laughter lines

I read David Cameron’s “live within our means” speech on the Train down from Crewe.

Here’s the digested summary.

1. We will fund everything good. No ifs or buts or maybes. All good things are defintely IN.

“We will give public services the proper funding they need so that everyone in the country can have access to the services they need. As I’ve said before: no ifs, no buts, no opt-outs”

2. We will root out everything bad and wasteful. We’ll be relentless in rooting out all bad things. Make no mistake - bad things are OUT.

“It is taxpayers’ money, not government money. We will be careful with it, not casual. We will expect to be judged on a clear basis: if you’re taking people’s hard-earned money away from them you’d better be able to show that you’re spending it on what people want and that you can get better value for that money than they could.”

3. I’m not going to tell you which things are good and therefore IN and which things are bad and therefore OUT.

“We all know that the easiest thing in the world is for an opposition party to stand up at an event like this and blithely talk about all the efficiency savings we will make in government how we will streamline public spending, how we can close tax loopholes, how we can move towards a bright future of less spending and less tax with a few well-chosen cuts that miraculously deliver substantial savings without harming public service delivery at all.”

4. I’m not going to tell you what cuts I’m going to make to the bad things. Hey, they might not be any savings at all. Who knows? Not me.

““It cannot and must not simply be about “efficiency savings.” And it must especially not be about the kind of short-term savings that in the end add to demands on the state because they undermine social value in the name of delivering economic value. Spending cuts that look efficient on a powerpoint chart but end up costing more money are just a false economy.”

5. However, we will pay for good things - and cut taxes too - and I’ll tell you how!!!!!!!

6. First, We’ll save money by doing really expensive things.”

The first way in which we will control public spending is to reduce the long-term demands on the state. We need to tackle the causes of the social problems that give rise to public spending in areas like welfare and crime.”

Sorry, don’t know what came over me. What I meant to say was that changing the lives of the most vulnerable in society is always really cheap and saves you loads of money. 

In fact, fixing social problems is so cheap and easy that you’re left with an enormous pile of money when you’re done.

Fixing broken homes and that? Doesn’t cost a penny. Never has, never will.

7. Then we’ll save even more money by building new “free schools” and spending more money on deadweight costs in other public services  

“The second way in which we will control public spending is by carrying out the work that was the great missed opportunity of the Blair and Brown years - Proper public service reform. Unlike the Labour Party, there is no internal feud or ideological war preventing us from carrying out the reforms that everyone knows are needed.”

We’ll make savings by breaking up Public service monopolies.

Of course, every proposal we’ve made in the area costs more money, not less, but that’s a minor detail and I’m sure it’s utterly unimportant.

On Welfare Reform, I promised a “Wisconsin style” approach. Yet Wisconsin’s Welfare scheme, W2, actually costs more than the scheme it replaced. Oh, and it’s left more people in poverty.

As for Free Schools, We say setting them up will involve a £4.5 billion investment from the state, money which we’ll find by raiding the fund for new school buildings in existing schools.

As for the NHS, I’ve promised never to cut it’s funding and not to reform it at all.

So clearly, we’ll make a lot of savings here.

Look. A bird!

8. Finally, we’ll save money by cutting things that are BAD, but I won’t tell you what they are because waste reduction measures are pointless and never work, so you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what I’d cut. So I won’t tell you. That way you’ll believe me. See?

“The third component of our strategy is cut out waste and make government more efficient. That is one of the principal responsibilities of Francis Maude and his implementation team. This is a really significant commitment for us…

Francis Maude knows what we’ll cut. Or will know. Good old Francis. But I hope he keeps his list of things he’ll cut quiet because…

“…I do not believe in simplistic lists of cuts. In naïve over-estimations of potential savings. Or in cobbling together a big number in order to get a good headline. Making government more efficient and cutting out waste is absolutely part of our strategy for controlling public spending. But it is only a part.”

I’m not going to tell you what waste I’m going to cut.

No point. You won’t believe me anyway because “cutting waste” is such nonsense there was even an episode of Yes Minister about it.

So there’s no point me telling you what crazy stuff Francis is planning. That’s because If I don’t tell you what we’re planning, you might believe it’ll work.

There’ll be lots and lots though. It’s just there’s no point telling you what it is. So just trust me, mmmkay?

I mean, it’s not as if vague promises of waste reduction have ever come a cropper before.

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY.

Intolerable Crewe-lty

What the headline means: “please god, national newspaper sub-editors, stop with the puns”

Back to the day job for me today, and already I feel bad that I’m not sticking around to help the campaign.  Still, got to earn the daily bread. If you can, come up and help out.

I only got to meet Tamsin briefly, but she struck me as exactly the kind of fiesty, charming, no nonsense woman who would make a great MP.

I suspect the Tory campaign know this too, which is why they’ve kept their candidate as silent as possible while his campaign team spent their time briefing stuff about Tamsin (including claiming she lied about changing her name, getting sock puppets to post on Labour blogs criticising her, calling her an arrogant Labour stooge, getting activists to lie to her then publicising their conversations…)  

All of which would be fair enough (we’re big boys and girls, we can take it) if they weren’t at the same time ludicrously claiming to gullible hacks they were running a “positive” campaign. 

Today the campaign will become a lot clearer as David Cameron moves to reclaim the mantle of Thatcher by pledging to cut spending and “live within our means” which means reducing public expenditure, natch.

All of which might come as a shock to the Tory candidate in Crewe, who’s merrily been saying he wants to cut taxes and at the same time saying how important schools and hospitals are to him. - Perhaps we’re going to find out exactly how important they are - important enough to stand up to his leader? 

One last thing I wanted to say was a congratulations to the campaign organisers. The amount of material, voter contact and campaigning they’ve crammed in to the last couple of weeks is nothing less than incredible. Each and every one of them deserves huge thanks from the party.

Thoughts from Crewe

I’ve been up in Crewe this weekend, enjoying the weather, Harvey’s sandwich shop and helping out in the campaign - and oh so unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of handwringing from the bien pensant press about the campaign.

It’s a load of rubbish, of course, but that doesn’t seem to stop them recycling tory attack lines.

In a funny sort of way I’ve got more respect for the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph et al. They have an agenda - to attack New Labour with any weapons they can find - and if attacking the Labour campaign is part of that, well that’s what they do. no point whining about it.

After all, being lectured by Quentin “Gorbals mick” Letts about the evils of class warfare is at least amusing. The man clearly has no scruples at all.

So I don’t mind that. If the right wing press weren’t attacking us for our campaign they’d be attacking us for something else. ‘Twas ever thus.

No, what gets my goat is how respectable, nice lefties recycle this nonsense in national newspaper columns as if it were gospel truth.

Let’s review the facts, shall we?

The Tories are accussing Labour of running a “class war campaign” after they repeatedly attacked Labour’s by-election candidate in Brent for living in “millionaires row”.  Oddly, I don’t remember Andrew Rawnsley, John Harris or Quentin Letts frothing with rage and declaring it the lowest point in the history of politics.  Funny that.

Don’t believe me? Well, here’s one of the Tories very own “Class war” leaflet, complete with “outrageous” picture  of the Labour candidates mansion on “millionaires row”

And how about immigration? The Tories are apparently disgusted that Labour mentioned ID cards for foriegn nationals, saying that despite it being Tory party policy to oppose them, it was xenophobic of us to even mention it.

So it’s perhaps a surprise that the Tories first press release in this campaign was about the need to reduce immigration.

Strangely it’s now been airbrushed from history, having disappeared from the Tories by-election news archive in an impressively Orwellian piece of doublethink.  

Still, these things are harder to hide than just deleting them from your website, especially when you’ve got your friend Iain Dale to promote it on his blog… so here’s a quote from the first Tory Press release of the campaign, a personal letter from Tory candidate Edward Timpson.

“Do you believe that the net level of immigration should be reduced?

 I believe that this government has failed to give local public services the support they need to cope with a rising population… so we need to plan properly for increases in population, and reduce the overall level of net immigration”

So who’s running the xenophobic campaign? The people calling for less immigration and dog whistling about how bad it is for local services or the people calling for foriegn nationals to have ID cards, in line with the party policy which we’ve stood on for the last two elections and which was opposed by the Tories at their annual conference last year? 

The Tories have also been flat out lying about Labour. Telling journalists we’ve been calling people at 4am pretending to be tories.

This is a lie. It’s a lie that has two useful components - It’s both re-usable (this briefing has been done before) and unprovable - how can Labour prove that they haven’t been phoning people up like this?  The fact journalists have swallowed this stuff shows how much they want to believe the Tory campaign machine.

So who else is ”running a class war campaign”? Surely not the sainted Lib Dems, whose champions despise that sort of thing.

Strange then that Lib Dem leaflets here in Crwe feature quotes like this one prominently…

“Out of touch Teddy? Conservative millionaire Edward Timpson is looking increasingly out of touch with hard-working families people in Crewe and Nantwich. Edward’s family business has a turnover of £100 million – and his parents bought him a race horse for his 30^th birthday”

Nor would the Lib dems dog whistle on immigration, being far to pure for that. So it must have been an evil gremlin who inserted these words into a Lib Dem campaign leaflet.

 “Rising immigration is adding pressure to our overstretched schools and local NHS” 

So, yes- it’s a roughty, toughty campaign.

Except for one thing. No-one, not Tory journalists or leftie ones seems to be interested in asking the tories any hard questions.

After all their candidate stands to benefit from a Tory tax cut worth hundreds of thousands to him and his family, but won’t say if he thinks that’s a better way of spending money than a tax cut for local families.

Their candidate says he’s opposed to Post Office cuts, but won’t tell David Cameron he should sack his Post Office spokesman, who said the Tories would shrink the post office network.

Nor would the Tory candidate cut car tax, as his leaflets suggest- because his Leader has said he won’t.

Yet all the Tory candidate does in this campaign is nod supportively next to his leader, hardly saying a word while his boss does all the talking. He knows his place, I guess, and is backing Cameron not Crewe.

Crewe Bound….

I’m off to Crewe for the weekend soon, to check out the lie of the land, campaign for the Labour party and pay homage to Dario Gradi.

Anyway, don’t expect any great insights from this. I just wanted to mention that I’m not just all mouth. I ike to go and knock on doors and stuff leaflet through letter boxes too.

Well, “like” is probably too strong a term. “Feel morally and socially obligated” is probably closer.

Things I love No 134

British Conservatives decrying the horrors of “borrowing to encourage growth”  after weeks of saying how great the US “economic stimulus” package (cost $150 billion) is.

“In the US the bi-partisan fiscal stimulus package means that millions of households around the country are about to receive cheques for hundreds of dollars to help them through difficult times.
In the UK, by contrast, our Government is raising taxes on the lowest paid, on small businesses and on capital gains. They are adding to the cost of living instead of easing it”

George Osborne, April 8th

“The contrast with the United States is stark. There the Government is now literally posting tax rebates worth hundreds of dollars to American families to help them with the rising cost of living. American business is being boosted by tax reductions to help them through this year..”

George Osborne April 15th

Of course, what Mr Osborne really means is that doing that sort of thing here would be the height of irresponsibility, as after all, the US economy is famed the world over for having a budget surplus and their $150 billion tax plan is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the UK’s $5billion… Oh.

I like it.

Simple. 

Obvious.

Benefits people who weren’t expecting to pay less tax who are facing rising bills.

I like this tax announcement.

That’s all.

Book deals and Policy papers

I have a personal affection for Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn - when I was a junior and green press officer in the North-East, both of them were incredibly helpful, supportive and focussed on campaigning.

That affection hasn’t changed now- I thought Stephen Byers article in the Sunday Times, far from being an aggressive attack on the PM was a useful call for political boldness in the Tax system, similar to the case I argued on Friday.

Of course, at the moment it’s rather hard to distinguish between helpful contributions to the policy debate and book selling. Stephen’s article is definitely the former, and as such has been roundly ignored (except by the Sunday Times, who covered it as if it were the latter).

In start contrast to Mr Byer’s thoughfulness there are those who are simply seeking a bit of positive press coverage, to make a bit of money and to get on the telly. Like me.

Yes, who wouldn’t want some of that sweet serialisation rights action? Not me. I’m in it for as much as I can get.*

That’s why today I’m announcing the publication of my upcoming magnum opus, provisionally titled “Stand there and be a crowd - My years as a New Labour nobody“.

I promise that my book will be packed full of spicy revelations and insider gossip that will shock, stun and amaze.** Here’s a sample

Pass warfare How obsessed people in politics are with the number, variety and security implications of their various passes - from the lowest Labour conference complex pass to the coveted Number 10 pass, which when achieved, is treated with the same “lI’ve made it” understatement that millionaires reserve for American Express black cards.

The psychology of the “snapper’s pen”. The eternal mystery of how a bit of plastic tape between two posts can hold back the massed ranks of the paparazzi.

Cherchez les femmes The women who really run new Labour, and why they let the boys get away with all the posturing.

Convoy! The childish delight everyone, and I mean everyone, takes in being part of a security convoy. Wheeeeee!

The fear-ometer Who junior press officers are scared of, and how hacks should get round them to get what they want. If you’re a junior press officer on an event you don’t care what someone writes in the papers. You only care if you’re going to get shouted at by someone you’re scared of.

Male Press officers are sad because every single one of them, without exception, wishes they were really part of the security detail, and are delighted when on occassion they are mistaken for them. One day press officers will get little wire earphones too, and their joy will be unbounded.

80’s Newsreader stand off - what happens when you share a helicopter with 80s news reading legends Nicholas Witchell and Trevor MacDonald. (answer- they stare fixedly ahead for fifteen minutes, then make awkward small talk.)

Getting lost with the Cabinet Over the course of my political career, I’ve managed to get completely lost with the following cabinet ministers. Tony Blair, David Miliband, Shaun Woodward and Jack Straw. Hilarity ensues. (If by hilarity you mean grumbling)

Death to the sketch writers Why the savage conflict between Sketch writers and press officers began, and why it cannot end until the last sketch writer is ground into the dust. (Yeah, Letts, that’ll serve you right for calling me an authoritarian, and worse, spelling my name wrong.)

With content like this, who can resist a book that’s literally like no other?

Get the real inside dirt on New Labour by pre-ordering “Stand there and be a crowd” now. Serialisation rights are available.

Read the post below this one..

Lot of work on today, so little posting. Just wanted to say that I was quite pleased with the post below this one, but because I only got to write it late on a Friday few people would have read it.

So here’s your chance to remedy this sad situation.

Above all, try something.

“I’m doing as I damn please for the next two years and to hell with all of them.”

Harry Truman, after the congressional elections of 1946

So. We’re behind.  We’re either a lot or a huge amount behind in the polls.

We don’t run Scotland. We don’t run London. Ten years of Labour hegemony of the machinery of Government have come to an end. Only in Wales do we manage to retain leadership - and Wales delevered a more negative verdict than anywhere else in the Country.

It’s easy to console ourselves with the details that show things aren’t as bad as hysterical media types say (I’ve done so myself, and rather elegantly too).  We know that we gained seats as well as lost them, we know that in Oxford, in Brent, in Liverpool, in Ipswich we gained ground.

Yet all those details are meaningless unless considered against the bigger picture of dissatisfaction. So how did we get here and how do we get out of it?

When considering what has made us unpopular there are a few things we can rule out. We can rule out  unemployment. We can rule out rising interest rates or soaring inflation. We can rule out recession or devaluation or the need to go cap in hand to the IMF for money. These are not small factors - they are the causes of most Government defeats in General Elections.

Yet there are real concerns about the economy out there. MORI’s monthly issues monitor shows that the number of people who feel the economy is the most important issue facing the country has trebled in the last six months, while two thirds of people expect the economy will get worse over the next year, up from one third this time last year. So twice as many people expect the economy to get worse than did so last year.

  

This isn’t a new phenomonomonomonom. This level of economic pessimism has happened twice before in the last ten year- during the fuel crisis and after Sept 11.

  

At the same time, the Government’s core issues are no longer as salient with voters. In 1997 around half the population said the NHS and education were among the most important issues facing the country. Today just 23% say the NHS and 15% say education. They’ve been replaced by Crime and immigration as the big issues.

So what does all that mean in political terms?

First, it means that the essential challenges the government face are policy and issue based, not personality based. The current negative poll ratings for the PM are trailing, not leading indicators. We’re losing support because people have serious concerns. We need to address those, not obsess about ourselves.

For me, this all suggests three interlinked challenges for the government until the General election. These are easily identifiable, but the answers are far more complex than I’m able to answer here. Forgive me then if my answers  broad brush. If anyone’s interested, I’d be delighted to come back to them in the future.

First and most important: get the Economy right. We need to go into the next election able to argue convincingly that the economy is growing because of the decisions we took. People are understandably nervous now, and although the economic data is reasonable, they will not be re-assured by rising repossession stats (even if they’re historically low). The current focus on supporting homeowners is right, but we have to make it a huge, visible commitment. Think the NRA under Roosevelt or Medicare or Macmillan’s homebuilding commitment.  the scale of what we’re going to do to help the economy through the credit crisis is enormous - the program that delivers it should be as enormously well known.

Second. Make Schools and Hospitals matter again. The decline in people believing schools and hospitals are big issues facing the country is good news for the Government. It means lots of people are relatively content with what we’re doing.  (actually it means they’re not actively compaining aboutwhat we’re doing - which is about as good as any government is going to get). There are huge areas of disagreement between Labour and Conservatives on how to deal with these issues. Building Schools for the Future, for example, or the need to improve primary care - even when that comes into conflict with the agenda of the BMA. 

We need to create political drama around those differences. What would the tories hate us to do most now? Invest more in consumer focussed public services. So Why not announce plans to spend millions on a huge wave of “free schools” with extra funding from the centre and perhaps some funding top sliced from the increases that would have gone to inefficient, beureaucratic and now Tory LEAs?

Third Be focussed and aggressive on Crime, while neutralising immigration as an issue. There should be no let up Anti-Social behaviour and Crime. The new points system for immigrants should go a long way to reducing fears about non-EU immigration, but while Britain has one of the most dynamic economies in the EU, it will attract EU immigrants. We need to actively manage peoples legitimate worries on that topic without pandering to anti-immigrant idiocy.  Skilled Immigration is good for Britain 

Finally, there’s some political ju-jitsu to be attempted. David Cameron’s great weakness is his eagerness to over-reach when he sees votes coming within his grasp. On the environment, on poverty, on social justice and the economy, When Cameron thinks he can find floating votes, Andy Coulson writes cheques George Osborne won’t cash.

So instead of looking suspiciously at each new Cameron promise, welcome it enthusiatically as a conversion to the true faith from a prodigal son and propose something that goes a bit further still. force them to vote it down or commit to our agenda. 

The Tories are edging onto our territory, so force the debate open. Make them vote against the objectives they claim to support. (This last will also help with the need to motivate labour supporters). Want to cut poverty? OK then We’re going to take people out of taxation, increase the minimum wage and pay a job premium to every long term unemplyed or person on IB who gets and holds a job.

Will some of this be expensive? Perhaps. Less so than you might think, but it might well involve some short term extra spending. There’s an economic justification for doing that.  What we’re likely to face in Europe over the next year or so is a battle over demand. If companies can’t access credit they won’t make as many purchases. A little Keynsianism might not be such a bad thing in a situation like that.

In any case, all the plans above would certainly be cheaper than the US approach of sending people and businesses $150 billion in cheques to spend. In fact, if you wanted to make Tories really uncomfortable you could even use the US model as an excuse to cut taxes at the same time as doing the above - though a plan like that would need a lot more economic justification than a political hack like me can provide.

When you’re in a situation like the one we’re in now though, It’s good to remember the words of Franklin Roosevelt when asked how he intended to handle multiple related crises.

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something”.

In defeat you can find liberation, as Truman found. If we use it well, we could pull off as big a suprise as he did.

Would the Tories have a vote on leaving the EU?

Fraser Nelson interviews David Cameron and Cameron won’t deny he’d have a referendum on withdrawing from the EU.

“One theory, which I have now heard from two shadow Cabinet members, is that the Conservatives would insert in their manifesto a pledge to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership of the European Union and then hold a referendum on the result. It would be a herculean task, which would take years. But when I put the proposal to Mr Cameron, I do not get the brush-off denial I expect.

CAMERON: ‘These suggestions are options for how to deliver what I’ve spoken about,’ he says — referring to his promise not to let ‘things rest’. ‘I am not going to comment favourably or unfavourably on any option like that until we are ready to do so.’

If the Tories were to renoegotiate the terms of membership of the EU, and then hold a referendum on it,  rejecting the resulting referendum would mean leaving the EU. If the leader of the Conservative party is thinking along these lines, this is probably the biggest story in politics. Are the Tories really considering a referendum on membership of the EU?