Following on from my blog post in July, where that quiet man, Iain Duncan Smith, was extolling the virtues of married life in his ‘Every Family Matters’ report and pretty much downgrading all unmarried couples to second class citizens, David Cameron has now jumped in singing much the same tune, praising marriage and offering to throw tax relief at those who exchange vows.

Cameron also accuses Labour of a ‘pathological inability to recognise that marriage is a good thing’ and Ed Balls of viewing marriage as ‘irrelevant’. I’m pretty sure this is not actually the case and sense seems to prevail here:

The Department for Children, Schools and Families believes children’s welfare can be protected through stable and lasting relationships not just marriage.

Which is much better than constantly insisting that a married relationship is the only right, good and stable relationship and the only way to live a family life. I won’t repeat the arguments I made in my previous post, suffice to say this kind of talk from Cameron and the Conservatives is simply ridiculous and completely unfair, penalising people who do not deserve it because they have chosen to live their lives a different way to the way David Cameron wants them to do so, or in some cases have not even chosen and are victims of circumstance.

©mørland/the times

These are interesting times. The latest opinion poll in the Independent has the Tory’s lead down to just 3 points.  The likelihood of a hung parliament comes ever nearer. And it is great to see the Tories in such trouble.  David Cameron has had to apologise for unfounded attacks on Ed Balls’ handling of allegations against Muslim institutions. Tory candidates, including Brighton Kemptown’s own Simon Radford-Kirby have been advised to drop their double barrel names because they are trying to avoid coming across as Tory toffs.  He is now common-as-muck Simon Kirby.  Failed candidate in Brighton Pavilion, Scott Seaman-Digby, tried to do likewise by promoting himself as plain Scott Digby.  It didn’t work for him and it won’t work for Radford-Kirby.

As for the successful candidate in Brighton Pavilion, Chuck Vere, there is no suggestion that she is really Charlotte Alexandra de Pfeffel Johnson-Vere, and certainly not related to Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson also known as simple Boris Johnson. No, her problems are more serious.  She is a close associate of Zac Goldsmith.  Today’s Mirror reported that ”rising Tory star Zac Goldsmith is avoiding tax by claiming ‘non dom’ status”.  Mr Goldsmith inherited a fortune from his industrialist father Sir James Goldsmith.  There have been calls for David Cameron to sack him. Non-domicile tax status lets people avoid tax on earnings outside the UK.  According to the Lib Dem peer, Lord Oakeshott, “He’s not fit to sit in parliament and must pay the millions he’s dodged to the British taxman.”

A Bitter Battle – The Liberal Leadership

Leadership Contenders (Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey, and Tony Abbott)

These are the men who will contend the liberal leadership at the party meeting schedule for 9am tomorrow morning, though currently Joe is not a solid candidate. It is at the time of writing this entry that Mr Hockey is currently meeting with fellow MP’s and Senators including: Greg Hunt, Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop, Tony Smith, Nick Minchin and Steve Fielding.

It is in this meeting that many in the media believe the future of the Liberal party is being scrutinised and analysed, as to how to appease the two sides of the debate, a debate running at three weeks in length. Mr Turnbull, the current leader and pro-ETS moderate who wishes the party to uphold its deal with the Rudd Government to pass amended legislation. Mr Abbott, the former health minister and howard heavy hitter, who recently change camps to the anti-ETS camp, who wishes the senate to not pass the legislation. Mr Hockey, the shadow treasurer and possible “cuddly” leader of the Liberal party, is a Turnbull supporter and moderate, who is in favour of the ETS, though wishes to delay passage of the legislation.

It was at approximately 7:30pm AEST that the media began reporting the possibility of a free vote being given to senators, essentially a conscience vote similar to those given to contentious issue such as abortion and gay rights. However, at a press conference held at approximately 6:40pm in which Mr Abbott confirmed his candidacy and said that he would not accept a free vote, and it was not an issue. Mr Abbott is seen to have the least chance in a run off vote against favourite Joe Hockey, due to his image in the public. Though the Minchin camp, who represent the right wing of the party may throw their might behind the Member for Warringah (Mr Abbott).

It is the strong possibility that from the party-room tomorrow morning Mr Hockey, who in my mind is currently the most valuable asset the party has to being a future prime minister, will be elected party leader but face the single biggest defeat in electoral history. This is why I believe that Mr Hockey will be committing political suicide by standing, as in my opinion the party will not disappear, but electoral support will. As a leader of a mainstream political party, any faults are reflected in the approval of the leader as seen in leaders such as Kim Beazley, Alexander Downer and more recently Malcolm Turnbull.

If Mr Hockey is elected and cannot unity the party and repair what seems to be the endless problems in the party, he will effectively face a leadership contest after the next election from contenders such as Peter Dutton, Christopher Pyne, and Tony Smith, all are inexperienced in regard to ministerial responsibility, and some may even loose their seats. Hence why Mr Hockey should allow Mr Turnbull to either continue or allow Mr Abbott to lead the party to certain electoral defeat thus keeping his leadership potential and ability in tact, rather than falling on a short sword before his time has come.

However, if Mr Hockey is elected and somehow turns the party and the opinion polls around to pre-2007 elections of 42% then he will effectively have achieved the impossible, and he shall be dubbed the greatest political leader in Australian history. In the UK the opposition has cycled through 2 leaders before finally coming to David Cameron, who has delivered the party from lagging behind Blair and his PR unit, to flogging the blind Scot Gordon Brown. Opinion polls currently place the conservative party at a party polling level of 42% which in British politics is immense. It shows that it takes some time for the conservative parties to find their feet in opposition and to regain their ability to call into question the movement and policy of the government.

Conservative Shadow Cabinet

It took two leaders, William Hague and Michael Howard before the conservative were able to find form and to remodel themselves on a moderate level with new leader David Cameron. David Cameron a renowned moderate liberal conservative in a party which relied on its Thatcherite roots, and Churchillian manner on opposition. It is this progress which I hope the Liberal party takes, finding their feet on a policy front through the election of a leader who represents a moderate who can help with factional disagreement. I see Mr Hockey in a similar light as to Mr Cameron who represents a new generation of young progressive conservatives who believe in aiding the environment and have effectively rendered the issue a “non-issue” in the United Kingdom.

It shall be tomorrow morning which define the future of the party as a whole, as I see it their is no-one who is an expendable resource and at the same time a uniting force within the party. It is at times like this that every single young liberal looks to the horizon and simply stares and hopes to see a car drive toward them, with a licence plate simply marked “CSTLLO”. It should have been Mr Costello who should have defeated Mr Turnbull and taken the party onto a path of centre aligned policy in line with public opinion and feeling. However, currently is either one extreme, pro-ETS, or another anti-ETS, or the Liberal party sacrifice one of the parties only hope of being re-elected at the 2013 election.

But, in saying that I look forward to the Bradfield by-election this weekend, as it may be new member Paul Fletcher who will 100% without doubt being thrown into the shadow cabinet. Maybe in the future he will emerge as a possible leader due to the unfortunate demise of all other potential candidates through the 2010 election result, loosing urban seats and loosing Mr Hockey the leadership.

Thank You,

Please check www.news.com.au around 9:15am, for a full report undoubtedly.

]]> http://anotherliberalblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/eu-policy-our-partys-shining-glory/ Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:39:40 +0000 Allum Bokhari http://anotherliberalblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/eu-policy-our-partys-shining-glory/

You have to feel sorry for David Cameron. So sure was he of winning the election, he decided to be honest with his base, and admit that with the recent Lisbon ratification, a referendum on the treaty was no longer possible.

Shenanigans ensued. Just look at the horrified anger on ConservativeHome’s  comments.

And then it got worse! Cameron’s disposal of his referendum pledge – although obviously intended to show that his party is not ruled by reactionaries, and can be rational – did not stop the French foreign minister Pierre Lallouche loudly claiming that Cameron’s party was “autistic, and would castrate the UK in europe.” Such colourful language!

And just when it seemed to have all died down, along comes the new UKIP leader Lord Pearson, to pour some more salt into the wound.

An exceedingly clever move on the part of UKIP – they knew Cameron would turn down their offer of a pro-referendum electoral alliance. But they also knew that Cameron’s refusal would cause yet more Tory Europhobes to defect to UKIP.

Poor old Cameron. Even if he wins, I don’t think his popularity can go anywhere but down when it comes to Europe. The few pro-Europeans in the UK will dislike him by default, and absent any serious anti-Europe moves on Cameron’s part, the already-miffed Euroskeptic Tory wing will mutter “sell-out!” in increasingly loud voices.

And where do the Lib Dems stand in this circus?

Well, now that Cameron’s withdrawn his pledge, we’re the last of the three main parties to still advocate a referendum on EU membership.

….

Wait, what?? We’re the legendary Europhile party! It doesn’t make sense!

But it’s true. The party wants a referendum, the party wants a national debate, and by golly does the party wants to strengthen the UK’s role in the EU!

That may seem contradictory, but it isn’t. Unlike the mildly obstructionist Tories and the ravingly paranoid UKIPs, we recognize the vast benefits the EU has to offer.

Unlike Labour however, who ratified Lisbon without a referendum (despite promising one in their 2005 manifesto) we recognise that the public clearly want to have a say.

And as the party of democracy, we are honour-bound to let them.  So roll on the referendum!

In my humble opinion, the Lib Dems’ EU policy is the jewel in our crown. It’s rational, it’s principled, and it’s wholly different from the other two parties, while retaining the ability to appeal broadly across the political spectrum!

Even though some of would no doubt love for Europe to naturally become accepted without the risk of a referendum, but we also know that we cannot betray our core democratic principles.

It is policies like that which make our party great.

Those that would govern us should pay the taxes they set for us. I’m not fussed about the tax affairs of bankers, footballers or pop stars. But any MP, or member of the House of Lords for that matter, should be domiciled in the UK for taxes purposes.

If you make the law then it should be one that equally applies to you. A simple ethical standpoint that Zac Goldsmith has not understood. With a general election so close, when was he intending to regularise his tax affairs. He should have made these arrangements on being selected a parliamentary candidate. Ben Brogan poses the question on Zac Goldsmith’s future: In or Out. Exactly. I’ll bet David Cameron is madder than a bag of ferrets, and I imagine he’ll have Eric Pickles contacting every Tory MP and candidate to ensure that they’ve got their tax affairs in order.

“We are all in this together!” shrieked the delicious George ‘Gideon’ Osborne at the Tory conference this September (Gideon is absolutely my favourite Tory, ranked even higher than that shimmering human butter mountain, Eric Pickles). I don’t think any of us thought for one moment that he was poised to hand his £4.3 million personal fortune over to the Treasury for immediate redistribution to those most in need, but the speech was intended to give a signal that all of us would have to suffer while gallant George, fighting from the front, dealt with the national debt.

Of course, no one with half a brain was fooled for a second. We know what Tories do: they cut taxes for the very wealthy while cutting spending on public services to pay for it. It’s roughly that simple (perhaps you might want to throw in a bit of righteous whining about family values for good measure). Nevertheless, I was still slightly surprised to learn that Zac Goldsmith, David Cameron’s so-called ‘Green Guru’ and prospective Tory candidate for Richmond Park, has been avoiding tax on his £200 million fortune by virtue of being a ‘non-dom’. Only slightly surprised of course, as the same has long been suspected of another of Cameron’s close aides, Lord Ashcroft. Ashcroft’s position is less clear than Goldsmith’s, principally because no one from the Conservative Party ever gives a straight answer about his tax status, but if he is avoiding large amounts it will certainly be a great help when it comes to pouring vast sums of money into Tory coffers both nationally and in key marginal constituencies.

There will, of course, be a limited level of fuss about all this in certain areas of the media for a day or two, but the Tories will know that they just have to sit tight and it will all blow over. Their immunity to any kind of meaningful media scrutiny will probably remain intact. Goldsmith will still be their candidate at the General Election, Cameron will brush off his implied support for the non-payment of tax in the UK and, as we still won’t get an answer on Ashcroft, the millions will keep rolling in to help the Tory election effort.

At least, I suppose, no one can say they didn’t know what sort of people to expect if the Tories do form a government next year.

The crisis affecting the UK is becoming too serious for Gordon Brown to keep trying to justify himself by trying to fix the problems he has caused.

The facts are clear. Brown and Blair inherited a fantastic economy. The term ‘golden inheritance’ has been used for years to refer to the sound economic economy that New Labour inherited from the Conservatives.

But the UK is now close to bankruptcy. Our economy is sinking fast. The fear is growing by the day that we will need to call in the IMF.

The UK is rapidly going the way of Iceland!!

Question: Who is to blame?

Answer: Gordon Brown and New Labour.

But the whole situation is being made worse by this failed government hanging on to power for the next six months.

If they had any care for the UK then they would resign now!

We need a government that is competent enough to get us out of recession and we need it in place now!

My post on the Reverse Robin Hood started a lengthy and interesting discussion – thanks to Andrew Oakley and Tom Ruffles for their comments. Part of the discussion came to revolve around the role of risk and unpredictable elements in people’s personal financial situations – and I must admit that I am woefully unqualified to comment upon this. Down in the City of London there are extremely highly paid analysts who sit all day fiddling with formulae to try and predict market fluctuations, and this country must have tens of thousands (at least) of highly trained and highly paid experts in exactly this area – underwriters. I have no idea how successful these methods are, but I’m assuming they must have some value. After all, if you know the outcomes of ten thousand decisions made previously, then maybe another 40 year male with a fairly academic past and many years freelancing and living without visible source of income becomes predictable. Sure, you might make errors in regard to individual outcomes, because you can never have all the data -and the same applies to market analysts – but you might hope that on average you would do well (– though as we shall shortly see, I am not actually convinced this is true!)

I think at the heart of the discussions of the last piece was the question of individual responsibility for financial outcomes. The poor may always be with us – unless we manage an imaginary “true communist” equality of money, which would end the moment someone bought  something, by definition someone is always poorest. It is certainly true that we don’t seem fond of absolute measures of poverty, and this can lead to problems in our understanding and policy decisions – poor children in the UK today are probably a lot better off that say poor children in the UK in 1950 -most have shoes and a meal a day at least?

I think, and I may be wrong, that Andrew thinks most financial outcomes are predictable, given good planning and money management. Tom and I (and again this is my impression, speak up if i am misrepresenting you) are more inclined to believe that random factors may play a large role in how ones personal finances pan out. I don’t think any of us think its all one or the other: Andrew clearly accepts that random factors can cause problems, but simply believes they can often be mitigated by shrewd money management. Tom and I suspect that some situations may place one in a position where no matter how careful one is, you may end up in real trouble. Yet clearly many people who end in financial trouble have been extremely reckless, and at least partly instigators of their own downfall. (And I would go as far as to say that the State does much to cushion the blow these days compared with in the past, and that equally our culture is geared to actually promote fiscal risk taking, indebtedness and bad financial management by individuals. But I would say that, I don’t have any credit card etc, wouldn’t I?)

The Deserving (and Undeserving) Poor

In fact it seems to me we are rehashing one of the great debates of the last few centuries. It certainly filled the 18th century mind – and it was a major theme of 19th century thought. We are back on the question of the deserving versus undeserving poor.

In my last piece I commented on how I missed the security of the bi-weekly giro, and having my dole money guaranteed. I sympathised with those who work, and are on bitterly low incomes. I may have here been apparently aiming at a deserving/undeserving poor distinction, but that was not my intention – I was actually trying to point out that for many self employed, freelance and entrepreneurial types there lives are marked by a greater degree of uncertainty in financial matters than for those who receive state benefits. If you look at what the average UK soldier serving abroad is paid, or many low grade civil servants, you will notice they face the same problem. Those in manufacturing also have the problem – the uncertainty of th future of their jobs. So at least on the dole you can plan, to some extent, and know it will never be more than 13 days till your next payment — assuming they are still bi-weekly – the days when I used to sing a little song to thank God (and the British taxpayer) for my giro  have long since passed…

Now once we get  in to the deserving/undeserving poor debate we instantly hit problems, and are conditioned by our Right Wing or Left Wing political roots. After all, the modern Conservative and Labour parties were shaped by these questions, and the response, be it Socialism or Social Darwinism or whatever is deeply ingrained in how we see the world. People always say to me “I’m not interested in/don’t understand politics” Actually they are an ddo – they just don’t feel any interest in what happens in Westminster, and don’t understand the minutiae of the British system or what the parties stand for – but they generally can grasp the actual politics, because it comes down to Big Questions which are easily graspable, if impossible to easily answer.

I’m not going to rehash all the thought of two centuries and political responses here on the so called deserving and underserving poor. I will note it is my gut feeling that no one hates the undeserving poor more than the deserving poor do – the British Working Class appears to me to have a real horror of “benefit scroungers”, “junkies”, “drunks” and “gamblers” and others they categorise as the undeserving poor.   I’m not actually convinced the categories are all that important – if you place genuinely stupid people (and half of British citizens are below average IQ for a British citizen after all!) in a situation where they are offered easy interest free credit, mortgages for huge amounts based on nothing more than what you can lie to claim you earn, and then bombard them with shows about exotic foreign holidays and advertisements implying their lives are not worth living without the Gizmogadet 2000 what do you honestly expect to happen?

Politicians Are Predictable

Before I start the heart of my argument though, I guess we should consider wht this deserving/undeserving dichotomy may not be useful. To Labour, well it’s obviously nonsense: they see people’s financial situation as situated in a wider social context, so that market forces and teh economy are responsible for poor people, not the fact these people are reckless or lazy. To the Conservatives – well Cameron has told the fat and the poor it’s their own fault.  That’s me told twice then!  In fact he is keen to qualify this  –

“Of course, circumstances — where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school and the choices your parents make — have a huge impact. But social problems are often the consequence of the choices people make.”

So both political parties manage to continue the debate by stating the bleedin’ obvious, in line with their Left and Right wing prejudices. Of course if you are laid off because your factory closed because US mortgage brokers gave money to people who never could or would repay it, it is not your fault if you suffer financial catastrophe.  And of course if I go out and spend all my weekly disposable income  on, I dunno,  Dominos Pizza (thats easy – one medium 11″ pizza, one chicken wings starter for dinner tonight — and I have absolutely nothing left after that for the rest of the week for food, electric, water or gas bills — job done!) then it’s my own stupid fault. I could have bought  pasta, cous cous, jacket potatoes, some cheese, butter and a loaf of bread, and still had a fiver for the bills.Trust me, I bloody know!

So Labour blame the economy & society, the Conservatives the individual. Or rather that is there emphasis – both clearly realise that both are true. The Victorians tried a slightly more novel approach – the Poor House, where you were locked up, separated from husband or wife (to stop you breeding more poor kids) and set to work, while being lectured on the folly of your choices. I dunno if it worked, because it was not really for the benefits of the inmates, but rather designed to inspire horror and a real terror of ending up in there. Many of these buildings still stand, bleak reminders of the social trends which culminated in the inscription over the gate at the concentration camp at Auchwitz – “work makes you free”. Yeah right…

The gate at Auchwitz - "works makes you free", a great lie that long predated the Nazi's

We have heard a lot in recent weeks about Labour’s pledge in the Queen’s Speech to abolish child poverty. I’m genuinely baffled by this one – the major cause of child poverty might just be poor parents who don’t look after them properly or can’t, because they have no money? No if those parents are poor because of the credit crunch and losing their jobs, or are poor because their parents spend all their money on SKY TV and drinking down the boozer, whether Labour or Conservatives are right, what difference does it actually make to the poor kids? Might I hazard a guess that poor kids of the undeserving poor are just as miserable as poor kids of the deserving poor? Neither chose which family to be born in to after all?

Let’s go budget!

Still, at last I will address my main point – how predictable is financial disaster? Using this handy budget calculator and basing my figures on an 18K salary, with no kids, renting in a cheap area (in this case Derby) I can assure you that a couple will struggle to survive, let alone save.  In fact I worked out after the cost of getting to work, bills, council tax, rent, and a £50 weekly food shop their disposable income is less than a hundred pounds a month. Unless one partner is earning maybe 21k + a year, you can’t afford to actually have a homemaker or stay at home partner anymore, because our economy is predicated on dual income households now. In my figures I was scrupulous to keep costs to an absolute minimum – these puritans do not drink, smoke, go on holiday or eat out. (They do have internet and phone though!) Yet they can not possibly hope to weather any unexpected financial set back, and are budgeting only £10 a month for clothing. They might be able to put maybe £10 a month in a savings account – but to get interest much above the rate of inflation they need to tie their money down for a long period – which is exactly what you don’t want to do if you are trying to save against sudden unexpected costs. And let us remember that HSBC have declared that current account customers don’t want interest on their money, as they would prefer it went on higher rates on other accounts! I don’t recall them asking me, I must have been out that day.

Now a lot of this comes down to energy costs – maybe they will fall. Here Labour’s analysis scores points, because gas, electric and petrol prices have a major effect on most households finances, but are not controllable by the individuals. Rents have remained pretty much static, while of course mortgage costs have generally plummeted again with the drop in interest rates. Unless you are Governor of the Bank of England this is again outside your control — I have no choice but to pay the rent, my main priority, and I always do. These factors do seem n the buget I looked at to make a huge difference.

So financial responsibility, what you spend your money on – sure it is important. But it only cuts in when you cease to be poor. In my situation it does not seem to make a lot of difference – when your disposable income is under £80 a month, you ain’t gonna have many choices to make.

CJ & the Beggars

This actually reminds me of something which appalls many of my friends. When I have money, I sometimes slip a quid to a genuinely messed up looking beggar on the streets. “but they will spend it on drugs or booze!” they cry. And I reply “good for them!” Why? Because actually when you are really poor, it’s not the lack of money which really degrades and makes you miserable – it is the fact you no longer get to make many choices. I can reliably predict what I will eat next week, and the week after, and the week after that. I won’t be buying much, because I can’t. I might get to make the choice between two titles in a second hand book shop if I am lucky. Poverty erodes choice, and erodes personal responsibility - because you can’t learn how to be responsible when you have nothing to be responsible with.

The Inevitable Passing Reference to the Credit Crunch

As Axel and others who have listened to me moan over the years know, I had long been predicting a Credit Crunch based on the fact that UK mortgages no longer bore any resemblance to actual bricks and mortar costs or annual incomes and salaries.  This was not based on any economic brilliance on my part, but upon a simple understanding that if people defaulted and banks stopped lending, well a lot more people would face the situation that the deserving and undeserving poor face every day – No Credit. In fact a good way of telling how depressed a part of town is is to go in to a shop, and look for the felt tip sign posted above the counter “Strictly No Credit”. Then go to the richer part of town – and see the Store Card adverts, and the endless encouragement to take interest free credit (“subject to status” – in other words if you are CJ and you have wandered in here, piss off!).

The Undeserving Middle Class

Many of the “undeserving poor” may actually have high incomes I guess – and far more choices – they just made bad ones, and are now faced with ruinous credit card debts for that holiday they enjoyed in some hot exotic location, the repayments on their flash car, and the huge amounts they spent at Waitrose and Threshers or wherever rich people shop. A couple of generations grew up expecting a nice house, nice car, nice holidays and well nice things – hell I’m heading in to a Jamie Reid single cover for the Sex Pistol’s

Jamie Reid's bleak cover for the Sex Pistol's Holidays in the Sun

Perhaps when we talk about the undeserving poor, who blew their money on bad choices, we actually mean the British Middle Class- the people who actually had the capacity to make serious financial choices in the first place? Maybe that is why this is so deeply ingrained in Cameron’s view of poverty – because he reflects the deserving, hard working and frugal middle classes, and the deserving poor working class (who make the best of very limited means), who can’t imagine  how people would make reckless choices like investing in the markets,  pensions  or shares?  I jest of course – but I do notice that bastion of Conservatism the Daily Mail seems a lot more worried about “House Prices Plummeting” than about how those working for the NHS on 12k a year like Lisa are meant to pay their share of the rising gas bills? Should we not castigate those foolish enough to irresponsibly put money in houses in the belief property prices will never fall, or who could not read the small print that reminded them that the value of their investments could go down as well as up? But enough teasing the noveau pauvre! It may shock many people, but I love the British Middle Class, who encapsulate much which is great about our nation – I just get tetchy when one group  are labelled undeserving, profligate and irresponsible, but others who made equally bad decisions, but are seen as unfortunate victims of greater forces - regardless of the party proclaiming the double standard. Maybe it is just my inherent left wing biases showing?

It seems clear to me that the middle class investor who lost big in the Credit Crunch and the working class person who lost their job are equally victims of circumstance, and that they can not really be held to blame for their choices – but the investor did get to make more choices in the matter than the person laid off. Yet for some reason they attract more sympathy? I actually feel deep compassion for both – ’tis rough on all at times…

So Let’s Get Back To The Point

So how predictable are financial emergencies? This was where we started, and where we return. I’m going to look to an unlikely source to resolve this – after all I have no statistical data at hand – David Hume, the great Scottish Philosopher.  (Of course I recall Dire Strait’s song Industrial Disease (link contains sound)- listen to it and you will get the joke – but anyway…) Hume made famous The Problem of Induction: nd the second part is relevant here -

presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold.)

Which brings me back to those market analysts and underwriters, who try to generalise rules from past data, and who try to make models that predict based upon that data. How well do they perform? I dunno, I’m guessing that is sensitive commercial data. My guess is not that well.  Some will get lucky, some unlucky, and ost will perform as well as the data they have available and inherent unpredictability of financial markets allow.  Because yes, as I have been hinting, I think markets are fundamentally unpredictable, and I think personal finances are similarly chaotic.

The Tory emphasis on sound fiscal planning and personal responsibility makes  a lot of sense and to some extent is rooted in our Judeo-Christian heritage (but then read Job!). The fundamental assumption is that people are to a large extent responsible for their personal financial outcomes. I question this assumption on a  number of grounds. Firstly, the playing field is not level.  I have done pretty well in some ways in terms of education and using the talents I have – I’d like to believe that I might have done better if I had more opportunities when younger, and particularly if I could have got a PhD in something I wanted to so I could keep lecturing, the single thing I was best at. Hey, shit happens. A few knocks, set backs and I sunk forever in to the great unwashed. It happens. Others start off much worse off, and do much, much better. But no one can pretend on average we are an equal opportunity society yet. Born poor, you tend to stay there you know? (Darwin in one of his few reactionary moments argues this was good, or humanity would cease to struggle and evolve. This was why he opposed Trade Unions and industrial reforms. Shame, he was remarkably liberal in most ways!) Still for 10K I could have returned to lecturing – and then I could have had a slightly rosier future. But I never had it, could never borrow it, and my studentship applications never worked out.

Secondly, the future is not predictable. Why? Because we do not exist in a financial vacuum. All kinds of decisions from others, from the gang of muggers who decide to use your head as a football, to the decision of American mortage brokers, to government policies, to the laws of the land and moral responsibility, set limits on personal freedom and choice, and upon the outcomes we face. The citizens of Herculaneum and Pompeii might have saved and practiced Stoicism and financial probity, but on August 23rd, 79AD, they learned that living under an active volcano was not so wise.

I saw plenty of right wing US claims a few years back that the victims of the 2003 Asian Tsunami should have chosen to live somewhere safer — but few explanations as to how that was a financial reality for them, or how they were meant to assess the risk they faced. I suspect a lot of them may have not fully paid attention to the subduction class in their plate tectonics education at school, as obviously this must have comprised part of their elementary school education? Well maybe not. Maybe they lived where they did because they knew no better, and because their families had always lived their, their livelihoods were there, and Alfred Wegener’s theories on Continental Drift passed them by because they were dreaming of affording another goat next year? Can anyone really blame them for not knowing their worlds were about to catastrophically change? No – because very few people if any knew that.

And this is how I perceive the world: we are perhaps little more in control of our lives than those people were. Financial outcomes are not predictable. All we can do is try to save when we can, to alleviate poverty and distress where possible, and to try our damnedest to actually help people make informed choices, and drag themselves through.  We are like doctors – preventative medicine is laudable and a great cause, and we should encourage sensible health measures – but if a new disease like SARS or a new Flu breaks out, a new unforeseen disaster – we can only fight to save the victims.  We might have made all kinds of contingency plans, and perhaps like Mormons we have stockpiled a months canned food for this scenario or similar, but ultimately, if a hacker cleans our bank accounts out, we can only check if we were following sensible security precautions. If the bank’s computer system was compromised. and yet we can’t make a mortgage payment while we try to get compensation sorted, whose fault is it?

Chance, risk, the unpredictable, the irrational and unpredictable actions of others – for long I have worried that our economists assume markets are rational, when all the evidence shows me that humans are often quite irrational in their economic activity – all these things clearly impact upon us. Of course our personal responsibility is vital;  of course we must plan to make the best uses of our resources to cushion us against the blows of fate – but ultimately, rugged individualism is possible only to  the extent one has the power to make choices, and the resources to prepare – and the poor have far fewer options here??

I’m sorry to write so much – thanks to everyone who took part in the previous discussion. I fired this off in an hour, in one sitting, so it might not make a whole lot of sense. Thansk to anyone who troubled ot read i tthrough.

cj x

Yesterday Malcolm pointed the finger at Michael White’s unfortunate typo. That by-passed the wholly valid conclusion of White’s original piece (to which we shall return shortly).

Cameron got it wrong with his attempt to smear a couple of local authorities and the government with a scare about nursery schools linked to terrorism. Most of us knew or guessed that was a wrong’un at the time. Hizb ut-Tahrir were identified for a ban after the London atrocities. A Christmas Eve, 2005, Observer article, with a Gaby Hinscliff by-line, described why that didn’t happen:

Plans to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, the radical Islamic group, have been dropped in the past few days following intense discussions between Number 10 and legal advisers. Counter-terrorism sources said Tony Blair had been warned that banning the group, which campaigns for Britain to become a caliphate – a country subject to Islamic law – would serve only as a recruiting agent if the group appealed against the move.

The sub-text there is that Hizb ut-Tahrir and all its works are on a very tight string to the securocrats. Yet Cameron blundered on.

Scapegoat time!

Which makes it Michael Gove’s turn to be fed to the reptiles. As he duly was in today’s Times:

Mr Gove unwittingly fed his leader a stinker. Mr Cameron had asked his trusted ally to help him to flesh out an attack on Labour’s failure to tackle extremist Muslim groups.

Seeing that two schools linked to Hizb ut Tahrir had received cash from the Early Years Pathfinder scheme which funds free nursery places, Mr Gove had mistakenly thought that it was part of the Preventing Violent Extremism pathfinder project that is supposed to tackle indoctrination. In fact the two schemes are entirely separate. The error meant that Mr Cameron was simply wrong to declare that the schools were receiving cash from an “anti-extremist” fund when he faced Mr Brown across the dispatch box.

The gaffe was all the more painful for the Tory leader because he had overruled a suggestion that all the key information be double-checked.

Flash Dave

Now that’s the same point Michael White considered the previous day:

Dave and Mike did something careless for which Tony Blair would have put them through the verbal mincer…

You can hear Blair silkily observing that “I don’t need any lessons from the right honourable gentleman about associating with extremist groups who get public funds,” can’t you? He’d have then got stuck into those dodgy Poles and Balts whom Skinhead Billy rounded up to form Dave’s new group of not-federalist-not-nice-either MEPs at Strasbourg.

Does it matter? Not a lot. But it’s a reminder that, repeated on a general election platform, with public emotions running high, a bad mistake is an amplified mistake. Being manifestly unfair to any particular group – except perhaps those brazen bankers – runs the risk of offending fair-minded people.

White winds up, extrapolating this Cameron line into:

you can’t help noticing a smell familiar to older readers: red-baiting.

Cameron in debate is remarkably sloppy (he proudly spent his time with the Bullingdon, not in the Union). Brown, by comparison, sticks far too closely to Citrine and Standing Orders. Because Cameron is allowed to get away with this fast-and-loose stuff, he pushes the limits further each time.

This was Cameron’s final sally in PMQs on 11th November:

Mr. Cameron: This Prime Minister told us, “No more boom and bust”, yet he presided over the biggest boom and the biggest bust; he told us that we were the best prepared for the recession, yet, unlike others, we are still in recession. He has given us the fastest rising unemployment and the biggest bust. Take the official figures for public spending, take off what you are planning to spend on unemployment benefit and on debt, and departmental spending is being cut by 0.7 per cent. The Prime Minister asks about policy; we have said what we would do about public sector pay and pensions. We have the courage of our convictions; the Prime Minister has neither courage nor convictions.

Grammarians and debaters will note that was supposed to be a “question”. One looks in vain for the question mark, or even the question indirect. Instead, the Speaker allowed Cameron to get away with a statement.

Watch this space

This is overweening pride, riding for a fall. Remember: you got fair warning of that from Michael White … and Malcolm Redfellow.

He may not know what time the afternoon starts, but people sure do love Boris Johnson. Will he be used in the marginals nationwide by Dave;)?

Since the last post has had some interest, and has guided me to a number of others, I thought I would share some with you.  First, thanks Anthony for the Tweet, and it is only right to point out his post on new models of ownership, which (I think) seems to draw on thinking related to “commons” in giving ownership a role:

Last week’s Labour movement column argued that the left should properly acknowledge the importance of ownership in distributing power more equitably. Here is an opportunity to develop new forms of ownership that can be engineered towards reducing our impact on the environment . . . Each community (based on local authority area) could establish an environmental cooperative. . .  . The objective of the cooperative would be to reduce that community’s carbon emissions by say 10% within five years.

“Each community could establish an environmental cooperative”.  I would just want to focus on that.  ‘Could’ or ‘will be made to’?  Do I have to join up with other Putney people? If so, Anthony has bravely argued that to deal with Global Warming we will need quite a lot of coercive behaviour.  What are the penalties for not?  But if it is not compulsory, then can it really deal with this very real emergency?

I think this is John Lewis again.  Some – nice – people may adopt other forms of ownership/’reinvent the firm’.  But if this is not widespread, the effects will be marginal – interesting to readers of Prospect, but not worth a massive Westminster policy launch.  Or it will be coercive and illiberal – ‘you may want to form a shareholder company dedicated to profit but we will not let you’.

Michael White: always very shrewd about noticing purely political aspects.

Cameron needs a flourishing range of centre-right thinktanks from which to pluck handy ideas at will; all recovering oppositions do . . . Will ResPublica’s new brand of civic conservatism be the answer ‑ or just another intellectual bubble? Blond’s stint at the ex-Blairite, pro-localism thinktank Demos ended abruptly: he may not be a team player . . . Politicians need intellectuals on tap, but the Cameroons are prudently keeping a safe distance. The Tory leader will not stay long tomorrow.

Paul Bickerstaff gets to the point:

Agency workers won’t be too enthusiastic about Phillip Blond’s bland plans for them to become part of a classless, asset-owning society   Nor, I suspect, will these exploited agency workers have too much time and energy left over to join Blond’s Time Banks (the things they still call LETS, another product of the 1980s, and another pleasing venture which failed to achieve critical mass impact).

No. They’d rather have the money.

How awfully individualistic of them.

I think this is Sunder at Fabians: I like the Blond on blond theme (Blond going against Thatcher).

In other news, I don’t think CentreForum research will ever get mentioned by Larry Elliott.  His piece touches on stuff thoroughly covered by A Balancing Act and Slash and Grow.  But instead it talks about Policy Exchange.  Ho Hum.  But this is the sort of context their history lesson (see yesterday post) needed fisking with:

The reason the UK grew after 1931 was that sterling was the first currency to come off the gold standard, and took advantage of a big devaluation to cut interest rates to 2% by early 1932, where they remained virtually unchanged for 19 years. Britain also threw tariff barriers around its colonial possessions; it was the combination of depreciation, cheap money and imperial preference that caused the recovery.

Finally, not all is rosy: Dubai, going down the tubes? A very interesting story I would love to cover in more depth, but I’m busy working out how much the Bank has overpaid for Gilts.  I have gone there three times on holidays, and always wondered: who is going to actually live in all these buildings? So, anyone feel like buying the World?

I was lucky enough to be invited to the Launch of ResPublica.  Honoured, indeed, if one is to count honour by the number of popping photographers’ bulbs and the sheer groaning mass of Westminster Bubble people crowding into a fine room at number 1 Whitehall.

Phillip Blond’s new think tank has not really done anything yet, but everyone seems enormously excited about it because of its supposedly close to David Cameron, who was there to set it going with a few warm words about compassionate conservatism.  Interesting, Phillip started off with “Thanks, David – we have received our orders”, causing more than one observer to string together words like “charitable status”, “political neutrality” and “Smith Institute”.

So what does this new approach actually consist of?  From the speech and pamphlet, there seems to be

• a fair dose of miserabilism about the present (“The state has proved incapable of saving its own citizens from debt and servitude.  Yes, we are not free, we are slaves

• a lot of fairly typical “Capitalism has failed” stuff, including the perennial “why can’t all companies be like John Lewis”.  As Demos, centre left think tank, have also recently discovered in a mission to “Reinvent the Firm”.
• A repeat of that ill-proven trope, the “Social Mobility has Failed us All” thing.   Somehow, with university participation rates climbing to 40% from 2-3% post War, this is the “state destroying the structures of working class advancement”.
• Oh and – wait for it, wait for it – localism. Yes, it now seems likely that only David Walker and Ed Balls will be left denying the Political Truth that making everything local will fix everything
• The prognosis: “rebuild society from the bottom up through civil association”.

I am going to ask a really churlish question.  How?

• “the associative state can create a new type of capitalism by creating norms and building trust” and therefore cutting down on transactional costs that stem from us having this wrongful picture of an individualised self-interested man.

I am running out of time.  I have sent the excellent and too-self-deprecating Rosie off to read about The Ownership State to see if there is anything really to it.  Just some quick criticisms now:

If you counted the isms, it would rival Jon Cruddas, I am sure, and match him for lack of specific ideas.  You can’t make a political manifesto out of “make every company like John Lewis”, even if it could work for oil, cars, restaurants, construction, and so on and so on.

How does a state change the norms of 60 million people? Oh, and more, because we have porous borders. This sounds either patronising, controlling, overly idealistic or just platitudinous, depending on what it actually involves.   Ed Balls style lessons in citizenship and trust, perhaps, with compulsory ethics class at uni?

What is the proof that transactional costs are what is holding back the economy?  it is a nice theory, but Douglass North et al have generally proven that Western institutions drove down transactional costs – this is why we are not enjoying African-style Civil society at present.

There is some arrant nonsense.  What does “wealth is not simply an economic category, it has a moral import” mean?  What does “markets laying claim to plenitude” mean? A market is not a Thing that Lays Claim to anything.  It is a way of buying or selling . . .   This is not actually meaningful.  It is like saying “chairs don’t have opinions that are blue yesterday evening”.

So, I politely await some evidence that this amounts to anything – on some early signs, it doesn’t even actually make sense in parts.  If this is right, and it all dies down in a few years, I find myself rather disappointed in the sheer cynicism of the Tories in associating with it.  It sends out a signal saying “we think.  We care”.   But I can’t see what exactly it will add to a precise, costed, political programme in the difficult years ahead.  Perhaps I will be proven wrong.  Given the throng at the event today, I ought to hope so.

PS.  When you try googling “slave whipping”, I found this amazing offer:

It’s Michael White (normally a sane and reliable voice in the maelstrom of political opinion) who drops today’s bollock. Find it on Mike’s Guardian Politics Blog:

Ed Balls – not always a man to trust up a dark ally

What makes it worse is the context:

yesterday … I watched Dave [Cameron, but you didn't need telling that, did you?] – pieties about the Iraq war dead and the Cumbrian floods put to one side – tearing into Brown over Hizb ut-Tahrir. Oh no, not those tiresome Islamist puritans again, I hear you murmur. Agreed, but Dave started it, not me.

And under the telling title:

Election season smears are back – watch out Muslims, Jews and Red Kate

“Red Kate”, believe it or not, is the recently-discovered “most powerful woman in the world“, Cathy Ashton. So, step aside, Hillary.

“Recently-discovered” as a result of the British media’s total abstinence from the realities of EU affairs. That’s also another reason for regular resort to the Irish Times and other immigrant periodicals.

From the Independent

By Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor
Thursday, 26 November 2009

Two private schools are at the centre of a bitter political clash after David Cameron, the Tory leader, alleged that the schools in Slough, Berkshire, and Tottenham in north London had received £113,000 of public money after being set up by an “extremist Islamist foundation”.

He claimed in Prime Minister’s Question Time that the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation (ISF), which runs them, was a “front organisation” for the hardline group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, retorted that the schools had been inspected and allegations of extremist links were found to have no substance. He said the cash they had received went on providing nursery places at the school in Tottenham. Farah Ahmed, the head of the Slough school, protested that it had not been contacted by Mr Cameron before he made his comments in the Commons.

She said: “Our school is being used as part of a wider political agenda and this type of vilification of the Muslim community needs to stop.”

But Michael Gove, the shadow Schools Secretary, told Radio 4’s PM programme that the situation was “genuinely worrying”. He said: “We know they have received public funding and we know the charity concerned has links with Hizb ut-Tahrir.”

Editor’s Comment: I admit I am not a big fan of HT. Not because they believe in trying to bring about an Islamic state, all true Muslims should share that aim. Nor because they believe democracy is a Taghoot (false god) of this age because that is true also.

Despite all this they are still our Muslim brothers and sisters and we owe it to them to support them as best we can against such attacks and we should make Du’a for them and cooperate with them where they do good and advice them where they wrong and at all times defend our Muslim brothers and sisters from the Kuffar even if we have disagreements amongst ourselves.

The Armed Forces - let down by Labour

An interesting item appears on the Blue Blog about the Conservatives’ plans for the volunteer reserve forces, of which I am a member.  David Cameron is right to praise the reserve forces; having served as a regular officer and, now, as a reservist, I’ve seen their hard work from both sides of the fence.  They are impressively dedicated people.

Deploying as a reservist involves the same hardships as it does for a regular serviceman, but with the added dimension of having to put one’s civilian life on hold.   As a regular officer, my then partner was used to the idea of my liability for service in Afghanistan, because I worked behind the wire and wore a uniform.  When I deployed to Afghanistan earlier this year, it was tougher: my partner is used to seeing me as a suit-wearing office worker, not a uniformed officer, so the idea of my having to put my life at risk was pretty surprising, to say the least.  Reservists receive scant recognition for that, nor for the fact that they willingly put civilian careers on hold, sometimes at personal cost in terms of promotion and pay bonuses, to serve their country.

So, for all those reasons, it’s fantastic that the Conservatives sound determined to avoid the TA training débacle that led Gordon Brown to such a humiliating u-turn last month.  I hope it reflects a wider recognition within the Conservatives that, after a 12-year-long raw deal from Labour, it’s time to cherish the Armed Forces – regular or reservist – and to invest in them properly.

Carlsberg don't write books on party discipline, but if they did...

Dan Hannan, that strange creature whom the Tories once loved – and are now keeping him at a necessary distance – has decided its time to make MPs work harder:

There is a case, though, for making an exception in 2010 and having the House of Commons sit through August, as my party is apparently considering. Why? because doing so would allow an incoming Conservative Government to implement The Plan in just one legislative session

My first impressions on this post were that it was just another shameless Christmas sales plug. After all, his co-author Douglas Carswell has been doing that too. It might even be a concerted effort by them. Well, we all have to make a living somehow.

Then my thoughts turned to the size of the ego of anyone who can make the above statement. Yes, let’s make MPs sit through the summer so they can implement your agenda – a man who won’t even be a British MP, and is on the fringes of influence in the Tory party.

But then that’s an easy criticism to make. After all, most politicians have vastly inflated egos. It’s almost part of the job description, to think you’re good enough to represent 70-80,000 constituents. And in Mr Hannan’s case, his European parliamentary constituencies are even larger.

Of course, the idea of cancelling MPs holidays and getting them to put in some extra shifts is hardly revolutionary. People seem to be calling for it all the time, and I have a sneaking feeling that at some point in the future MPs very long summer recesses are going to be either broken in two or redistributed across the calendar, resulting in longer recesses for half-terms and Easter.

So far, so dull.

But Hannan is insistent on trying to claim the credit for the various raft of unconnected ideas the Tory party have came up with over the past 12 months. From open primaries to fewer MPs. But is he right? And furthermore, is any of it actually going to happen?

We still don’t really know. We may get a better idea when the Tory manifesto emerges for the next election. Some of the ideas are good, and I hope the Lib Dems will join on board for the useful aspects of parliamentary reform, assuming Labour kick all of this into the long grass before the election.

Yet on the question of whether he is right to say the party are following his lead… I suspect he is deliberately over-playing his influence in an attempt to appear relevant to the party leadership. He’s gotta stay in the news somehow. After all, Hannan resigned from his responsibilities amongst his fellow Tory MEPs. His ascent up the greasy pole lasted all of two months.

In truth, the trappings of office probably didn’t suit him. He is used to speaking his mind. Used to telling us how wonderful his ideas and plans are. And now he will be able to do so.

Loose cannon alert.

It will be very interesting to watch a Prime Minister Cameron deal with the likes of Hannan and his renegade chum Douglas Carswell. After all, Cameron has never really had to deal with real internal opposition.

With that in mind, maybe we don’t really know Cameron after all…

David Vaiani (25/11/09)

There has been considerable excitement across the blogosphere about this weekend’s Ipsos MORI poll showing the Tory lead over the government down to a mere 6 points. As everybody knows, the Tories need at least a 10 point advantage over New Labour come polling day, if they are to secure a majority of just one. They require an even bigger gap in order to establish a working majority of around 30…[Continue reading]

Well not quite a letter but more, if the Wall Street Journal blog is to believed, a friendly helping of political advice. My first question when reading this has to be simply why? It is to be rightly presumed that Obama doesn’t posses any fairy dust that will transform Brown’s rather turnip-shaped government into a golden election winning carriage. Also, if Brown is seeking advice from Obama he has to contextualise it, so, while it maybe true that;

The advice of President Obama’s senior aides is like gold dust for parties of the left at the moment. This is the election winning team that beat Hillary Clinton and then John McCain to win power. The campaigning techniques they used were cutting edge

it is also true that they achieved this victory against a President and a Republican Party whose popularity was shot to pieces outside traditional Republican states. Obama’s position is thus more analogous to that of Tony Blair in 1997 and bares little relation to that of Gordon Brown in 2009.

It is here we see the nub of the problem; Brown tries too hard to ape Blair when he can’t and thus ironically, in seeming to escape his shadow, is actually more captive of it as Prime Minister than he ever was as Chancellor. This is sad because at PMQ’s today Brown looked comfortable and almost confident as Cameron questioned him about relife efforts in Cumbria. Whisper it quietly but he almost looked Prime Ministerial and the type of leader who, if he played to his strengths, could actually redirect and save Labour.

However, the one regard where he should take hints from Blair, his scope and vision Brown fails to seize the moment. If Brown, were for example, to advance electoral reform his stoicism might actually convince people of his sincerity.  However, this opportunity is now lost because Brown has dithered for too long and for too long he has tried to look like a Scottish Blair and the poll bounce that Labour enjoyed when he took over the premiership has evaporated; it would have done naturally to a degree in any case but it need not have to this extent.

Even Cameron’s broadsides about the government ‘funding extremism’ didn’t knock Brown and he deftly made Cameron look the extremist and himself the safe pair of hands.  In both these exchanges we saw glimpses of what Brown could and maybe should have been but in the above story we are reminded of his fatal flaw; that too much he aspires to be something he can never be and in doing so he will miss the chance to change Labour and lead them into a fourth-term.

Like much of the world, Britain is in high season for government intervention. The past two years have witnessed a number of banks, strained beyond their usual limits by a fierce economic crisis, urgently seek public assistance. Having waded in to shoulder much of the brunt of the crisis so far, the government is now contemplating ways in which to protect the banks and, more significantly, the country’s finances, from future upheavals, by involving itself more robustly than before in the financial system and the course of its post-recession reincarnation.

As an example of government intervention in national affairs, the case of the banks stands alone, but only in terms of magnitude. Intervention, in addition to the usual wrangling of laws and deployment of certain services, is customary, if not always obvious, and at that a necessary function of government in times of need. During a recession, need is rife, with more to protect than vulnerable banks. In the private sector, small companies, their larger relatives and even whole industries must be propped up or even saved from collapse outright, while the public sector will likely be painfully cut to reduce public deficit created by a slew of economic rescue efforts. If, as many expect, the reins of government do change hands at the next ballot in 2010, intervention could be even more widespread, as new leaders attempt to reshape things in their ideological image.

Yet intervention can be unwelcome, even within the government’s traditional jurisdiction of law and policy. Fresh news this week on the progress of the controversial ID cards scheme pioneered by Labour follows years of resistance to what was, and is, heavily opposed by many as an affront to civil liberties. Similarly, the government attracted stinging controversy recently over its reassessment of drug policy when it clashed with an adviser over the classification of certain narcotics, with the altercation leading to his dismissal. And following this summer’s explosive MP’s expenses scandal , the ongoing process of recriminating offenders and navigating systemic reforms, arguably a vital step towards rehabilitating the reputation of British democracy and its politicians amongst the public, has faced intense criticism from disgruntled MP’s.

Government intervention can be arduous, time-consuming and unpopular, but also necessary and worth a struggle. Bailing out banks may cause pain financially, but the alternatives could be catastrophic. And politicians may resent their colleagues being cast into the darkness as their privileges are dismantled, but a parliament lacking credibility, something these measures hope to restore, could prove impotent. Not all intervention, however, is wise or for the greater good. Some is superfluous, overly politicised or simply ill-conceived. Distinguishing good from bad here is useful, but tricky.

In the midst of its own crisis, one candidate that David Cameron, potentially the leader of the next government, has marked for reform is the British media. This industry, sabotaged by tumbling newspaper sales and a slump in advertising revenue, an important form of subsidisation for publishers and broadcasters, is in dire need of intervention, be it from public or private bodies. Though initially in the form of miscellaneous proposals, Cameron’s party, the Conservatives, have presented a wide ranging portfolio for British media reform over the past few months. This in itself is encouraging, but the deployment and wisdom of some of these ideas may deserve scrutiny.

A number of the measures proposed appear bold but not impractical. The call for restructuring of the British media landscape, expected in Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s (pictured) speech tomorrow at the Manchester Media Festival sets a promising tone; as Hunt correctly argues, current rules preventing any single media group owning newspapers, radio stations and television channels in the same geographical area are counter productive in the internet age; media groups need to consolidate their resources and produce multimedia output in order to attract a more technocratic audience and stay competitive. As Hunt notes, media operators need greater flexibility to survive. Granting this flexibility would be sensible and justified.

Other suggestions for reform, at least broadly speaking, seem somewhat level-headed, if also divisive. Cameron may be right in both attacking communications regulator Ofcom’s role as a policy-maker and calling for big change at the “bloated” BBC, including a rolling back of unnecessary commercial expansion, something the BBC Trust appeared to favour just this week. His critique of the top tier salaries paid by these two bodies is sound, at least on first inspection. In principal, these reforms would be wise.

Yet any media intervention by an admittedly hypothetical Conservative government would require greater thought, as a number of flaws lurk in the current strategy. Stars and top earners at the BBC, some of whom, as a handful of newspapers were keen to point out, in fact manage to dwarf the prime minister’s salary with their own, do serve as evidence that the corporation’s inflated pay system could be in need of downsizing. Nevertheless, without establishing a better perspective of the situation by first analysing top pay levels at other broadcasters and media groups, who influence existing salary norms as much as their public-funded rival, preemptively neutering the BBC’s salary power would be misguided. Similarly Ofcom is not chosen by an electorate and may have too much influence on policy in view of this fact, but many argue that it is otherwise an effective replacement of a former regulatory system consisting of five different bodies, and furthermore costs the taxpayer little directly, making Cameron’s plans to slash it down a few sizes seem almost unfounded. Though none of the arguments surrounding such reforms are definitive or indisputable, they do highlight the care that must be taken when planning major reform, and that reform is by no means a perfected art.

The most worrying kind of reform, and one that a Conservative government would be wise to avoid, is one based purely on political maneuvering. Some already point suspiciously to the correspondence between Conservative proposals regarding Ofcom and BBC, and James Murdoch’s less than favourable, even hostile, views on the two, claiming the existence of some pact between Cameron and James’ father Rupert, the media mogul. This argument, though supported in the eyes of some by Murdoch-owned, News International newspaper The Sun’s recent disavowal of Labour after 12 years of (at times unenthusiastic) loyalty, is riddled with discrepancies, such as Cameron’s apparent failure to convincingly woo the older Murdoch on his own. Though if real, reforms led by political strategy could be a danger.

General political tinkering seems a more tangible concern, however, following Jeremy Hunt’s claim that the left-leaning bias of the BBC, a phenomenon partly verified by reports and journalists’ anecdotal evidence, should be remedied by actively hunting Conservatives to join the corporation’s news team. This is both ill-advised and worrying; the innate political bias of the BBC, though detrimental to objectivity, seems predominantly, as Andrew Marr commented, “cultural and not party political.”, and seemingly so pervasive as to render political balancing acts useless. More importantly, were Hunt to place Conservatives at the BBC for the sake of party politics, such a political coup in the media could set a dangerous precedent.

For a struggling industry, intervention is a pressing issue, but not one to be rushed. Any intervention must be measured, considered, and unpolitical, be it by a government or the media itself.

Note to pedants: This is not a serious post.

Amusing U-turn by the Tories over Jedward.

Last week when they were still in the competition, Cameron claimed they were his ‘favourites‘.

Fast forward a week and Jedward have been kicked off the X-Factor and the Tories immediately produce a Jedward poster depicting Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling as Jedward, claiming that “Jedward’s now out, it’s time to get rid of deadwood Labour too”.

What a difference a week makes eh? One week they’re Cameron’s favourite, next they’re ‘deadwood’. Typical of Cameron’s approach to politics a cynic might say. Not me though.

Also – how about coming up with your own jokes? Labour did a Jedward poster weeks ago (Though I admit that the Tory one is better in terms of the quality of photoshop work). Get with the times, man!