Tory Co-op's a challenge to the left?

Cooperation may have been born in the Northern town of Rochdale but the Tories are determined it seems to claim it as their own in 2010.

They announced yesterday that they will give public sector workers the power to take over their organisations and run them as co-operatives.

It's a strange one.Surely the basis of cooperation strikes at the heart of Tory doctrine so could this be a rouse to bring out some on the traditional left to support a Tory measure.

Very interestingly Left Foot forward wrote

if the Left truly wants to put progressive politics above partisan politics, then this morning’s Tory policy on public sector co-ops should be cheered, not attacked.

So is this simply no more than a gimmick?

Power to the public sector workers was the call from David Cameron yesterday.

I know that there are millions of public sector workers who work in our public services and who frankly today feel demoralised, disrespected and unrecognised.We will not only get rid of the targets and bureaucracy that drive you so mad.We will give you power in a way that is as radical as the right to buy your council house.We will give you the chance to set up employee-owned co-operatives to take over the services so you can be your own boss and offer the public a better service......the way you think it should be done, not the way some distant bureaucrat thinks it should be done.So instead of government controlling every aspect of public service in our country, we would say to people who work in Job Centres, in the NHS, in social work, in call centres, right across our public sector......“here is your budget, deliver this service, and if you do it more efficiently and more effectively, you can keep some of the savings that you make.”

he said

He knows the sector has been under pressure,he knows that its workers are frustrated.This may well be a good move

Cameron and Osborne manoevering for a sterling crisis

Benedict Brogan suggests that the Tories may be initiating a sterling crisis at least that is what the earnstwhile Robert Peston thinks.

Peston cites McKinsey’s “Debt and Deleveraging” report, which has crunched through all available data on British debt compared to other countries and concludes that when you tot it all up our real debt to GDP ratio is a whopping 466pc; only Japan is worse, on 471pc. Signs of Tory hesitation on spending cuts could make it that much more difficult and expensive for the Government to sell gilts, just when the Bank is supposed to be turning off the QE taps. Why do that, unless…he wanted deliberately to provoke a crisis that could tip the balance against Gordon Brown during the election.

Nobody likes us we don't care

Glen Oglaza has it spot on about the Tories and Europe.

Are the Tories the Millwall of Europe: Nobody likes us but we don't care?

But here is the real point that he makes

We are in the European Union, so let's lead it from the front.

The EU should be led by Britain, Germany and France - but we always seem to be the Tail-End Charlie.
But I guess that will remain the way so long as we are not in the Euro or signed up to Shengen (uniquely difficult for the UK).
If we are staying in, let's do it properly and whole-heartedy - or let's just get out and trade with the Commonwealth instead.

Make up your mind over Europe Mr Cameron

I couldn't agree more with Bagehot's post on the Economist thios afternoon.

He writes that

Time is running out for David Cameron's European policy. At his press conference this morning, he clung to his "one policy at a time", "it shall not rest" approach in regard to the Lisbon treaty, but he probably won't be able to do so for much longer. Indeed, to some the formula is already sounding more evasive than rational, precisely the sort of dodge that Mr Cameron frequently accuses Gordon Brown of making.

More tricky for Mr Cameron is the European President role

That led to two awkward follow-up questions that Mr Cameron struggled to answer. Was he really saying that Britain's interests in Europe would be better served by a foreign president than by Mr Blair? And wasn't the underlying thrust of his broader point that he wanted the job to be done badly (surely not a good thing, if it is to exist, for either the EU or Britain)?

Quangos may not be under attack after all

David Cameron assault on quangos may not be all it seems.

The BBC's Nick Robinson explains after he took a call from Central Office

They have called to say that Mr Cameron's speech was not, as I reported, called "Bonfire of the Quangos" but called instead "People Power - Reforming Quangos".
What's more they point to their leader saying: "it would be far too simplistic for me to stand here and announce some kind of 'Bonfire of the Quangos.' People have heard that kind of talk many times before, and seen little to show for it."

A shameful decision by Cameron on Europe

So the Tories have announced the new right of centre grouping in the European Parliament this morning.

It has taken three weeks of negotiation but will compromise 55 MEP's of which the Tories will have the lion's share of 26 and Poland's Law & Justice will have 15

The rest,a rag tangled mob and called the Prague grouping they declare that they are

CONSCIOUS OF THE URGENT NEED TO REFORM THE EU ON THE BASIS OF EUROREALISM, OPENNESS, ACCOUNTABILITY AND DEMOCRACY, IN A WAY THAT RESPECTS THE SOVEREIGNTY OF OUR NATIONS AND CONCENTRATES ON ECONOMIC RECOVERY, GROWTH AND COMPETITIVENESS,

If you want clarification of some of their partners,read Anthony Painter's post here.

I can't help feeling though that David Cameron has made a massive mistake by effectively alienating himself from the centre right coalition in Brussels, thus marginalising his MEP's from the political process.

It sends a clear message to Europe of what will happen if the Tories win the next election.The country will be isolated from Europe and that is a bad thing

Is Cameron thinking of ditching Trident?

Michael White at his Guardian blog once again looks at the vexed question of whether we should ditch Trident?

The subject has been brought up on a number of occassions on this blog as a way of making a rather large contribution to lowering public debt.

It wouldn't be a clean break, whoever decides it is time for imperial Britain to call it a day.

But there are signs that the Tories are looking at the issue quite seriously

Cameron let the nuclear cat out of the bag at yesterday's press conference when he placed the issue within the wider need for a defence review when he takes power and assesses the battered-but-still-functioning state of UK armed forces.

Missing the point

Is it not simply shear folly for the Tories to hark back to calls for a Lisbon treaty referendum?

Conservative Home has just announced that

David Cameron has just launched the above poster as part of the Conservative campaign for the European Parliament election.

and adds that

Mr Cameron said now was the time to "maximise the pressure" on the Government to hold the referendum it promised at the last election. Indeed, he pointed out that the Conservatives were the only party which had stuck by its word on the issue

This smacks of a return to pandering the blue rinse brigade,instead of dealing with the issues that the electorate will be more concerned about which by definition will be the ceonomy,jobs and public spending.

Osborne ups the anti on the green budget

A green theme to the blog this morning.

According to George Osborne

The Labour plan announced today is like giving people a grant to buy an internal combustion engine, without bothering to set up any petrol stations.

Hot on the heels of the government's announcements on electric cars,shadow chancellor George Osborne has been telling the country what green issues a Conservative chancellor would tackle if he was standing at the dispatch box next week.

The main stay appears to be a grant of £6,500 for every home to increase energy efficiency which would be paid for in the resultant fuel bill savings.

As a response to the electric car news,he committs the Tories to a the creation of a national recharging network for electric vehicles.

But also something that we are not hearing from Labour,investment in public transport.

A Tory governmnet would start work on plans for a new high speed rail network initially between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds which would be funded through a public-private partnership to enable construction to begin as soon as possible.

Evening all

There was a time when it was felt that a Tory government would be friends with the police whereas a Labour governmnet would be essentially anti police.

How times have changed especially over recent months and as Iain Martin suggests a Tory win next year could well spell problems for the boys in blue

The Conservative leadership views the police as an unreformed public service in need of a severe boot up the backside

adding that

If the Conservatives win, expect reform, a robust approach to police pay and conditions, the ordering of zero tolerance policing and radical measures to give voters control over their local police chiefs.

Hannan takes to the air again

Tory MEP Daniel Hannan whose splendid reposte at Gordon Browm in Strasbourg features here in another You Tube video,this time displaying his right wing values as he tells the audience in America that they shouldn't make the same mistake as us and nationalise the health service.



Ht-Recess Monkey

Should it be Cameron that should apologise

Everybody is blaming Gordon Brown for the recession.Gordon Brown is blaming America and who knows who American is blaming.

But how much are the Tories to blame for the unique situation that we find ourselves in.

Over at Labour Home,this posting looks at how Tory policy my have contributed to our unique problems.

1.The sale of council houses during Mrs Thatcher's administration which led to the upwards trend in house price inflation and fuelled the consumer boom.

2.Demutualising the building societies thus taking away a significant chunk of the banking sector from having to balance borrowings and savings.

3.The big bang of 1987 which set the climate for deregulation and the a divorce between asset prices and reality.

Bagehot on why Tory fiscal policy may not be safe

There has been much said and written about the so called divisons which have appeared in Tory Fiscal policy over the last few days satrting with David Cameron's pledge to honour Labour's 2011 top rate of tax increase.

The Economist's Bagehot takes a look at the dilema that the party has over whether to

cultivate a strategic ambiguity, saying they will only be able to reveal detailed policies on taxing and spending after a victorious election, when they see the books.

and thinks this is not sensible for two reasons.

1.Labour will portray such an opaque stance as an omen of brutal Tory cuts and

2.that they have already offered some specifics. These make it very difficult to stick to the ambiguity formula without looking shifty and imbalanced. adding that

The options therefore may be to scrap the existing pledges, or provide some more clarity on medium-term policy.

Cameron has a carte blanche on policy according to Rentoul

I like John Rentoul's analogy of David Cameron in this morning's Indy.

A Cabinet minister once described David Cameron to me as "like one of those grabber machines in a Blackpool arcade. It looks as if you should be able to pick up the soft toy, but you cannot."

But John makes a good point in his piece,arguing that the Tory leader can afford to take risks because he is almost assured of being the next PM.

Despite pulling apart his fiscal arguments,

it hardly matters. Most of the Labour Party has given up. Not because of the lack of a desire to win, but because of the lack of leadership. Brown does relentless and he does strategy, but he does not do explanation or inspiration.

A pledge on inheritance tax

I think that Steve Richards makes a very good point in his Indy column this morning.

He suggests that if the Tories want to make it clear to the electorate that they are serious about managing the economic crisis then they could pledge to stop thinking about making changes to inheritance tax.

It would show how serious they were about repaying debt and doing so in a way that was fair. It would be dramatic, make every front page, top every news bulletin and throw Labour into turmoil.

After yesterday's pronouncements on raising the top level of income tax thsi would firmly set the Cameron Tories away from the tax baggage of previous policies whilst at the same time showing them to be serious about tackling public debt.

Life on Mars

We are definately returnoing to the 1970's.It seems the Tories are even dragging out their old 1979 campaign posters now

Whatever happened to responsible drinking?

First it was food now it seems that the Tories are turning their attention to drink.

The party is embarking on a campaign to save the great British pub.

With nearly 6 pubs closing every day of the week, and local pubs under threat, we believe that the Government should be doing more to save the Great British pub.

says the party.

And it has come up with a four point plan

1. Cutting taxes on lower alcohol drinks such as beer and raising taxes on problem drinks like high strength ciders and alcopops in order to use the tax system to target binge drinking whilst ensuring that responsible drinkers and the traditional British pub are not unfairly penalised
2. Enforcing existing laws to deal firmly with irresponsible drinkers & premises
3. Trusting adults to make informed choices, not punish them for the actions of an irresponsible minority
4. Supporting the British pub as a vital part of local communities

Ht-Daily Referendum

Where does my meat come from?

The Tories have launched a new initiative.

No doubt taking advantage of the Britain is for the British malaise crossing the country,they have unveiled an honest food campaign

We think this is dishonest. People have a right to know where their food comes from. Meat labelled 'British' should be born and bred in Britain, raised to our high welfare standards.

Guido alerted me to the new initiative and he isn't convinced.

Fair enough but it smacks of protectionism, what the wonks call a "non-tariff trade barrier". The benefits of free trade are that we get the cheaper goods and services from countries exploiting their comparative advantages.

Cameron is a Hoover and not a Roosevelt

Reading Johann Hari in the Indy today may be difficult for David Cameron.

Johann,trying to head his head around the rights and wrongs of economic intervention spoke to this year's Nobel Prize-winning economist, Professor Paul Krugman.

He told me he was "shocked" by hearing David Cameron's economic statements in favour of "tightening the government's belt" in a recession. "It's pure Herbert Hoover," he says. "In fact, it reminds me of Andrew Mellon [Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury], who said the [government] response to the Depression should be to 'liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, and liquidate farmers'."

and he continues

Many of Cameron's statements are "just wrong", Krugman says. For example, Cameron says Britain can't afford a fiscal stimulus because we are going into the recession with the highest debt of any developed country. "But that's not true. Britain is at the lower end of the middle of developed countries [when it comes to national debt]. Less than the US, much less than Japan or Germany or Italy." He is worried by the incorrect lessons Cameron has drawn from the 1930s. "Renouncing a fiscal stimulus when private spending is contracting is strange. Governments have very few tools at their disposal, and Cameron wants to not use them." So are you saying our recession will be much worse if we follow Cameron's advice? "Yes. For sure.

Could Cameron's progressive Conservatism threaten the centre ground

It was interesting reading Martin Kettle in this morning's Guardian.

He takes a look at the Tory shift towards the so called progressive Conservatism and argues that the Labour party should take this very seriously.It follows David Cameron's speech to the Demos conference yesterday which he says was an

absolutely unambiguous pitch for the political centre ground over which Labour is arguably dropping its guard

The danger he believes is that

To the Browns of this world, progressive conservatism is simply an oxymoron. It makes them snort with derision. To many in the Labour tribe, the idea that anyone other than Labour, not even the Liberal Democrats let alone the Tories, could ever have a credible progressive thought is a laughable one

Martin Kettle is not alone either in thinking this.In the Independent Steve Richards says that

The recent sharper divide over economic policy has not dampened Cameron's apparent progressive zeal.

adding like Kettle that the ground is there to be won

Cameron has astutely seized terrain vacated by the Government. Although Gordon Brown uses the phrase "progressive consensus", he has yet to form one.