The Budget: largely a PR Fest.

Mrs May had already announced "the end of austerity" at the Tory Conference in September/October.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, in his budget speech yesterday, was not quite so sure: "Austerity is coming to an end."  In other words we're not there yet.

Yet both of them imply that we, the British people, have endured eight years of "hard work" and are now to be rewarded as a result of its success.

What nonsense.

I've heard only snatches of Jeremy Corbyn's response in the Commons and have not yet found a written report, but in essence he said: the eight years of austerity were unnecessary; the economy has grown at a slower level than if the policies of the previous Labour government had been continued; the poor are poorer, the public realm (local government, education, health and welfare services etc) has been devastated; the richest have flourished.

I can't see anything to fault in that analysis.  The only downside is that it was delivered in a hectoring and belligerent tone, which may impress the House of Commons, but falls flat for the people outside who need to be persuaded.  He, and other politicians, need to take a hint from Gilbert and Sullivan:  "Quiet calm deliberation disentangles every knot." - and receives more attention than hot air.

In the past eight years:

• real-terms funding for local government has been cut by 49%.
• Home Office expenditure on the police has been cut by more than 20%  -  there are now 19 000 fewer officers that in 2010.
• Legal Aid expenditure has been cut by £950m, leading to "legal aid deserts."  For the disastrous effect on the most vulnerable read "The Secret Barrister."
• 475 libraries have been closed and 230 000 hours  of library opening have been lost.
• expenditure on adult social care is falling while demand rises, leading to -
• the NHS in (yet another) crisis.
• cuts in school funding have led 2000 normally apolitical head teachers to march on Downing Street in protest.
• the number of cyclists killed or injured has tripled, at least in part due to poorly maintained roads.*

As Polly Toynbee sums it up in today's Guardian:  "everywhere creeping public squalor."

So what is Hammond proposing to do about it?

Very little to replace the damage done to the public sector over this long period.

If the Tories are genuine in their claim that the austerity policy was solely motivated by an alleged necessity to bring the public finances into order, then the end of austerity should mean that the sector should be replenished.  If it is not, than we must conclude that the motive all along was to reduce the size of the state.

There's a bit of money to help ease the pain of the Universal Credit fiasco, and something for filling in the potholes.  But the big news is a headline "give away" (more accurately described as a "not taken") for tax payers of £3bn.  My share is to be £306, but not until 2019..  If I were a "higher rate" taxpayers it would be £800+

"Unto him that hath shall be given" seems to be one one bit of the Bible the Tories understand..

This is a "tweaking at the edges"  Budget of the sort which which could have been produced at any time in the last 60 years.  "Fiddling while Rome burns" and "Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic" are metaphors which spring to mind.

Nothing to tackle the great issues of today:

• shamefully, at a time when the threats of climate change become daily more parent, the "fuel duty accelerator" remains frozen for the ninth year running.
• there is no move to reduce rising inequality and finance the increasing need for care for the elderly by taxing the unearned increments rusulting from rising house prices.
• or land taxes.
• or a Tobin type tax on financial transaction.

We may be 18 years into the 21st Century, but British political and economic thinking is still stuck in the last quarter of the 20th

* Most of these figures are taken  from the New Statesman, 12 - 18 October, 2018

Brexit: arguments of quality

I admit to being prejudiced, but it seems to me that the Brexiteers make only four contritions to the Brexit debate, which they do with increasing stridency and in the threatening manner commonly associated bullies.    They are:

1. We are leaving the EU at 11am  on Friday 29th March  next year.  That's it; end of story.

2.  We are implementing the will of the British people.

3. It is undemocratic to question or attempt to reverse the result of the referendum of June 2016.

4. Just admit it: you lost. Losers! 

In fact all  mean much the same thing.  Martin Kettle expresses it very well in a recent Guardian article

". . .Britain’s vote to leave the European Union [is claimed to be] not just decisive but the immutable will of an entire people that cannot be questioned – or compromised."

By contrast the arguments to revisit the decision seem to me to be perfectly reasonable

1.  Yes, it's tedious I know, becasue we've been through it all before, but the 2016 referendum result by no means expresses the will of the entire British people.  Only 37% of those entitled to do so  voted for leave, 34% voted to remain and 27% didn't vote at all.  Some of the people most affected  -  British citizens then aged 16 and 17,  and EU citizens from other countries but resident in the UK - weren't allowed to vote.  This hardly adds up to clarion call for action.

2.  Nor is it undemocratic to give us, or our Parliament, the chance to think again. Brexiteers conveniently forget that the most prominent among their number, Nigel Farage, argued that if the result were close, say 52% to 48%, then there should a  re-run.  That was said, of course when he expected Leave to lose.  And David Davis has said that a democracy is not a democracy if it does not have the chance to think again.

There are plenty of examples of provision oir second thoughts in the British constitution.  If the government loses a key vote in the Commons, which should cause it to resign, it can hold a second "vote of confidence" the following day to test if MPs really meant it.

Most recently, in 2015 we held a general election which produced  a Conservative government with a small majority. In spite of the Five Year Parliament Act, Mrs May felt that we should "think again" so called another election in 2017 to obtain a larger majority.  That turned out to be the wrong call from her point of view, but never the less illustrates the illogicality of her stubborn determination not to revisit the Brexit decision.

3.  We are now aware of irregularities in the Leave campaign: illegal over-spending, misinformation and, possible Russian interference..

4.  And we are now aware that many of the key promises made by the leave campaign just don't stack up. I'm sorry to bring this up yet again, as in an earlier post I promised my most persistent and effective interlocutor, sadly Anonymous, that he  could have the last word.

"Anonymous"  claimed that all the arguments against Brexit had been aired in the 2016  Referendum and dismissed by the electorate (ie 37% of it).  But much of what was speculation is now fact.

• It is a fact that the value of the £sterling has depreciated by some 12%.  Those of us who went abroad on holiday have experienced the effects of that, and we are all now seeing the effect on prices in the shops.  
• It is now a fact that that leaving negotiations are far from "the easiest thing in the world" but are proving very difficult.  
• It is clear that the remaining 27 are not "toast in our hands" becasue "they need us more than we need them."   
• We can not have "all he benefits frown outside" hat we have inside." 
• The rest of the world shows no sign of rushing to give us generous trade deals far superior to those we already have as EU members.

Most importantly, the issue of the Irish border is not a minor matter which will be solved by clever technology, even if it's not yet invented..  The problem  is probably intractable.

It has become customary to blame the EU negotiators for this, arguing that they are using it as a stick to make life difficult for us.  It is worth remembering that the people of Ireland, both parts, are our kith and kin, and a hundred years ago all of them were our fellow citizens.  If the EU negotiators are insisting on a viable solution to the avoidance of a hard border, it is on behalf of the Irish, and,  giving the slippery attitude of our own government, the EU should be praised for making sure that the people of that  part of Ireland that remains an EU  member is properly protected.

So there is every reason for a rethink.  The quickest and cleanest way would be a free vote in parliament.  If our MPs haven't the guts for that, then a People's Vote.

Chequers deal, Norway deal, Canada +? Why I don't care.

Some commentators claim that we’re on the brink of the biggest constitutional crisis since Lloyd George’s People’s Budget and I find I’m not holding my breath with excitement.

The reason is simple.  I don’t really care what kind of deal the negotiators come up with, because I know that any deal that can be salvaged from the mess (and I rather suspect that after the heightened  brinkmanship of the final  couple of days something will be produced which Mrs May and the Express and Sun will hail as a triumph and the government will pootle on for a few more months) will be no-where  near as good as the deal we already have and could continue to have by staying in the EU.

So the minutiae of details that emerge from the leaks, and the punditry of the politicians and commentators, just washes over me.  I have made up my mind – in fact it has never changed -  and so will get on with my life.

I suspect that much the same can be said of the average man and woman who have voted for Leave.  They “made up their minds” back in 2016, gave the establishment the kick in the solar plexus they felt it deserved, don’t want to know the details and probably don’t really care what option is chosen provided it is called Brexit.  They’ll leave the details to bigwigs who care about these things.

These similar attitudes of mind give me a useful insight into the way “normal” politics operates.  Most people see their party allegiance, or lack of it, as a given.  “We are Labour, always have been and always will be,” says one tribe  in a threatening sort of way.  “We’re Conservative,” says another with a slightly superior expression. “  (One of my friends says it as though it were as given as her blood group.)   A tiny remnant says “We’re Liberal.”  Bless.

The point is not that they don’t care, but they have lives to live, mortgages or rents to pay, relationships to establish or maintain, children to educate, mouths to feed, holidays to fix, parent to look after etc.,  and they leave it to the anoraks to fix the details.

This is an attitude which we anoraks find difficult to comprehend, and for Liberal anoraks, is infuriating.  But the present frantic hoo-ha in the Westminster bubble and attendant media, and to which I am indifferent, has given me an understanding.

I firmly believe, along with the distinguished company of Aristotle, that we are all political animals, and will continue to try to raise awareness of the best solution to the problem, which is a Free Vote in parliament.  David Davis has given unexpected, though unintended, credence to this view by calling upon his former cabinet colleagues to “respect our constitution,” which makes great play of the sovereignty of parliament.  

Failing that, go for a “People’s Vote.”   Good luck to the marchers on Saturday.

Playing or practising politics?

Yesterday I caught a radio clip from Theresa May's TV interview with Andrew Marr.  She claimed that Labour were  "playing politics" with the Brexit issue whereas she was striving to achieve what is best for the country.

As a forensic examination of the situation this leaves a lot to be desired.  "Could do better," on a school report would be generous.

My preferred definition of politics is "government by discussion" and it would be nice to think that our politicians were all calmly engaged in discussing what is best for the country.  Even better if they extended their discourse towards to what is best for Europe and, beyond that, the World.  The creation of the EU and the UN are both important and constructive steps in that mature direction.

I presume that by "playing politics" Mrs May means abusing the political situation for personal or party advantage rather than the good of the country..  If so she has not stinted on cheek.

It is perfectly obvious that it is the Conservative party that has used and is using the European Union issue for party advantage. It was the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron who called a referendum, not because it was in the national interest, but because he feared that his party's  support was leeching to UKIP.

Until the UKIP leaders, described by Cameron as "fruitcakes and closet racists," began stirring the pot, membership of the EU was in the mid-teens in the order of of voters' concerns, way behind the economy, employment, housing, education etc. Mrs May, who clearly prefers  the softest possible Brexit (she voted "Remain") keeps the no-deal option on the table in order to placate the extreme Brexiteers and hold her party together.

It can hardly be argued that the leading  Brexiteer, Boris Johnson, is campaigning from conviction.  Before the Referendum he allegedly agonised until  the last moment as to which side he would support.  Presumably he therefore  feels there is not much difference either way.  So what can the  motive be for his intemperate  anti-EU campaigning other than personal advancement?

Labour's position is not, by contrast, Simon-pure.  Rather than "playing politics" it could be argued  that they have opted not to play at all, but to watch from the side-lines as the Tory factions tear their party apart, or so they hope.  This could be a good strategy, but again, for party-advantage rather than what is best for the country.

To be fair, all parties believe that what is best for the country is to have them in charge and making the decisions.

However, in our current political situation, the most serious since the Second World War, it is surely time to put country before party.  The way to achieve this, as I've argued earlier, is for parliament to take off the party whips and have a free vote among members.  That is the British way.

Our constitution is by no mean perfect, but it has been honed over  several centuries. We are now a representative parliamentary democracy.  MPs are not delegates: they are elected by their constituents to hear all the arguments and use their judgement for the good of the country.

Parliament is the place where all options can be on the table, calm and informed debate can take place and politics can be practised at its best, not played as a tawdry party  game.

Unethical business

My generation was brought up to regard loyalty as a virtue.  The Second Scout Law, which I promised to obey in about 1947, then read:

A Scout is loyal to the King, his country, his country, his scoutmasters, his parents, his employers, and to those under him.

Perhaps wisely the current law stops short at "A Scout is loyal" and doesn't go into detail.

Unfortunately the message doesn't seem to have percolated into the minds of those who run our businesses.  Maybe their current leaders never joined the Scouts.

A report published today  by the charity   Citizens' Advice reveals a "loyalty penalty."  Those of us who stick loyally be our insurers, banks, mobilephone and broadband operators are ripped off by on average by £877 a year. The worst affected are the elderly: we are either too too trusting or too ga-ga to notice.

Happily, though elderly I am alert to the problem,but greatly resent having to spend several mornings  in July each year, when both my home and car insurances become due, searching the internet, checking  comparable conditions about what exactly is covered and what the excesses are, before choosing yet another company.  Even Saga, which I had naively assumed to be a charity devoted to the welfare of we elderly, turns out to be a publicly quoted company not averse to ripping us off if we aren't ever watchful.

I'm pretty confident that my energy supplier Ecotricity, for both gas and electricity, treats me fairly.  I hope I'm not mistaken

 Banks are major culprits.  A few weeks ago I received a letter from Lloyds informing me that my allegedly favourable savings account, which accumulates the princely interest rate of 3%, (0.5% below inflation)  will shortly run out of time and be re-invested in another savings account paying 0.2%.  They even send me an illustration that if I put £1000 in this account at the end of a whole year it will be worth £1002.  Whoopee!

 I suppose they ease their conscience (or comply with the law) by arguing that they have at least warned me, though it;s in pretty small print.

How they have the cheek to offer these derisory rates of interest when, if I borrow from them, they'll charge me 25.9% (yes, that's 25.9 - not 2.59)  beats me.

Clearly the guiding principle of our businesses is not fairness, or the Golden Rule of  "Do as you would be done by" which I believe operates in every major religion,  but "What we can get away with."

We live in a sick society.  I'm surprised there is not more outrage. Where is "Occupy" when you need them?

Labour and a People's Vote

In spite of their somewhat fudged decision the Labour Party has done us a favour in keeping the idea of a People's Vote on the Brexit deal (if any) in the headlines for several days. Not only that, but it has been clear that the impetus for second thoughts comes, not from a disgruntled establishment elite,but largely from young people, including the Momentum pressure group who are so enthusiastic for a reformed and fairer society.  Many of these enthusiasts would have been too young to vote in 2016.  Clearly they see continued membership of the EU as part of the new world order they crave.

Not surprisingly, Jeremy Corbyn would still prefers a general election to second vote on Brexit.  Well, he would, wouldn't he?  Like his Tory counterparts, he puts party interests above the national interest. But, for we Remainers, , a general election would be no help.  First, general elections called on a specific issue rarely remain glued to the issue.  In 1974 prime minister Edward Health called an election on "Who Governs Britain - him or the miners?"  The electorate decided neither -  it would be Labour under Harold Wilson.

 Presumably Corbyn hopes for something similar, but, even if Labour won, his  policy of "negotiating  a better deal than the Tories" would prove a chimera.  We'd still be outside the EU, and there is no better deal that we already have inside it.

My arguments against  a People's vote have been spelled out in an earlier post
and I stand by the view that the best solution to our problems is a free vote in parliament. The Guardian published a letter from me* to this effect yesterday, but, in my view, edited out part of the reasoning,  which I highlight:

 A second referendum currently has the most traction as a means of trying to avert a Brexit calamity, but it is not “our best shot” as Jonathan Freedland claims. (We now need a people’s vote.   22 September).  That would be to take the party whips off and allow a free vote in parliament.  After all, it is our MPs who got us into this mess: David Cameron by proposing a referendum in order to protect his party from haemorrhage to UKIP;  both Lords and Commons indulging him by approving this device alien to our constitution;  MPs and Peers of all parties being too lax or complacent to insert routine precautions such as a super-majority; the approval of all constituent parts of the UK,  and provisions to avoid excessive distortions of the truth in the campaign.  So it is up to them to get us out of it.

A free vote could put an end to what most of MPs know is national self harm, and it could be done before Bonfire Night.  Genuine support for Brexit would probably be limited to fewer than 100 extremists in the Commons and a handful of peers.  Maybe a few MPs whose constituencies had large Leave majorities might eventually lose their seats if they voted with their consciences.  But surely that is a small price to pay for saving the nation from folly.  The hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War reminds us that many have paid a much higher price for the sake of the nation.

Be that as it may, thanks to the Labour Party Conference for highlighting the view that leaving the European Union is by no means a done deal, and that it is the young who are leading the crusade to stay.

*On the same page on the same day the Guardian published another letter from me, arguing that student  tuition fees do not leave students with an unbearable "burden of debt," as is so glibly claimed by critics of the Coalition..  Two letters on one day from the same writer is probably not unique but is certainly unusual.  I was and am rather chuffed. On the following day a correspondent  from Liverpool commented on the over-representation of the views of Yorkshiremen.

Archbishop on the ball.

Here are three quotes  from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, when addressing the Trades Union Congress last week.

On Universal Credit (a "rolled up" payment to struggling families):

It was supposed to make it simpler and more efficient.  It has not done that.  It has left too many people worse off, putting them at risk of hunger, debt, rent arrears and food banks.  When universal credit comes into an area the [number] going to food banks  goes up.   What is clear is, if [the government] cannot get it right they need to stop rolling it out. 

On individual and corporate responsibility:

Not paying taxes speaks of the absence of commitment to our shared humanity,, to solidarity and justice.  If you earn money from a community you should pay your share of tax to that community.

And best of all he singled out the vast international companies, even naming Amazon:

. . . when vast companies like Amazon and other on-line traders . . .can get away with paying almost nothing in tax, there is something wrong with the tax system.  They don't pay a real living wage, so the taxpayer must support their workers with benefits; and having leeched off the taxpayer once, they don't pay for our defence, for security,  for stability,  for justice,  for health, for equality, for education.


So while one of our major parties struggles to take the country down the road to Brexit, which the vast majority of its MPs know to be wrong, another allows itself to be distracted by arcane attempts to define antisemitism, and the third (if still major) pre-occupies itself by tweaking its party rules, the Eton-educated Archbishop hits the nail on the head - indeed three nails on three heads.

Of course the poor man was rather undermined by the revelation that the Church Commissioners invest heavily in Amazon.  Lets hope those financial wizzards will now sit up, take notice, and disinvest.

And I suspect the Commissioners are not the only sinners.  Amazon only stays in business if people buy from it.  How about a boycott?  If you need a spur to action read the first chapters of  James Bloodworth's book "Hired" https://www.waterstones.com/book/hired/james-bloodworth/9781786490148" which reveals the squalid and inhuman conditions of work in an Amazon warehouse.

For more details see here:

http://keynesianliberal.blogspot.com/2018/03/britains-deregulated-labour-market.html

That was written in March but things haven't changed.  Neither will they, until our MPs have the guts to look behind the causes of the Brexit vote, take a leaf out of the Archbishop's book, and tackle the real problems facing our society.