Mark Field MP: Will hugging close to Coalition spending plans really help make Labour more electable?

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter.

Recent weeks have confirmed that politics can be a strange and unpredictable trade.

Barely three years ago, the Coalition came into office pledging to eliminate the UK’s structural deficit within a five-year term. Cumulative public sector net borrowing between 2011-12 and 2015-16 was forecast at £322bn. The voters were warned in terrifying terms that any larger a deficit would result in explosively higher long-term interest rates. As a consequence, Labour’s plans to borrow an additional £50bn over the course of the parliament were derided by coalition ministers as irresponsible and potentially ruinous to our economic health.

The outcome of near stagnant growth since then means, according to the OBR’s own projections, that five-year borrowing will come in at £539.4bn, almost £220bn more than planned. Yet what would have been regarded as reckless over-borrowing only three years ago has had negligible impact on interest rates (for now at least…)

By rights, this might have been seen as a glorious vindication of Labour’s consistent contention that the UK government could, and should, have borrowed more in classic Keynesian style since 2010. By contrast, this grisly outturn in deficit reduction plans has instead persuaded the Opposition that it should stick firmly to the Coalition’s spending proposals for 2015-16.

George Osborne’s tactical gambit some weeks back of announcing a single year Spending Review so early for the first year of the next parliament was reasonably transparent. It was clearly designed to put Labour on the spot – should it show some leg now or hold back, lying low and not committing itself to its own plans on spending and, more toxically, welfare until the run up to May 2015?

Mark Field MP: Don't expect miracles from the new man at the Bank. What's most likely is more of the same.

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter.

Few central bankers have stepped foot in Threadneedle Street accompanied by such high expectations as Mark Carney.

The subdued image of Montagu Norman, whose tenure as Governor of the Bank of England extended virtually throughout the inter-war years, stands in stark contrast. Of course, that was a different era, but Mr Carney (as he now is) arrives with a reputation – not to mention salary and transfer fee – akin to that of a star centre-forward moving on from an unfashionable provincial club into the Premier League.

As European economies continue to stall, the real risk is that too much hope and expectation has been placed in Carney’s arrival during the six months since his appointment was announced. Predictably, much of the coverage over his Treasury Select Committee appearance in February focused upon his bumper salary package – expect this to continue, especially if there is no sustained upturn in our economic fortunes.

I suspect that in the key areas of interest rate policy and over quantitative easing the Carney regime will reflect a faithful continuation of the monetary policy we have had over the past few years, rather than any change of pace, as has been widely anticipated. Indeed, George Osborne was probably most attracted by the prospect of an incoming Governor prepared to maintain the ultra-low interest rates we have had over the past four-and-a-half years, along with a willingness to print more money as the main tool of monetary stimulus.

Mark Field MP: The Eurozone's shadow still hangs over us. So what can be done?

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter.

Some three months have now passed since the dramatic Cypriot bailout. In virtually equal measure there were hopes and fears that March’s developments in one of the Eurozone’s smallest nations would be the catalyst for the endgame to the Eurozone’s travails. Rumours abounded then that Slovenia would be next in line to default.

Characteristically, however, the Cypriot skirmish appears to have been yet another storm before the lull. Economic realities have once again been relegated to their improper place as the electoral clock ticks incessantly towards late September’s Bundestag elections. The Cypriot crisis was arguably brought to a head only because of German political imperatives. The recent emergence there of a fledgling Eurosceptic Party, Alternative für Deutschland (whose channel of communication with Tory MEPs has caused diplomatic flutters between Berlin and Downing Street) led the ever-canny Angela Merkel to shore up her right flank.

Cyprus’s economy, until very recently with its Icelandic-scale financial services imbalance propped up by Russian money, was sacrificed as collateral damage in these political manoeuvres. As the attention of the financial world moves on, make no mistake: the Cypriot economy is about to plunge into tailspin. The capital controls that have been imposed on Cyprus have resulted in the evaporation of trade, business activity and growth - and this in a micro-economy already absurdly overloaded with household and business debt. Almost inevitably, its brightest young and middle-aged people, in a nation respected for its education system and language skills, will vote with their feet. Indeed, the fanciful threat that Cyprus might soon be forced to leave both the Eurozone and the EU will only accelerate this process.

Mark Field MP: The Office for Budget Responsibility – it seemed such a good idea at the time...

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter.

This year’s Budget continued a hapless, unparalleled record of forecasting failure for the Office of Budget Responsibility.

Sadly, what has so undermined City commentators’ confidence is that the OBR’s independent analysis has invariably veered in the direction of robust support for the Treasury’s economic projections. At each succeeding Autumn Statement and Budget since June 2010, the OBR has been forced to downgrade growth outturns, whilst continuing to hold optimistically to the notion that the public finances will be transformed by robust growth starting earnestly in two years’ time. It all seems so reminiscent of the Brown Chancellorship’s discredited financial projections that persuaded global investors to allow Britain to borrow well beyond its means, with such disastrous consequences in the Noughties.

Mark Field MP: The mispricing of risk. The danger to savers. And the spectre of inflation – big themes in my first book.

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter.

‘Is there more to come?’ It was with this question in mind that I gave my first book the provocative title, Between the Crashes.

Launched last month with the support of ConservativeHome, Between the Crashes provides a timeline of the seismic political and economic events that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. In doing so, it pulls together some of the overarching themes that are set to define the early part of the twenty-first century – the shift of power eastwards, generational division, disillusionment with capitalism and the political class and, most of all, the consequences of Western debt.

As I came to write the book’s conclusion in December, I was struck by a sense of how a crisis which began half a decade ago may still have much further to unwind. Today’s low interest rates and rounds of quantitative easing have lulled us into a dangerously false sense of security, parking rather than solving some of our biggest problems. Yet they are, in truth, a sign that the British economy remains on life support. It is entirely possible that excessively loose monetary policy, alongside the racking up of ever more debt, will eventually lead to another great jolt.

Mark Field MP: Whatever happened to that export-led growth?

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter

In a fast-changing world, the truth is the global race has been underway for some time. The past half-decade ought to have been the best of times for UK exporters. After all, in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, sterling dropped in value by over 20% against the currencies of both our biggest export markets. The pound’s fall against the US dollar (nearer 30%) and the Euro in an era before enforced austerity within the Eurozone happened when consumption remained relatively high.

Since the crash, our floating currency has remained remarkably stable against these competitor currencies - the slight gains in 2009-12 only being cancelled out by downward movement in recent months. Worryingly, however, despite the devaluation, UK companies appear to have missed this opportunity to boost export sales, and the UK’s healthy surplus in services exports continues to be undermined by a stubbornly high goods deficit.

Mark Field MP: The Chancellor shouldn't seek quick fixes in tomorrow's Budget

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter

There is no doubt that the Chancellor’s room to manoeuvre is incredibly limited. Much of this, of course, can be attributed to global events - we only need to look at the weekend’s dramatic news from Cyprus to know that the Eurozone crisis is far from over. However, it has also become ever clearer that, in the Coalition’s first Budget in June 2010, the government was complacent about growth.

The short pre-election boom following 2009’s VAT reduction and the large, early rounds of quantitative easing lulled the Coalition on assuming office into believing that the growth baked into the system would somehow do the heavy lifting when it came to deficit reduction. The coalition’s plan to eliminate the structural deficit required the gap between revenue and expenditure to be narrowed by £159 billion in 2014/15. Tax rises were expected to contribute £31 billion and spending cuts £44 billion to this total.

Unfortunately, however, the Coalition ended up with the worst of all worlds. It has received relentless criticism for harsh austerity measures when in reality, too often it has lacked the political will and necessary competence to execute the levels of savings required. The fact is, for all the rhetoric, we are still overspending by some £300 million each and every day and thus needing to borrow to the tune of £120 billion year-on-year. In 2010, we should have looked the electorate in the eye and been quite clear about the magnitude of the task that lay ahead to rectify the public finances. Early u-turns on school sports, forestry and book reading schemes augured ill for the government’s ability to push through some of the more important and wide-ranging savings.

But we are where we are.

Mark Field MP: The deeper discontent beneath the mansion tax debate

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter

‘It’s like the Harrods sale!’ exclaimed Rob Tincknell in January. As Chief Executive of the Battersea Power Station Development Company, it was no surprise that he greeted the stampede to secure new Battersea homes with elation. More than £600 million worth of prime London properties - three quarters of the 800 homes on site – had been snapped up in a frantic four days. The final tranche of 200 properties is now on a homes ‘road show’ in Singapore to attract wealthy Far East buyers.

For property-owning Londoners, the Battersea frenzy was no doubt a welcome sign of the continued robust health of the capital’s housing market. But I suspect the average renter found the news utterly demoralising. For them, the financial crisis brought great promise of lower house prices. But that never came to pass. Instead, already-stratospheric rents have crept steadily upwards. Mortgage deposit requirements have increased. House prices are climbing and yet still properties are being snapped up in double quick time. When even a Battersea studios costs £343 000, the hope of owning the smallest of homes seems more remote than ever.

Contrast that to the ease with which wealthy foreigners, many of whom will not be resident in the capital, are hoovering up London real estate. Such is their spending power that it is becoming increasingly common for agents to market new London property developments first to overseas buyers whose appetite for homes in the capital, alongside their ability to pay for them, seems not to abate.

An increasing number of Londoners are feeling locked out of their own city. Whatever one’s politics, this cannot be desirable– an overcrowded capital in which much of our precious housing stock is being bought by part-time or even absent residents. To many there is no starker example than the London property market of the growing global divide between the super rich and everybody else.

Mark Field MP: Bash the banks and global companies if you must, but we need them more than ever

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter

Berate banks and bankers if you wish.

Slate the tax arrangements of large multinationals, whose contributions in VAT and employers’ national insurance remains substantial even if their corporate tax contributions (thanks to a hopelessly complicated UK tax code) fall short of that demanded by a print media (whose own holding companies are operated by tax-efficient trust).

But for so long as UK governments of any colour remain addicted to spending well beyond our means, then we are in hock to both banks and global corporations. For even as the annual ritual of banker bonus baiting is upon us, it is these institutions that are integral to the market system that feeds the national borrowing and spending addiction.

The harsh truth is that the clamour for ever greater public expenditure is the biggest roadblock to meaningful reform of our banks.

The Government’s attempts to kick start bank activity via the Funding for Lending scheme have delivered some success in the area of subsidised mortgages (albeit largely where borrowers have existing significant equity holdings). But progress at lending into the real economy has been more faltering.

Mark Field MP: The first skirmish of many?

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter

Thankfully few people have to endure the unimaginable terror that beset our nation’s hostages and waiting relatives as the Amenas gas plant siege dragged on last week. In a world of relentlessly demanding 24/7 media coverage, the frustration of senior government ministers was palpable as unreliable, piecemeal information trickled through from Algeria.

Whilst today’s attention rightly focuses upon the bereaved, little time should be lost in developing a diplomatic and intelligence strategy in this region. For we shall hear much more of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Nigerian fundamentalist terror group, Boko Haram, in the months ahead.

The sheer vastness of this part of North Africa is best illustrated by the fact that Algeria’s capital, Algiers, is nearer to London than it is to that nation's southern-most districts. Indeed the utter remoteness of the Amenas complex meant that any plans to engage British, French or US special services in the hostage rescue were fanciful. Besides, after a brutal civil war in the 1990s, the Algerian security forces are highly experienced, albeit uncompromising. Moreover, the lesson that the Algerian government will have learned from the West’s treatment of one-time ally, Colonel Gaddafi, in neighbouring Libya, is to act ruthlessly in the face of any perceived insurgency. It understandably fears similar betrayal by France (its old colonial master) and the West. So any suggestion that the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ might have extended to Algeria would have led to Western military assistance to rebel forces, in which AQIM would almost certainly have featured. What message would the Algerian government have been sending to its own people over recent days if it had allowed protracted negotiations over the siege or foreign armed forces to engage on Algerian soil?

Mark Field MP: There is vanishingly little to choose between Osborne's and Balls's approach to the economy

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter

Well, it was never supposed to be like this. The coalition’s expenditure programme for the entire parliament was designed to have been done and dusted in November 2010. Subsequent pre-budget reports were expected to feature only the odd tweak here and there.

Last week’s Autumn Statement may have had the Westminster village agog with anticipation, but it was met with supreme indifference by the large corporates and banks of my constituency - for three reasons.

First, a recognition that any government in these acutely difficult times has virtually no room for manoeuvre.

Secondly, despite all the continued fire and brimstone of the exchanges between George Osborne and Ed Balls, there is in fact vanishingly little to choose between their approaches to economic management. Indeed, all the talk of ‘austerity’ and ‘savage cuts’ provides the coalition with the alibi to the markets that they have a deficit reduction plan that is being vigorously stuck to (not borne out by the economic facts) whilst Labour can take comfort in playing their familiar ‘heartless Tories’ card in drumming up support from swing voters, without having any plausible alternative.

Mark Field MP: Some electoral lessons from Chicago...and Croydon

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter

It’s the demographics, stupid. This is truly the thread that links November’s re-election of an incumbent US President and a series of disappointingly poor Conservative performances in parliamentary contests.

In opposition, David Cameron rightly observed that the presentation of immigration policy needs to be handled with care. It must NEVER be ‘too hot to handle’, but as seats such as Croydon North (notionally Conservative until 1997, but now somewhere we are barely able to secure one-in-six votes) show, demographic change means the coalition needs to look afresh at the wisdom and effectiveness of its much-vaunted immigration policy.

The Republican Party in the US trailed its Democrat rivals by a vertiginous 87 percentage points amongst African Americans, 47% amongst Asian voters and 44% amongst Latinos. Whilst headline voting figures are not so stark for UK Conservatives, the trends are unmistakably similar.

Ministers have taken heart from yesterday’s figures from the Office for National Statistics demonstrating that 59 000 fewer people arrived on our shores last year than in the previous year. But let us not forget that we still had 183 000 more people arriving in the country than departing, with London bucking the national trend with a slight increase in its overall influx of migrants – the capital last year added a further 51 000 people to its population. The coalition’s vow to reduce annual net migration from ‘hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands’ is not only unworkable but, in all likelihood, its rhetoric repels many swing voters. Not only significant numbers from ethnic communities, but also many Middle England electors in key marginal seats, who conclude that the Conservative Party is simply irrelevant to the challenges facing the modern world as they see and live it.

Mark Field MP: Secret courts are a regrettable necessity

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster and currently serves as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Follow Mark on Twitter.

In the battle to keep British citizens safe and our streets secure, we rely on intelligence not just from UK agents but from those of our allies too. That intelligence gathering can be highly risky. Agents often work alone, with only their handlers to trust. In return for making those considerable sacrifices, for taking those risks, they ask only one thing: a guarantee that the intelligence they provide is protected. The absence of such a guarantee not only puts lives at risk but undermines the trust that is the essential lubricant to intelligence sharing. For decades we were able to guarantee that protection.

But then something changed.

Lawyers began to see ‘money’ in civil actions by suing the British government on their clients’ behalf. Claimants were able to make all sorts of wild allegations, safe in the knowledge that the government would never be able to produce secret agents or share allies’ secrets in open court.

In tackling such actions, the government has had only two choices: collapse the case and settle or attempt a defence with any compromising evidence removed. The latter could be done through a Public Interest Immunity Certificate (PII). But the problem with PIIs has been that in many cases, so much evidence is removed as a result of it being allies’ intelligence or placing at risk the identity of an informer, that the case becomes unwinnable. Under the PII route, evidence is discarded or redacted, it is not scrutinised. This has left the government unable to defend itself and forced to settle.

Mark Field MP: The child benefit changes will penalise aspiration — and for little gain

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster. Follow Mark on Twitter.

Although first mooted over two years ago, it is only this week that changes in child benefit will become fully apparent, as letters drop through the letterboxes of over a million households where one earner is bringing home at least £50 000 per annum.

Only last month at Conservative Party Conference, David Cameron made a powerful case for supporting the ‘strivers’ and the aspirational in our society. Yet it is precisely this group that stands to be most adversely affected by the child benefit changes.

Conservatives like me regard deficit reduction as a moral, as well as an economic, matter. Surely we owe it to our children and grandchildren alike not to pass on huge debts in the decades ahead for our consumption today.

As a result I shall always support measures by the coalition to reduce public spending.

But on these child benefit reforms let’s for once be wise before the event.

Mark Field MP: How CEOs should adapt to the collapse of trust in the rules of capitalism

Mark Field is the Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster. Follow Mark on Twitter.

When historians look back upon the first decade or so of the twenty-first century, I suspect they will analyse just how and why every one of Britain’s institutions (bar the Monarchy) came to be discredited. They will also ponder the demise of leaders in the worlds of politics, finance and business.

The end of the Noughties witnessed a breathtaking financial collapse which swept away trust in banking. Simultaneously, a scandal broke over the misuse of MPs’ expenses that deepened an historical distrust of politicians. As the 2010s began, a dirty tale of phone hacking sucked media, police and politicians, into a fresh quagmire of shame. Faith in the justice system seemed to be at an all time low as successive British judgements were overturned by European courts. And as the nation faced its collective indebtedness, the mantra ‘we’re all in this together’ led to searching questions about whether celebrities, bosses and companies really were paying their fair share.

As a corollary, twenty-first century Britons came to feel impotent, disillusioned…and angry.