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.

PROOF: Tory Bear Is An Imbecile...

...no, not just because of that photo.

Back at the start of the month, Keir commented on this Guido Fawkes article suggesting David Miliband was planning a victory party as his Movement for Change began organising an Assembly at Labour Party Conference. In actual fact, the Movement for Change was organising an Assembly to host whoever the leader of the Labour Party was to get them to commit to carrying on the work of training people in community organising skills.

After making the comment, Keir received an e-mail from Guido-lite blogger Tory Bear. It read:

"Saw your comment on Guido. I was the source of the story.

Had a long chat with the M4C person who called today and I specifically asked about the event. It it a rally and yes that line about whoever the winner may be is a clever bit of spin.

If DM didnt think he was going to win, and he is going to win, then why would he bother organising it?"

Awww...isn't he sweet trying to be all important. Love him. I'm sure Guido gave him a little pat on the head for "sourcing" that "story".

Anyway, it's quite satisfying now that Ed Miliband did attend the event, as the "M4C person" had originally told Tory Bear he would if he won. Not "clever spin" after all then, ay?

And even better that David Miliband, in his resignation letter, committed to developing Movement for Change. So that explains that he allowed the Assembly to be organised simply because he believes in the principles of the campaign.

It's no surprise that Tory Bear has barely commented since. Maybe Guido has told his wannabe that he should stop giving him shit stories and, as a result, he's decided to drop his criticism of M4C.

Unlucky. Maybe next time.

LetUsFaceTheFuture.

Who is Grant Tucker and Conservative Future

Not Malcolm's younger brother, no. Grant Tucker Esq is Iain Dale's new Executive Assistant. He is also the newly elected Chair of Conservative Future Wales (despite living in London working for The Nations Favourite Political Blogger TM)

Several months ago he was forced to step down after comments made on his Facebook page about George Galloway; in which he stated he would like to see the terrorist supporting, Saddam Hussein helping, race baiting MP dead. Gorgeous George took umbrage to this and threatened to involve the Police. Odd, considering that Tucker was 17, didn't really threaten him, and Galloway had previously stated that assassination of Tony Blair and George W Bush would be just. (That pair taking offence might have been, you know, a little more justified)

So despite his immature statement, his decision (the parties decision) to step down, Tucker is back with vengeance! Re-elected quicker than a Peter Mandelson return to the Cabinet all whilst leaving Gods favourite country for that there London. Hope he has a young persons railcard.

Anyway, this isn't a personal attack on Tucker, Keir is sure that he is a perfectly pleasant fellow, although he does muse whether the Norfolk North botherer was au fait with the "highly knowledgeable and articulate young man..." he chose past. but it does highlight a wider issue. A scandal hit candidate re-elected easily? How so you might ask? Well, out of 18,000 members, 200 cast ballots! 200! Casts Tories comments on the Union turnout in the leadership campaign in a new light and makes an interesting contrast with this:

100 new members at the Cardiff University Labour Students Society. great turn out and great showing. the fight back begins...

I wonder if Guido will crow about this...

The budget Britain needs was delivered in Ireland

Ireland teetering on the brink of a double dip recession?

Thought not.

Can't see the futility of Ireland's slash and burn Budget making much of an impact on Gideon, either.

Bercow Re-Elected

John Bercow re-elected as Speaker of the House of Commons. Somewhere, I'm sure, Iain Dale winces.

Keir could, however, hear Mad Nad's shrieking from the backbenches.

Clegg looks a bit embarrassed to be sitting where he is, actually. Will there be a scuffle when Gideon is there?

Just what we need! A good old ding-dong at the heart of government between Nicky and Gideon over who can sit next to Little Dave! (They could, of course, ask Willy to move but they're scared of him because he's a Comp' kid!)

Incidentally: PoliticsHome has the email Mad Nad sent around MPs, and Dale did have a point: the Emperor Ming was in the list of names of possible speakers; and I wouldn't suppose that happened without his permission, nor without the knowledge of the Government front bench. (see above, it is like a nightmare, but that is what it really looks like!)

Does make things interesting.

Guido is full of sh1t

Guido Fawkes says:

At the end of last week Guido learnt that next week Gordon is scheduled to meet George Papandreou, the socialist Greek prime minister who has led his country to ruin.

Now the Staines massive is a great hater of Gordon Brown, bordering on the lunancy he pins on the "Prime Mentalist". Well, more than that, I think it is bordering on the homoerotic! When you think about someone as much as he does it has got to be more than alturism!

Despite his posing as the preeminent know-it-all of the blogging world, as per usual Guido conveniently ignores the fact that the damage that Papendreou is desperately trying to repair, the deficit he is trying to slice, was accrued under the previous PM; and would you like to guess which side of the political spectrum he was from?

Of course, Papendreou is the Socialist PM who succeeded a government that was responsible for a bloated public sector (any civil unrest was solved with a tranche of new appointments) and, if I recall correctly, a £35,000 bill monthly for newspapers from one government department.

But when did the truth really matter to Guido Fawkes?

#Kerryin

For the lucky amongst you who have not been bitten by the need to read blogs and bloggers which you find repugnant maybe I should fill you in with a bit of background.

(The lovely) Kerry McCarthy MP, Labour's 'Twitter Tsar' came under sustained attack from right wing bloggers (Tory Bear and everyones favourite non-prospective parliamentary candidate Iain Dale to mention two) over her expenses amongst other things, and this led to the #Kerryout hashtag on Twitter. Her Tory opponent in the seat set up a page on MyConservatives.com and began rapidly raising money (although not that much; not quite £2k) The Tory Bloggers crowed, could this be the first constituency won through the power of internet fundraising and online politics? Would this prove how revolutionary and how so very right they all were?

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm?

The terrible twosome of the opposition parties was completed when the usual Fib Dem fictional leaflets appeared, stated that "...only the Lib Dems can beat Labour here...". Usually they show graphs of door-knockings, European Election results, or something else as equally irrelevant to the General Election. This time however, they did not take into account the boundary adjustments that considerable changed the demographic of the seat; dropping them from second to a few thousand behind the Tories in third. But since when have the Lib Dems been concerned with the truth?

Well, Kerry's opponent was Adeela Shafi. The Mirror has a scoop on her today:

A key member of David Cameron's new generation of women MPs has had three county court judgments against her since 2007 - including one for almost £325,000.

And her husband Ijaz Shafi was declared bankrupt in 2000.

Muslim lecturer Adeela Shafi was hand-picked by Cameron to open for him at the 2008 Tory Conference.

He then endorsed her as a Parliamentary candidate and campaigned in her Bristol East constituency along with his shadow cabinet team.

The excellent Political Scrapbook explains the significance clearer and simpler than I ever could:

The Insolvency Act 1986 and Enterprise Act 2002 outlaw undischarged bankrupts from standing for Westminster and provide for bankrupt MPs to be turfed out. Application for a bankruptcy petition by creditors (her husband was declared insolvent in 2000) could leave the Tories without a candidate or, should Shafi pull off a shock win in Bristol East, a Member of Parliament. Scrapbook doubts this is the kind of gamble voters will plump for on May 6.

The bombshell leaves Shafi open to allegations of recklessness from fellow Tories and recalls the recent case of the SNP’s original candidate in the Glasgow North East by-election, who was forced to stand down within five days of selection after failing to declare serious financial problems.

This is the kind of campaign development that party staffers dread and the stuff of absolute nightmares for election agents. What’s that sound?

The wheels coming off one of the Tories’ most visible campaigns.

The rather pathetic right wing campaign comes to an end. Shafi's position must be untenable now. I guess she has already spent most of the money she raised too so thats all wasted on signs and posters with her name on it. Funnily enough there is very little mention of the campaign on the right-wingnuts blogs at the moment, and what is hilarious, is that on the #Kerryout website, the live Twitter stream shows nothing but crowing texts from Labour activists. Score one for the good guys.

Never mind Tory Bear* and Daley, better luck next time. #KERRYIN

*Tory Bear smells a rat by the sound of his rather bitter Tweeting recently!

ooh clever, tip off the mirror, coordinated blog and twitter attack and phone bank on the same day. Labour machine kicks in!

Diddums. Thats right. #GameOn

A blast from the past...

In my daily self flagellation that is the reading of the masses of the hysterical right wing bloggers from the UK (at least you can laugh at Michelle Malkin, she lives abroad, but Guido, Dale, and Old Holborn live on the same bit of soil as me!) I spotted poor Iain bemoaning the fact that yet again he has missed out on selection for a seat; this time in Suffolk, to succeed the burger muncher himself, John Gummer. You can see that for yourself here under "Friday Snippets"

This is one of the things I don't understand; Daley managed to run up 10,000 people who hated him in 2005, seems to be toxic to all at CCHQ (despite being on the 'Priority List') and many in local Associations, (or is just insanely unlucky) yet still is one of the 'most read' political bloggers in the UK!

Anyway, back to the blast from the past. Turns out that one of the people who beat him onto the shortlist for Suffolk Coastal (and a pretty safe route into Parliament) was Therese Coffey! This poor woman got a bashing in my home constituency of Wrexham in 2005, being beat into third place behind the Fibbing Democrats. So a loser in Wrexham gets a possible free-ride elsewhere! (she does seem to have some support over at Conservative Home)


I don't blame them in a way though; anyone who has put in the hard yards in Wrexham for the Tories deserves something, although I'm not sure the poor people of Suffolk Coastal deserve a useless PPC and MP who herself has already been beaten in at least one nominating battle (to succeed David Wilshire in Spelthorne) and missed out in the European Elections!

But hey, Therese, don't worry, if you carry on like this your rather garish blog might start rivalling Dale's!