Tough but Fair Child Benefit Cut?

(Of which Minstrel Dale thinks "idiotic" and "trusts" it will be sorted out)* Can't imagine his response if Brown/Darling in government, or Mili/AN Other in opposition had trotted out a policy of which it was so clear it was unfair (and of which Ministers backtracked and backtracked all evening). Oh, wait, yes I can.

Gideon Osborne made a speech today, from in front of a extremely hard on the eye green white collage that said something about being together in the national interest. Odd that he chose a setting such as that to say what he did today:

Child benefit is to be axed for higher-rate taxpayers from 2013, Chancellor George Osborne has announced.He told the Conservative conference the "tough but fair" move - affecting couples where one parent earns about £44,000 - would save £1bn a year.

Family One: Mr & Mrs Smith.

Mr Smith is an Auditor and earns £40,000
Mrs Smith is a teacher and earns £40,000

Household income of £80,000 pa.

The Smiths get child benefit.

Family Two: Ms Jones

Ms Jones is a Manager in an Office and earns £44,000

Household income of £44,000 pa.

Ms Jones does not get child benefit.

So, Gidders, "Tough but Fair?"

Keir understands that Osborne is trying to save money, Keir understands that Conservative policy is to deride government as useless and the bureaucratic, leviathan mastabatory fantasy of Daily Mail readers, and Keir understands that we live in a difficult economic climate.

What Keir doesn't understand is why Gideon is making a direct attack on the middle, aspiring classes he claims to represent as well as single parent families and single worker households. Means testing? Fine; an arbitrary limit like this that is patently unfair? All because, as he says, this is the most "straightforward" option. Oh Puhlease.

*Keir is glad that Iain Dale is describing his parties flagship welfare policy in such terms, because, it is. Lets see if he sticks to his word, or just like Cameron and Cleggeron, conveniently forgets his desire to protect child benefits. Its funny, too, because the super mega connected Iain Dale, scourge of Norfolk North, said a year ago after a Fabians meeting that

Ed Balls tried to create some more of his artificial dividing lines by asserting that the Tories would abolish universal child benefit. I responded that this was utter tripe.

HT to Sunder Katwala in the comments section of Daley's post on the policy.

**Oh and it was also a surprise to see Dizzy Think's reaction to this.

We are all in this together...

We are all in this together, Gideon Osborne tells us. Unless you are a Conservative councillor that is.

Keir is uncomfortable using cliches but "they just don't get it"

(Loving the BBC new look by the way)

Incidentally this is Barnet Council, the same council that was lauded by some as being the first 'no frills' council. Keir can neither confirm or deny that you are only allowed one bag of rubbish per person per week, that council workers wear vomit inducing t-shirts, or that the council run buses drop you off in Luton.

So what do the Lib Dems add to the coalition?

Over to the ex-President of Oxford University Conservative Association...

Before the election, the Tories promised that 80% of the work of cutting the deficit would come from cutting spending and 20% from raising taxes.

In fact, the chancellor has announced that the figures are 77% to 23%.

That 3% is the impact of the coalition.

Wellllllllllllllll, at least they got comfy Ministerial cars...

You look familiar...

...yes, you, the one in the yellow tie...

I thought I'd seen you before...

(Oh, and for the record Nicky, it's nearer £400pa for every family, those who can pay, and those who can't. Remind me, you're the progressive party?)

A few quick questions, winner gets a big kiss from beardy Keir: Who brought in VAT, who hiked it to 17.5%? and who hiked it to 20%? See a pattern emerging here?

Redressing The Gap, By George Osbourne

There are obviously many issues that will come from the Emergency Budget announcement. Many have been debated in the press and are becoming inevitably boring so I won't go on about VAT rises simply for what they are.

Rather, let's have a quick look at an issue that the Conservatives themselves raised in their manifesto. It was a page on their manifesto that has been referred to previously on this blog. Page 22 of the Invitation to Join the Government of Britain shows a map of the United Kingdom. It is divided into regions with each region's share of the UK economy written on it and each region's size being relative to it's share of the economy. Wales had a 4% share of the UK economy and the North East had a 3% share. Whereas London had 21% and the South East had 14%

So what will the Conservative government do to balance out this inequality? How can you stimulate growth enough in the North East and Wales in order for it to out-pace growth in London and the South East?

Maybe a 2-year public sector pay freeze? No, maybe not.

Wales and the North East have disproportionately high levels of public sector employment. Wales, for example, has around 30% of people working in the public sector. A freeze on public sector pay means less money is coming into these local economies than is going into the economies of London and the South East given that the latter two regions have private sectors to stimulate some growth. So, given that in order to redress the balance we would need to have growth in Wales and North East to be at a higher rate than growth in London and the South East, this policy will just make the gap bigger.

At least these low-income families who are living on the now-frozen public sector pay rates will receive some support though, right? Wrong. The freezing of Child Tax Credits means that a low-income public sector working family will stagnate because of this Budget. More likely, and much worse, they will begin to suffer as prices go up from 2011 with the VAT rise.

Comments such as "it could have been worse" in the media totally ignore the mass of low-paid workers in this country. The Budget may not hit the middle and upper-middle class, represented by the mainstream media, very hard. But what it will do is create a new level of the long-term unemployed class that sadly already exists. This new stream of long-term unemployed will be made up of educated people who have worked for years but are now stuck because of the state of the jobs market; a situation created by the banking collapse. That is, the collapse of banks that will barely be touched by this Budget. Ok, so Gideon introduced a levy on UK banks and UK operations of foreign banks. But that will only raise £2bn. And that's before we consider that the cut in Corporation Tax will allow the banks to scoop up a bit of the money they lose from said levy. Former Chancellor Darling raised more than that with his bonus tax. Much more could and should have been done to bring in money from the banks.

An economic Hiroshima is about to land on the households of poor people up and down this country. Labour and it's people must organise and revolt. This wasn't intended to be a pitch for David Miliband's leadership, but the organisational structure he wants to bring into the party will give people more than just a voice, it will give them a collective fist with which they can begin to pound down this disgusting, ideologically-driven attack on their lives.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.

Huw Irranca-Davies' Reaction to Gideon's Budget

As our good friend Huw Irranca-Davies MP pursued our issue of the Cheryl Gillan Cabinet committee farce, we have kindly, and more-than happily, agreed to make public Huw's response to today's Budget announcement from the Government.

It can be found at his website here:

http://www.huwirranca-davies.org.uk/

Keir wholeheartedly agrees with the points made. Similarly to Keir's previous statements regarding the new "patsies" of government, Huw makes the point about the disgusting onlookers of the new government in yellow ties.

The fight begins now.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.

The New Patsy

So Danny Alexander had his first experience of what it's like to be the Tories' new patsy. After Dodgy Dave got turfed out for being a naughty little liar, Devious Danny, tax dodger extraordinaire, is next in line to take the hit for the Tories.

Alexander today announced further cuts that were laced with contradictions not just with LibDem policy, but with Conservative policy too.

One of the high profile elements of the new load of cuts is the cancelling of a loan to Sheffield Forgemasters. This loan (not grant: LOAN) would have helped secure the future of production and jobs whilst also contributing to new low-carbon energy plans as the loan would have helped production of parts to build new nuclear power plants. This is totally contrary to the promise made in the Conservative manifesto (page 11), apparently part of Sir James Dyson's review, to keep manufacturing jobs in this country (where did you send your factories James? They appear to have disappeared from these shores years ago) whilst "...making Britain Europe's leading hi-tech exporter". The jobs that would have been secured and created by this loan will now go abroad and, far from helping us become an exporter, this will increase dependency on imports. In addition, the Conservatives said they wanted to re-balance the economy and also make it greener, but a move like this is detrimental to both of these plans.

And who was rolled out to give the announcement and face the tirade of criticism and abuse? Not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but his new patsy; his new fall guy. We took out Dodgy Dave, but the triangulated crossfire is still set up and the guy in the book depository is just replaced by another power-hungry "high flyer". All the while, Gideon sits in Number 11 signing away the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of British people.

Here's an idea for you Danny boy: why don't you tighten up the loopholes on Capital Gains Tax rules to get some extra money to reduce the deficit? Nah, didn't think so.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.

Nightmare On Downing Street

Is there something of the Lee Harvey Oswald about the Liberal Democrats?

I think the analogy fits. You know how the theory goes. Triangulated cross-fire: various teams of shooters home in on the target, and one sacrificial lamb. “I’m just a patsy!” as Oswald put it. The gunmen could have been anywhere; the County Records building, the grassy knoll, the Texas School Book Depository. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the attention is diverted to the patsy.

And so we have it. The Conservative Party fixed on their target which is, essentially, us. The shots come in from everywhere: Gideon from the Treasury, Cameron from Number 10. Clarke, May and Gove send in their bullets too, attacking all that we have built in the education system and in our advances in equality. If one misses, just like the bullet that missed on Dealey Plaza back in 1963, you can be sure the others will strike us right in the neck or, worse, pretty much decapitate us. If the abolition of the Future Jobs Fund doesn’t impact you, the abolition of the Child Trust Fund will. Or even the Whitehall and public sector cuts may take your job from you.

But how do they get away with it? How will the public’s attention be diverted?

Cue: the patsy. “But Clegg sold out on voting reform”... “Cable sold out on his economic policies”.

And there you have it. The media goes wild. “Don’t be stupid”, they’ll say when you speak up about the cuts, “they need to happen.” And then their focus turns to Clegg the sell-out. They show us, sinisterly, how Clegg, Cable and Laws went back on their previous stance. And in ‘63? The focus was on Oswald: his background, pictures of him holding the gun, stories of his defection to the Soviet Union. And the conspiracy theorists, like those of us who bemoan the politically-motivated cuts, are called lunatics, naive and lacking in knowledge.

There are two losers on each side of the analogy. In 1963, John F. Kennedy was one of them; taken away in a coffin along with the hopes of millions of Americans and even millions of people around the world. And Oswald was the other. Oswald was charged, tried and sentenced the minute he was dragged out of a cinema, pleading ignorance and innocence and ended up being shot in cold blood. His demise preceded any chance he had to defend himself. In 2010, we are Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats take up the role of Oswald. We are the ones battered by the cuts and with our futures thrown into uncertainty. The Liberals are hung out to dry with their reputation in tatters. The patsies, the sacrificial lambs, slaughtered by the Conservative Party so that they can get away with their crime. Just like Oswald, they are pictured with their offending weapon: their previous political stance.

They too, will surely be shot down.

Luckily, I think the analogy ends when we consider when the true criminals will be able to be held to account. The final wave of JFK assassination documents are to be released in 2017, some 54 years after the event. I am sure that we can rely on our public at large and the rejuvenated Labour Party to hold the real criminals to account in far less than a tenth of that time.

We can tell the public now that getting rid of the Future Jobs Fund is a politically-motivated attack on people's chances of finding a job in this tumultuous economic climate. And we can ask them how they can fund a Border Police Force but not a Child Trust Fund scheme. We can tell them now that "free schools" is a policy that will only benefit the rich and that socially deprived areas where education does need to improve are not brimming with people who have enough spare time on their hands to start and run a new school; they need the state to provide them with the basic right of a good education. And we can also tell them now that any affronts to our democracy in the form of the proposed 55% rule will not reach the statute book.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.

Gideon's Guillotine: A Blessing In (really good) Disguise?

So the moment we’ve all been waiting for finally arrived with Gideon announcing his spending cuts. This man, the heir to the Osbourne baronetcy of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, has told poor families, amongst other things, that they can’t have the small offerings from the state when they have children.

Of course, we always knew the cuts were coming. So there is no real shock. This merely confirms the madness that is Gideon’s economics brain. “Let’s get the economy moving”, said his buddy Dave at, seemingly, every single media appearance he did. So Gideon proposes to do that by cutting the Future Jobs Fund. “Unemployed for 6 months? Keep on lookin’, baby”. That’ll get the economy moving alright. Of course, as Alastair Darling has said, the Conservative government hasn’t detailed the impact that this will have on people. The announcements are full of big numbers and political language for now. There is no detail about how many jobs will be lost. Let’s just assume that it will be a lot.

How about a quick, speculative, look at how this could impact voters. Let us imagine that these cuts will have a more detrimental impact on the poor. It’s easy to imagine, really, as it is a Conservative government after all. According to preliminary IPSOS-MORI data, Labour lost masses of voters from the traditional base of the working class. 11% of C2 voters and 8% of DE voters did not “come home to Labour” on May 6^th. These are low-income families, probably affected by unemployment. They are likely to benefit from Child Tax Credits and one of their pathways to a job would have been the Future Jobs Fund. If someone has been unemployed for 4 months, they could have got some guaranteed help in two months time. Not anymore. These people will have been disenchanted with Labour given that their situation was showing no signs of getting better. Well, under this Conservative government their situation, if anything, will get worse. Labour has to re-connect with these voters. Margaret Hodge and Andy Burnham offered methods to do this at the recent Progress Conference and Labour campaigners have to learn from both of them, in particular Hodge. And we need to re-connect now. Left Foot Forward editor Will Straw, also at the Progress event, spoke about how we should be out on the doorsteps already, showing people we don’t only care when we need their votes. Straw suggests we utilise the (hopefully) lovely weather of the summer to get back in touch with our voters.

Still, let’s see how it goes and hope that the lower classes don’t get hit as hard as it seems they will.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.

UPDATE: I defer to @martin_oneill for better ironic explanation of the context of Osbourne's cuts.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.