspent 289%
• The euphoria that greeted the decision to award London the 2012 Games has largely given way to concerns over spiralling costs.

Project: Astute Class submarine

• Budget £2.5bn
• Current cost £3.8bn
• Percentage overspent 48%
• The order for three of next-generation nuclear fleet submarines for the Royal Navy was announced in 1997 and subsequently increased to four. Only one has yet arrived.

Project: Pensions Transformation programme for DWP

• Budget £429m
• Current cost £598m
• Percentage overspent 39%
• An NAO report subsequently criticised the delays and overspend.

Project: A46 Improvement

• Budget £157m
• Current cost £220m
• Percentage overspent 40.1%

More examples and commentary in the Independent on Sunday.