The Sunday Times leads today with the dramatic headline Blair rounds on 'empty' Gordon Brown but the article itself contained no such comment from Blair. Instead they quoted a conveniently un-named "friend" of Blair.
The Guardian too headlined with breathless speculation that the old Blairite trio, Byers, Milburn and Clarke are thinking about speaking out. But even the Guardian stops to add that
last night Blair's spokesman said: 'When he stood down Tony Blair said he would be completely supportive of Gordon Brown and that is what he continues to be.'
This view is confirmed by Matthew D'Ancona in the Telegraph who says that
Tony Blair has been telling his allies that they must under no circumstances join in the Gordon-bashing that is now all the rage.
This is probably correct. New Labour watched with horrified fascination when a deposed Thatcher helped to destroy the Tory party. The whole business of the seamless transition, painstakingly engineered earlier this year, was to prevent the type of bitterness caused by Thatcher's decapitation, and Blair certainly has a horror of being thought of as being so needy and desperate for power that he tries to do a back-seat driver number on his succesor the way Thatcher did to Major.
So where have these stories come from? We get a clue from John Rentoul in the Independent:
I have spoken to some of Blair's most loyal lieutenants who have been inundated by media requests for interviews – more than 200 in one case. Would they like to speak about the election timing or the Pre-Budget Report? No, they would not. They know that their interviewers are interested in only one story: Blair says Brown is useless.
200 requests for interviews! Undoubtedly one person has succumbed - but he probably speaks only for himself.
As for the Sunday Times and the Guardian, they have their own agendas. The Sunday Times is openly hostile to Labour and has been for some time. The Guardian isn't really a Labour paper, it's SDP, and since the demise of the SDP they've grudgingly given Labour some support, but always managed to find some excuse to fall out with the party. They fell out with Blair and campaigned strongly against Brown becoming leader while fawning over David Cameron in the first year after he became leader. Hardly the behavior of a Labour paper.
There is only one Labour paper, and that is The Mirror (which very helpfully broke the story of David Cameron's Lexus following his bike to work). The rest are at best lukewarm and at worst openly hostile. This is how it's been for ages, and we'll have to live with it. One thing Labour should do is not give ammunition to hostile papers that don't have our interests at heart. Blair's "friends" should take notice of Blair when he says Don't Talk. He really means it.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Sunday, October 07, 2007
This Election Business
So we're not going to have an autumn election. It's the right decision and will chime with voters' opinions. Polls showed substantial numbers unenthusiastic about having an election so early. Voters have got used to the Labour government going to the polls every four years in the spring and believe that the only reason to deviate from this cycle is if there is a crisis that urgently needs the voters verdict, and there is none now.
As to the volatility of the polls and the "embarassment" of having to say there will be no election - it will probably do Labour good. The Labour party works best when it thinks elections are on a knife-edge. Though Labour was strongly ahead in the polls in the run-up to the 1997 election, nobody believed it, and everybody worked to the bone and campaigned as though there were only a couple of points in it. And though Labour got a huge majority in 1997, the government behaved cautiously, as though things were finely balanced. The lead-up to the 2001 election was full of fretting from Labour about foot-and-mouth and fuel prices. The 2005 election was overshadowed with fretting about Iraq, and the recent Ealing-Southall by-election was fought with the sounds of crowing Tories ringing in Labour activists' ears.
Labour won all the above. But when we allow ourselves to believe it's in the bag, we get careless, we say things we shouldn't, and we lose. Think 1992. All the caution that Labour has shown in the last ten years has been correct. Voters really are brutal and un-sentimental. Look at what happened in 1992. Look at what the voters did to the Tories in 1997.
Voters don't like it when parties talk about "smashing" each other. They don't like it now and they didn't like it in the 80's when David Owen said Labour was "finished" or when Thatcher wrote in 1991 that it was unlikely Britain would ever see a Labour government again. Voters want all parties to be viable in case something goes wrong with the government, so that they have the option of changing government. When they hear talk of "smashing" they shift in the polls to give the would-be smasher a swift shock.
Voters don't like it when they hear talk about the "next ten years" or of people "going on and on". They might give us another ten years, but only if we don't take them for granted and don't act like it's in the bag. When they think people take them for granted, they have an irresistable urge to administer a good kick.
We saw what hubris did to the Tories in the early 90's. The good news is that while they delivered five full years of it, we've just had a couple of days of it at the conference. If we can end it now and go back to being our cautious New Labour selves, all will be well. We haven't lost an election, we've just had a few red faces and some people laugh at us.
We learn from it, and move on. And if the Tories want to be triumphant, let them. We all know where that leads.
As to the volatility of the polls and the "embarassment" of having to say there will be no election - it will probably do Labour good. The Labour party works best when it thinks elections are on a knife-edge. Though Labour was strongly ahead in the polls in the run-up to the 1997 election, nobody believed it, and everybody worked to the bone and campaigned as though there were only a couple of points in it. And though Labour got a huge majority in 1997, the government behaved cautiously, as though things were finely balanced. The lead-up to the 2001 election was full of fretting from Labour about foot-and-mouth and fuel prices. The 2005 election was overshadowed with fretting about Iraq, and the recent Ealing-Southall by-election was fought with the sounds of crowing Tories ringing in Labour activists' ears.
Labour won all the above. But when we allow ourselves to believe it's in the bag, we get careless, we say things we shouldn't, and we lose. Think 1992. All the caution that Labour has shown in the last ten years has been correct. Voters really are brutal and un-sentimental. Look at what happened in 1992. Look at what the voters did to the Tories in 1997.
Voters don't like it when parties talk about "smashing" each other. They don't like it now and they didn't like it in the 80's when David Owen said Labour was "finished" or when Thatcher wrote in 1991 that it was unlikely Britain would ever see a Labour government again. Voters want all parties to be viable in case something goes wrong with the government, so that they have the option of changing government. When they hear talk of "smashing" they shift in the polls to give the would-be smasher a swift shock.
Voters don't like it when they hear talk about the "next ten years" or of people "going on and on". They might give us another ten years, but only if we don't take them for granted and don't act like it's in the bag. When they think people take them for granted, they have an irresistable urge to administer a good kick.
We saw what hubris did to the Tories in the early 90's. The good news is that while they delivered five full years of it, we've just had a couple of days of it at the conference. If we can end it now and go back to being our cautious New Labour selves, all will be well. We haven't lost an election, we've just had a few red faces and some people laugh at us.
We learn from it, and move on. And if the Tories want to be triumphant, let them. We all know where that leads.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Family Matters
For all the talk of the death of socialism, there is one social unit that remains as socialist as ever: the family. Husbands subsidise wives (and vice versa); siblings lend each other help and money when profit-motivated organisations such as banks refuse; parents try to help out the weakest child in the hopes of achieving equality among their children despite varying ability or effort; the black sheep gets bailed out in circumstances they wouldn't be if their situation was objectively assessed.
The tradition of family socialism goes back millenia, probably to when homo sapiens first appeared, and there was good reason for it - it was a way of ensuring that the old, the sick and the weak were taken care of.
More recently, we've had the phenomenon of perfectly healthy able-bodied people relying on their wealthy parents to subsidise their standard of living - something that was characterised as "Economic Outpatient Care" by American professors Thomas Stanley and William Danko in their book The Millionaire Next Door. It can be simple (and beneficial) starter help such as parents paying for university or helping their children to buy a home with the gift of a deposit, or the more destructive version where adult children live expensively and run up debt in the belief that inheritance from their parents will clear it.
Stanley and Danko observed that too much help from parents weakens the ability of their off-spring to cope when the parents pass away, as by then they are too old to learn how to survive on their own. The annals of the rich are full of stories of the next generation unhappily frittering away their wealth through dissipation and lack of drive. Indeed this was what motivated Bill Gates to decide to give away most of his money - he didn't want to weaken his children by removing their motivation. The best parents are the ones who push their children out of their nest and force them to stand on their own two feet, and the earlier they do this the better, as the parent is still around to watch progress, offer advice and if the child stumbles really badly, pick them up: what usually happens in these circumstances is that the young adult struggles mightily at first, and then gets the hang of it and begins to thrive and prosper.
As the welfare state sprung up, we've also begun to see conflicts between the powerful pure socialism that exists within the family and the much weaker state version. For instance, many elderly people are outraged that they have to sell their houses to pay for their nursing care at the end of their lives. They demand that the state (i.e. other people's children) pay for the nursing care, so that they can provide substantial socialism in the form of inheritance to their own children.
And so we come to the issue of inheritance. Here several threads merge powerfully - the tradition of family socialism, the fact that parents worry about their offspring, and as mortality approaches, seek to protect them from beyond the grave. It's not accidental that the people who worry the most about inheritance taxes are the elderly, even though it arises after their deaths. And not many are as clear-headed and logical as Bill Gates on how inheritance could hurt their children.
Family socialism has the same strengths and weaknesses as the state version. As a support system, nothing beats the family, especially if you are ill or disabled. But families can also be indulgent, enabling and entrenching bad habits and laziness - giving is equated to loving, so you see poor mothers running up debts to buy their children the latest toys instead of simply saying, no, we can't afford it, we're on a budget. And you see adults "counting" on inheritance to bail them out of their problems instead of striving to solve them themselves. If critics of state socialism say that it demotivates and weakens the recipients of it, family socialism does this a hundred-fold.
The only way to resolve this would be to go back to the original purpose of family socialism - to protect the old and the sick. I would be in favour of inheritance going completely tax-free into a family fund if it could only be drawn on for the purposes of paying for nursing care, supporting an ill/disabled family member and to provide an income in old age, and that if the family fund was drawn on in this way, you got an offsetting reduction in benefits from the state. It would solve the problem of an aging population needing nursing care. It would solve the problem of people not thinking about their income needs in old age. It would solve the problem of parents desperately worried about offspring who are ill. It would remove some of the imbalance in society where some people get a capital leg up in enterprise. And if it turned out that you were one of those rare people who enjoyed perfect health in your lifetime and worked to the end, then you simply pass the family fund untouched to the next generation. Over the decades and centuries, someone among your descendents will get old or ill and draw on it.
Obviously people who are living high in the hopes of getting "free" and unearned money from their parents will hate this. For many people though, they just want to know that they are protecting their descendents from the ills life can throw at them, and they will be satisfied. The big question is which group is the biggest? The first group would prefer the current system where you get free money and simply spend it as you like, including blowing it all and having the state look after you at the end, and sadly this group is probably too big for my idea to ever get off the ground.
The tradition of family socialism goes back millenia, probably to when homo sapiens first appeared, and there was good reason for it - it was a way of ensuring that the old, the sick and the weak were taken care of.
More recently, we've had the phenomenon of perfectly healthy able-bodied people relying on their wealthy parents to subsidise their standard of living - something that was characterised as "Economic Outpatient Care" by American professors Thomas Stanley and William Danko in their book The Millionaire Next Door. It can be simple (and beneficial) starter help such as parents paying for university or helping their children to buy a home with the gift of a deposit, or the more destructive version where adult children live expensively and run up debt in the belief that inheritance from their parents will clear it.
Stanley and Danko observed that too much help from parents weakens the ability of their off-spring to cope when the parents pass away, as by then they are too old to learn how to survive on their own. The annals of the rich are full of stories of the next generation unhappily frittering away their wealth through dissipation and lack of drive. Indeed this was what motivated Bill Gates to decide to give away most of his money - he didn't want to weaken his children by removing their motivation. The best parents are the ones who push their children out of their nest and force them to stand on their own two feet, and the earlier they do this the better, as the parent is still around to watch progress, offer advice and if the child stumbles really badly, pick them up: what usually happens in these circumstances is that the young adult struggles mightily at first, and then gets the hang of it and begins to thrive and prosper.
As the welfare state sprung up, we've also begun to see conflicts between the powerful pure socialism that exists within the family and the much weaker state version. For instance, many elderly people are outraged that they have to sell their houses to pay for their nursing care at the end of their lives. They demand that the state (i.e. other people's children) pay for the nursing care, so that they can provide substantial socialism in the form of inheritance to their own children.
And so we come to the issue of inheritance. Here several threads merge powerfully - the tradition of family socialism, the fact that parents worry about their offspring, and as mortality approaches, seek to protect them from beyond the grave. It's not accidental that the people who worry the most about inheritance taxes are the elderly, even though it arises after their deaths. And not many are as clear-headed and logical as Bill Gates on how inheritance could hurt their children.
Family socialism has the same strengths and weaknesses as the state version. As a support system, nothing beats the family, especially if you are ill or disabled. But families can also be indulgent, enabling and entrenching bad habits and laziness - giving is equated to loving, so you see poor mothers running up debts to buy their children the latest toys instead of simply saying, no, we can't afford it, we're on a budget. And you see adults "counting" on inheritance to bail them out of their problems instead of striving to solve them themselves. If critics of state socialism say that it demotivates and weakens the recipients of it, family socialism does this a hundred-fold.
The only way to resolve this would be to go back to the original purpose of family socialism - to protect the old and the sick. I would be in favour of inheritance going completely tax-free into a family fund if it could only be drawn on for the purposes of paying for nursing care, supporting an ill/disabled family member and to provide an income in old age, and that if the family fund was drawn on in this way, you got an offsetting reduction in benefits from the state. It would solve the problem of an aging population needing nursing care. It would solve the problem of people not thinking about their income needs in old age. It would solve the problem of parents desperately worried about offspring who are ill. It would remove some of the imbalance in society where some people get a capital leg up in enterprise. And if it turned out that you were one of those rare people who enjoyed perfect health in your lifetime and worked to the end, then you simply pass the family fund untouched to the next generation. Over the decades and centuries, someone among your descendents will get old or ill and draw on it.
Obviously people who are living high in the hopes of getting "free" and unearned money from their parents will hate this. For many people though, they just want to know that they are protecting their descendents from the ills life can throw at them, and they will be satisfied. The big question is which group is the biggest? The first group would prefer the current system where you get free money and simply spend it as you like, including blowing it all and having the state look after you at the end, and sadly this group is probably too big for my idea to ever get off the ground.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Boardroom Pay
From time to time we get Guardian commentators lambasting the government about boardroom pay - notably Polly Toynbee. The assessment of the Labour government is always, "you may have helped the poor with the minimum wage and re-distribution, but you've done nothing about the rich, how can you call yourselves Labour".
Actually the government has done something about boardroom pay. In 2002, they legislated to require that boardroom compensation data was published, and to give shareholders an annual advisory vote on executive pay. Britain was the first country to do this (since then Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden have also legislated and the USA is thinking about it, despite fierce resistance from vested interests).
The thinking behind this legislation was two-fold - by insisting on disclosure, the government hoped to bring public pressure to bear on excessive pay. Director's pay comes out of shareholders money - the shareholder vote was to give shareholders a say for the first time - previously directors simply awarded themselves pay and sat on each other's remuneration committees recommending pay-rises for each other.
Sadly, the shareholders have only bothered to defeat boardroom pay once - in 2003, GlaxoSmithKline shareholders voted down their chief executive's pay and forced a substantial reduction.
Government can give shareholders the power to protect their money being siphoned off them by greedy directors, but government can't force the shareholders to use said tools.
My guess is that many of the commentators frothing about boardroom pay and blaming the government are simply unaware of the 2002 legislation (lazy journalism). They should be targetting their wrath at the institutional shareholders who are palpably not bothering to defend the money of the pension and unit-trust holders they represent.
For instance there have been lots of articles about the pay of Northern Rock board members, but not one newspaper has bothered to track down the institutional shareholders who voted in favour of these pay packages earlier this year and ask them why they did so. I suppose they think it is easier to somehow blame the government, even though in a free country government can have little say over private sector pay that is essentially a contract entered into freely between two private individuals, the board executive and the shareholder. Government can't impose pay controls. The only answer is that shareholders start acting like grown-ups and start defending their money (as is their right under the law), instead of vacuously going along with everything and then complaining afterwards.
Actually the government has done something about boardroom pay. In 2002, they legislated to require that boardroom compensation data was published, and to give shareholders an annual advisory vote on executive pay. Britain was the first country to do this (since then Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden have also legislated and the USA is thinking about it, despite fierce resistance from vested interests).
The thinking behind this legislation was two-fold - by insisting on disclosure, the government hoped to bring public pressure to bear on excessive pay. Director's pay comes out of shareholders money - the shareholder vote was to give shareholders a say for the first time - previously directors simply awarded themselves pay and sat on each other's remuneration committees recommending pay-rises for each other.
Sadly, the shareholders have only bothered to defeat boardroom pay once - in 2003, GlaxoSmithKline shareholders voted down their chief executive's pay and forced a substantial reduction.
Government can give shareholders the power to protect their money being siphoned off them by greedy directors, but government can't force the shareholders to use said tools.
My guess is that many of the commentators frothing about boardroom pay and blaming the government are simply unaware of the 2002 legislation (lazy journalism). They should be targetting their wrath at the institutional shareholders who are palpably not bothering to defend the money of the pension and unit-trust holders they represent.
For instance there have been lots of articles about the pay of Northern Rock board members, but not one newspaper has bothered to track down the institutional shareholders who voted in favour of these pay packages earlier this year and ask them why they did so. I suppose they think it is easier to somehow blame the government, even though in a free country government can have little say over private sector pay that is essentially a contract entered into freely between two private individuals, the board executive and the shareholder. Government can't impose pay controls. The only answer is that shareholders start acting like grown-ups and start defending their money (as is their right under the law), instead of vacuously going along with everything and then complaining afterwards.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
People of Newcastle try to Save Their Bank
According to the Guardian,
Newcastle's morning paper, the Journal, has a campaign to replenish Northern Rock's depleted assets by persuading citizens to open accounts. Footballers, the rugby team and local entrepreneurs have all had their photographs taken signing forms. Several people who two days before were queuing to get all their money out returned to put a prudently small amount back in.
The Guardian likens it to Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life", where the Jimmy Stewart character experiences the failure of his bank, and is bailed out at the end by the citizens of his town in reward for his kindnesses to them.
It turns out that Northern Rock has been kind to Newcastle. They distribute 5% of pre-tax profits to the Northern Rock Foundation, which finances all sorts of things from homes for battered women to concert halls. The foundation has received £175m from the bank in the last 10 years. Northern Rock has built up goodwill on their home turf.
It's likely that unlike in the movie, the good burghers of Newcastle won't succeed in their quest - they are too few and probably don't have the collective savings to prop up the bank. But it's heartwarming to see them try.
If they did pull it off against the odds, what a tale of community spirit this would be! It might also encourage other firms to do charity work, if the benefits of such goodwill-building are demonstrated clearly.
Newcastle's morning paper, the Journal, has a campaign to replenish Northern Rock's depleted assets by persuading citizens to open accounts. Footballers, the rugby team and local entrepreneurs have all had their photographs taken signing forms. Several people who two days before were queuing to get all their money out returned to put a prudently small amount back in.
The Guardian likens it to Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life", where the Jimmy Stewart character experiences the failure of his bank, and is bailed out at the end by the citizens of his town in reward for his kindnesses to them.
It turns out that Northern Rock has been kind to Newcastle. They distribute 5% of pre-tax profits to the Northern Rock Foundation, which finances all sorts of things from homes for battered women to concert halls. The foundation has received £175m from the bank in the last 10 years. Northern Rock has built up goodwill on their home turf.
It's likely that unlike in the movie, the good burghers of Newcastle won't succeed in their quest - they are too few and probably don't have the collective savings to prop up the bank. But it's heartwarming to see them try.
If they did pull it off against the odds, what a tale of community spirit this would be! It might also encourage other firms to do charity work, if the benefits of such goodwill-building are demonstrated clearly.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Labour Trusted on the Economy
A Populus poll done for the Times, showed that 56% trust Labour on the economy compared to just 18% for the Tories.
The significant thing about this poll was that it was carried out Monday afternoon and evening, after the Chancellor's announcement that he would guarantee existing Northern Rock deposits and after the scenes on Friday and Saturday of people queueing to get their money out of Northern Rock Bank.
Tories reacted with shock to the poll. They had fondly hoped that this was Labour's "Black Wednesday" (which happened exactly 15 years ago) and had hoped it would boost their prospects. So why hasn't it?
The defining moment of the Labour government was actually the period 2001-2003. The conjunction of 9/11 and the dot.com crash created a perfect global storm. Stock markets everywhere crashed. The FTSE100 went from 6900 in Jan 2000 to about 3100 in March 2003. The USA, France, Germany, Japan and scores of other developed countries such as Italy and the Netherlands went into recession, with attending rises in unemployment. People in Britain held their breath. In the previous 50 years, everytime the USA sneezed, we caught a cold, and in the last two recessions (1981 and 1992) we suffered worse than everyone else.
Only in 2001-2003, we sailed on undisturbed by world events. The economy continued to grow and unemployment stayed low. It was a non-event as far as the economy was concerned and the public took note. You only know how good a government is by how they perform during the bad times.
The current crisis is a minor thing compared to the dot.com crash. When people ask themselves whether the Labour government can cope with crises, they think back to 2001-2003, when the govt faced a world economic crisis and passed the test. However, when they ask whether a potential Tory government would cope, they think back to the last time the Tories faced such a test, 1992, and shudder. Especially as all those old photos show David Cameron standing close behind Norman Lamont.
If the current crisis is minor compared to 2001-2003, it is even more minor compared to 1992. Britain was in recession that year. 55,000 businesses went to the wall, unemployment was rising and the budget deficit that year was a horrifying 7% of GDP. Black Wednesday came on top of all that and was the final straw.
The world economy faces potentially significant obstacles ahead, but the public believes that the Labour government will strive mightily to protect them. After a hesitant start, the Chancellor Alistair Darling has come out enhanced by the Northern Rock crisis. He showed leadership, decisiveness, pragmatism and sheer guts, when everyone else was losing their heads. It's nice to know we have a heavyweight in the Treasury.
The significant thing about this poll was that it was carried out Monday afternoon and evening, after the Chancellor's announcement that he would guarantee existing Northern Rock deposits and after the scenes on Friday and Saturday of people queueing to get their money out of Northern Rock Bank.
Tories reacted with shock to the poll. They had fondly hoped that this was Labour's "Black Wednesday" (which happened exactly 15 years ago) and had hoped it would boost their prospects. So why hasn't it?
The defining moment of the Labour government was actually the period 2001-2003. The conjunction of 9/11 and the dot.com crash created a perfect global storm. Stock markets everywhere crashed. The FTSE100 went from 6900 in Jan 2000 to about 3100 in March 2003. The USA, France, Germany, Japan and scores of other developed countries such as Italy and the Netherlands went into recession, with attending rises in unemployment. People in Britain held their breath. In the previous 50 years, everytime the USA sneezed, we caught a cold, and in the last two recessions (1981 and 1992) we suffered worse than everyone else.
Only in 2001-2003, we sailed on undisturbed by world events. The economy continued to grow and unemployment stayed low. It was a non-event as far as the economy was concerned and the public took note. You only know how good a government is by how they perform during the bad times.
The current crisis is a minor thing compared to the dot.com crash. When people ask themselves whether the Labour government can cope with crises, they think back to 2001-2003, when the govt faced a world economic crisis and passed the test. However, when they ask whether a potential Tory government would cope, they think back to the last time the Tories faced such a test, 1992, and shudder. Especially as all those old photos show David Cameron standing close behind Norman Lamont.
If the current crisis is minor compared to 2001-2003, it is even more minor compared to 1992. Britain was in recession that year. 55,000 businesses went to the wall, unemployment was rising and the budget deficit that year was a horrifying 7% of GDP. Black Wednesday came on top of all that and was the final straw.
The world economy faces potentially significant obstacles ahead, but the public believes that the Labour government will strive mightily to protect them. After a hesitant start, the Chancellor Alistair Darling has come out enhanced by the Northern Rock crisis. He showed leadership, decisiveness, pragmatism and sheer guts, when everyone else was losing their heads. It's nice to know we have a heavyweight in the Treasury.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Gordon Brown and Mrs Thatcher
Gordon Brown had tea today at Number 10 with Mrs Thatcher. It follows the comment he made last week when he said he was a "conviction politician" and noted Thatcher was one too.
Mrs Thatcher was so pleased at this, she got her official spokesman to acknowledge the compliment in public:
She was delighted to have such flattery, as she always is from any source,” the spokesman said. “It is nice to have someone say such things about you.”
It suggests that she is still hurting from the way the Tories despatched her 17 years ago, and starving for acknowledgement. Hence her willingness to visit Gordon Brown at Number 10 and be photographed with him on the steps.
She has only visited Downing Street twice since she left office, once at the invitation of Tony Blair, and now at the invitation of Gordon Brown. John Major kept her at a distance.
Some in Labour will raise eyebrows at this, given the hurt she inflicted on the country in the early 80's. But we're comfortably in power now, and vengence isn't part of the Labour character. We can afford to be magnanimous and kind to a very old lady who is clearly still upset at events of the past. Besides, by being a radical (as opposed to a conservative), Thatcher destroyed the Tories by turning them into an ideological party. Labour is in power because of the collapse of the Tories that she set in train. The least we can do is give her tea.
UPDATE: It turns out that this whole thing was initiated by Mrs T, who wrote to Gordon Brown when he became PM, they then corresponded and he then invited her to tea. The FT reports that Downing Street offered to let her enter discreetly through the back door, but Mrs T turned the offer down preferring to enter by the front door and be photographed.
It's clear to me that she is still angry with the Tories for the way they despatched her all those years ago, and is determined to stick it to them whenever she can. And of course the Labour party assists whenever it can.... It recalls the 1995 interview she gave when she practically endorsed Tony Blair and New Labour (which influenced many former Tory voters to abstain or vote Labour).
Downing Street reports that she brought toys for Mr Brown's sons (a cement mixer and remote controlled cars). Very sweet.
Mrs Thatcher was so pleased at this, she got her official spokesman to acknowledge the compliment in public:
She was delighted to have such flattery, as she always is from any source,” the spokesman said. “It is nice to have someone say such things about you.”
It suggests that she is still hurting from the way the Tories despatched her 17 years ago, and starving for acknowledgement. Hence her willingness to visit Gordon Brown at Number 10 and be photographed with him on the steps.
She has only visited Downing Street twice since she left office, once at the invitation of Tony Blair, and now at the invitation of Gordon Brown. John Major kept her at a distance.
Some in Labour will raise eyebrows at this, given the hurt she inflicted on the country in the early 80's. But we're comfortably in power now, and vengence isn't part of the Labour character. We can afford to be magnanimous and kind to a very old lady who is clearly still upset at events of the past. Besides, by being a radical (as opposed to a conservative), Thatcher destroyed the Tories by turning them into an ideological party. Labour is in power because of the collapse of the Tories that she set in train. The least we can do is give her tea.
UPDATE: It turns out that this whole thing was initiated by Mrs T, who wrote to Gordon Brown when he became PM, they then corresponded and he then invited her to tea. The FT reports that Downing Street offered to let her enter discreetly through the back door, but Mrs T turned the offer down preferring to enter by the front door and be photographed.
It's clear to me that she is still angry with the Tories for the way they despatched her all those years ago, and is determined to stick it to them whenever she can. And of course the Labour party assists whenever it can.... It recalls the 1995 interview she gave when she practically endorsed Tony Blair and New Labour (which influenced many former Tory voters to abstain or vote Labour).
Downing Street reports that she brought toys for Mr Brown's sons (a cement mixer and remote controlled cars). Very sweet.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Taxes on Illegal Drugs
The Americans have been experimenting with this for some time. According to this article from CNN,
In Tennessee, when you acquire an illegal drug (even "moonshine"), you have 48 hours to report to the Department of Revenue and pay your tax, in exchange for which you'll receive stamps to affix to your illegal substance. The stamps serve as evidence you paid the tax on the illegal product.
Don't worry that you might get in trouble for admitting you have enough drugs to fuel a rave party for years. You need not provide identification to get the stamps and it's illegal for revenue employees to rat you out.
Still, next door in North Carolina, which has had a similar law for 15 years, only 79 folks have voluntarily come forward since 1990, according to the Department of Revenue. Most were thought to be stamp collectors, or perhaps just high. Another 72,000 were taxed after they were already busted.
North Carolina has collected $78.3 million thus far, almost all from those arrested and found without stamps.
North Carolina's population is only 9 million, so that's not a bad tax haul. 23 American states now have this law. I think we should consider doing the same but add a twist and outsource this as with parking tickets - I'm sure so many people would get busted they would think it better not to do drugs at all, and the drug-busting units would be self-financing and maybe even revenue contributors. And it would be funny watching the Daily Mail trying to argue against this tax.
In Tennessee, when you acquire an illegal drug (even "moonshine"), you have 48 hours to report to the Department of Revenue and pay your tax, in exchange for which you'll receive stamps to affix to your illegal substance. The stamps serve as evidence you paid the tax on the illegal product.
Don't worry that you might get in trouble for admitting you have enough drugs to fuel a rave party for years. You need not provide identification to get the stamps and it's illegal for revenue employees to rat you out.
Still, next door in North Carolina, which has had a similar law for 15 years, only 79 folks have voluntarily come forward since 1990, according to the Department of Revenue. Most were thought to be stamp collectors, or perhaps just high. Another 72,000 were taxed after they were already busted.
North Carolina has collected $78.3 million thus far, almost all from those arrested and found without stamps.
North Carolina's population is only 9 million, so that's not a bad tax haul. 23 American states now have this law. I think we should consider doing the same but add a twist and outsource this as with parking tickets - I'm sure so many people would get busted they would think it better not to do drugs at all, and the drug-busting units would be self-financing and maybe even revenue contributors. And it would be funny watching the Daily Mail trying to argue against this tax.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
School Meals
Luke Akehurst has an excellent piece about the take up of school meals in London.
He highlights some very interesting data - for instance the entitlement to free school meals in England is 16% but in London it is 26%. Even more surprising is the fact that entitlement to school meals in Kensington and Chelsea, that Tory bastion, is a whopping 39%. In a recent study by Barclays, the average income in Kensington and Chelsea was £100,000, the highest in the country. I can only conclude that there are a few people earning several million and cancelling out those on income support, job seekers allowance or earning under £15k (the criteria for being eligible for free school meals).
City of London was second in the Barclays study with an average income of £81,425 - their free school meal entitlement is 24%. Westminster was third in the Barclays study with an average income of £77,500 - their free school meal entitlement was 36%.
What on earth is going on? How can these places top the league for average income, yet have a free school meal entitement of double the national average. Even if you account for the rich sending their children to private school, surely there is a bulwark of earners between £18k and £40k sending their children to state schools? House prices are expensive in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster (about £1 million each), so it is probable that the ordinary middle classes/aspirant working classes, who are the bedrock of the rest of England, are simply absent from these boroughs and only the very rich and the very poor live there.
Luke's piece contains full stats for each London borough, together with the full criteria for claiming school meals - to read it click here.
He highlights some very interesting data - for instance the entitlement to free school meals in England is 16% but in London it is 26%. Even more surprising is the fact that entitlement to school meals in Kensington and Chelsea, that Tory bastion, is a whopping 39%. In a recent study by Barclays, the average income in Kensington and Chelsea was £100,000, the highest in the country. I can only conclude that there are a few people earning several million and cancelling out those on income support, job seekers allowance or earning under £15k (the criteria for being eligible for free school meals).
City of London was second in the Barclays study with an average income of £81,425 - their free school meal entitlement is 24%. Westminster was third in the Barclays study with an average income of £77,500 - their free school meal entitlement was 36%.
What on earth is going on? How can these places top the league for average income, yet have a free school meal entitement of double the national average. Even if you account for the rich sending their children to private school, surely there is a bulwark of earners between £18k and £40k sending their children to state schools? House prices are expensive in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster (about £1 million each), so it is probable that the ordinary middle classes/aspirant working classes, who are the bedrock of the rest of England, are simply absent from these boroughs and only the very rich and the very poor live there.
Luke's piece contains full stats for each London borough, together with the full criteria for claiming school meals - to read it click here.
Britain fights back US criticisms on our handling of Southern Iraq
In recent weeks, the Americans, upset that we are intent on pulling out of Iraq, have been rubbishing us, with anonymous US generals talking about "Who lost Basra?" One senior US intelligence man said anonymously that 'The British have basically been defeated in the south' and another that if there are further British withdrawals 'the situation will continue to deteriorate'.
All of which is infuriating to the British. For a start we didn't have much say in the strategy for Iraq war and post-war situation. Bremner disbanded the Iraqi army without consulting us, and when we advised that Abu Ghraib be shut down in April 2003, the Americans ignored our advice, with disastrous consequences.
The American criticism is a classic Bush/Cheney operation - accuse the opposition of failure and/or cowardice to make them back down - in this case they are trying to pressure Britain not to continue withdrawals from Iraq.
It might have worked with Blair, who refused to criticise publicly or allow anyone from his administration to criticise publicly. But the Brown administration is different from the Blair one. Yesterday, David Miliband and Des Browne wrote an article in the Washington Post, refuting the American allegations and saying "It's time to set the record straight".
We have also had General Sir Mike Jackson saying "I don't think that's a fair assessment" to American allegations of "deterioration" in Basra. He also said that the Americans were "intellectually bankrupt" over their Iraqi strategy.
It looks like this public refutation of the allegations is having an effect. Bush has now said that he is "fine" about the handover to Iraqi forces in Basra. I guess he realised that having Brits hit back at him publicly was more damaging to him than having them leave Basra.
The text of the Miliband/Browne article is interesting. It concludes:
We believe we remain on track to complete the return of full sovereignty to the Iraqi people as planned.
.........But while outsiders can support, advise and encourage, only Iraqi leaders can make the political decisions and compromises essential to the future of their country.
.........We urge Iraq's political leaders to take the necessary steps.
To me that sounds like a clear sign that Britain is going to continue to handover and continue to withdraw no matter what the Americans say.
All of which is infuriating to the British. For a start we didn't have much say in the strategy for Iraq war and post-war situation. Bremner disbanded the Iraqi army without consulting us, and when we advised that Abu Ghraib be shut down in April 2003, the Americans ignored our advice, with disastrous consequences.
The American criticism is a classic Bush/Cheney operation - accuse the opposition of failure and/or cowardice to make them back down - in this case they are trying to pressure Britain not to continue withdrawals from Iraq.
It might have worked with Blair, who refused to criticise publicly or allow anyone from his administration to criticise publicly. But the Brown administration is different from the Blair one. Yesterday, David Miliband and Des Browne wrote an article in the Washington Post, refuting the American allegations and saying "It's time to set the record straight".
We have also had General Sir Mike Jackson saying "I don't think that's a fair assessment" to American allegations of "deterioration" in Basra. He also said that the Americans were "intellectually bankrupt" over their Iraqi strategy.
It looks like this public refutation of the allegations is having an effect. Bush has now said that he is "fine" about the handover to Iraqi forces in Basra. I guess he realised that having Brits hit back at him publicly was more damaging to him than having them leave Basra.
The text of the Miliband/Browne article is interesting. It concludes:
We believe we remain on track to complete the return of full sovereignty to the Iraqi people as planned.
.........But while outsiders can support, advise and encourage, only Iraqi leaders can make the political decisions and compromises essential to the future of their country.
.........We urge Iraq's political leaders to take the necessary steps.
To me that sounds like a clear sign that Britain is going to continue to handover and continue to withdraw no matter what the Americans say.
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