Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Ed Milliband’s Choice

Now that the Shadow Cabinet has been elected, the Labour Leader has to make those chosen into a powerful opposition team, capable of harrying the Coalition in parliament, in the county and across the media. The new team needs to look like a new government in waiting. It must not look like the old defeated and discredited government on the run.

Every commentator is now focused on the choice of Shadow Chancellor. Will it be the other Ed or will it be Yvette? If Ed Milliband wants to break with New labour and its now much derided economic legacy he will choose neither. If he wants to line up a pigeon to be shot at by George Osborne et al for being on the bridge when the ship struck the iceberg, he can chose either. They are both as guilty as each other. They are, after all husband and wife. Labour needs to produce a little more substance after the drama of the two Millibands than something that looks like a family soap first and serious politics second.

National Security Committee

This is apparently meeting today to try and decide what to do about the two mega carriers ordered by Labour. Apparently it will cost more to build one than two, such is the compensation package for cancellation agreed by the most incompetent department in the history of government in this country, the Ministry of Defence. That being so and because of the employment situation on the Clyde, there is little option but to go on.

It must be understood that as a strategic weapons system these vessels are useless in a real war. Even a Falklands style conflict against an enemy with just an off the peg missile system would see them both at grave risk, rolling through the waves with 8000 tons of fuel oil and re-fuelling hazards. To build such giant vessels without a nuclear power plant is unique in the world today and militarily insane.

As a prop to Foreign Office vanity they will look good, but hardly worth the money. Equipped as a home defence system for the seas round these islands, always close to home port, they would provide good platforms for fighter and missile cover and make our country an even tougher nut to crack. That may be the best use, but hardly what was planned in the first place.

What a mess. This Blog has no hesitation in repeating that the Ministry of Defence, like the old Home Office before it, is not fit for purpose.

David Cameron

It was a good Leader’s speech. The Conference liked it. The media liked it. There was a theme of hope and a warning of cuts. This is the point perhaps. Any speech made before the Spending Review is announced in a fortnight is doing no more than marking time. That will change the political climate. Until then there is an air of expectation or even foreboding.

I did not agree with his assessment of the Afghan war and I profoundly disagree with the outburst over the Lockerbie bomber, not least because it is probably the wrong man and certainly not the one, or many, responsible for giving the order and devising the plan. Poor judgement that. Like the wobble over married tax allowance. To extend to higher rate taxpayers would cost £1.5 billion against the saving on child allowance of £I billion. By the end of the month the Downing Street act, which has been something of a casualty of this conference, will have to sharpen up. It would be a mistake to underestimate Ed.  Brother David will explain.

Mortgage Lending

The Council Of Mortgage Lenders has predicted that nearly half the mortgages granted and completed over the last four years, would not have been granted if the FSA’s new and tougher lending criteria had then been in effect.

That tells you all you want to know about the origins of the financial crisis, the property bubble and almost everything else besides including the busted and rescued banks. These new proposals must not be watered down. They are the foundation upon which a viable economy based on sound numbers will eventually be built and built to last.

Tax Breaks

The Tories are sliding around all over their banana skin and it is now dominating the conference. A combination of Fox and Cameron should  help to move the media forward. Politically this is a shrewder move than the hoo ha suggests. Labour is forced into the awkward position of defending the better off, whilst everyone knows that it is fairer to ask those with more to accept some pain to help those with less. Unfortunately there has been such a worship of acquisitiveness and a nodding through of selfishness, coupled with the idea that if you work hard you are licenced to trample the vulnerable, that this message is hard to get through. This is all New Labour’s fault.

This blog is politically neutral, but it does attack each of the political parties in turn if it sees the need. With New Labour it is particularly virulent and especially now that the concept is dead. It must be one of the most cynical, unprincipled and self serving political movements ever to gain power in this country. Set against a few successes such as devolution and Northern Ireland is the longest  line of lies, wars and administrative cock ups ever assembled in  these islands.

Money was spent as if it came from a well. Programmes were signed for without the cash to pay. A modern state was inaugurated to spend 33% more than it earned. Absolute chaos reigned in almost every area of procurement, especially computer programmes. It is in this gluttony for massive government and a never ending tide of meddling legislation, that the seed of the current Tory banana, on whose skin Osborne and Cameron have slid, is sown.

It is clear to all with common sense that the sensible cut off for child benefit is £50,000 per anum income, per family, whether single, joint, married or a partnership. It actually has nothing to do with tax rates. Unfortunately, although we know how much everybody in the country does or does not earn, we know the age of every child and adult and we know where everybody lives, we know these things in separate corners of the vast bureaucratic empire, but there is no communication open between them. This is down to new Labour. It was on its watch that all this should have been sorted. Ed will need to tread with political care in the short run. In the long run he needs to see that New Labour and its record are buried. Buried very deep.

Meanwhile the Tories need to re-group and press on. The Coalition needs now to be very bold and radical. Universal benefits available to all, but paid only according to need. There is absolutely no moral justification, neither is the money available, to pay those on fat pensions the winter fuel allowance, the free bus pass and the state  pension. If they fall by the wayside and are engulfed by hard times yes, but while their sun is shining no. The welfare state must become a universal safety net, not something for everyone to plunder. Its greatest value and purpose is to support the majority who do the jobs which pay less but without which civilised society implodes into a science fiction nightmare.

Universal Benefits

Yesterday’s banana skin, predicted by this Blog, is fully reported across the media today. I do not understand how clever politicians and bright civil servants get themselves into this kind of tangle. It needs to be sorted out quickly. It is right to take child benefit away from the better off and HRT payers is about the right point to axe it, but it must apply per family. Single parents cannot be worse off, nor can those where one partner chooses to look after the children be penalised for giving more attentive parent care. This flies in the face of everything that the coalition, especially the Tory part, stands for. 

On the broader front of the concept of the universal benefits,  the Financial Times sees them as no longer appropriate. I think it is not the concept but the application which is at fault in the twenty first century. They were, after all, introduced before the twentieth century was half way through. The nub is this. Benefits should be universally avaiable, but paid only if there is need. 

If you are ill the NHS is there for you, no matter what your wealth, but you only use it if you need it. A direct financial benefit must likewise be claimed by anyone if they need it, whatever their background or previous situation, but should not be paid if it is not needed. The judgement must be based on the financial position of the claimant, just as the NHS assess the health need.

Thus it is right to stop child benefit for those who do not have a fundamental need of it (as opposed to finding a freebie useful), stop winter fuel allowance, free bus passes and state pensions to those for whom these things are unnecessary. This includes the modern day overpaid and pensioned top civil servants. To carry on  means that once the current fiscal emergency is over, people on low incomes are having to pay more income tax to fund the luxuries of the better off and there is less money for good quality public services. This is morally wrong.

We need a grown up approach to making fair judgements about the purpose of the Welfare State. We also need to take every single person earning less than £15000 a year out of income tax altogether. We cannot do that yet. If we do not stop throwing benefits to people who do not need them, we will never be able to do it.

People who stridently demand equal treatment because they have worked hard and done well need to remember that when they flick a switch the lights go on, when they flush the toilet everything flows away, when they empty their trash it is collected. They can dial 999 for the fire brigade or an ambulance and they can drive on roads which are maintained at least to a reasonable standard. None of these things would be possible, as well as a good deal more, if those responsible were not willing to work for much lower earnings than the aspirational class. Thus the obligation is established and the social contact made. The more acquisitive life demands you take less and contribute more. That is what keeps the free society from imploding.

Child Benefit

This is very good news BUT…….

This Blog has actively promoted removing universal benefits from people who do not need them. Higher rate taxpayers do not need child benefit, fuel allowance and so on. Anybody receiving over £100,000 a year pension should not get the state pension. First because the country cannot afford to dole out largesse when it is not needed and second to provide such funds, those on much lower incomes have to pay more tax to molly coddle the well off. This is totally daft. Moreover it is socially unjust, individually unfair and meets no valid need or economic objective.

BUT…. It is reported that whilst a single parent earning just over £44000 will lose child benefit (also two parents where one does not work), two parents each earning  just under the margin with a combined income of £80,000 will get it still. This is  totally unfair, hurts the vulnerable and is politically inept. It plays into the hands of pressure groups, trade unions and Ed Milliband. There has to be a cut off related to total family income. This may be £44000, or £50000, or some other figure. There is no ‘means testing’ required. The Inland Revenue know what each parent is earning. 

Cuts must happen. But they have to be fair and be seen to be fair on critical examination. This appears to fall short. A banana skin for George Osborne?

Iain Duncan Smith and Welfare Reform

IDS came from nowhere to lead the Conservative Party. It was all a mistake. It was not his finest hour, but if he pulls off the radical reconstruction of the benefit system, so long acknowledged as necessary, but ducked by weak governments who retreated into spin, his finest hour is in real prospect.

He has invested his recent  life in researching and coming up with solutions as to how to bring the new underclass back into productive society, whilst also asking questions about the affordability of giving millionaires child benefit, state pensions and winter fuel allowances. It is imperative that we deal with both ends of this problem. Anyone who was brought up in politics in the Macmillan era, with the shiny new estates and the liberated people from the bad old days who moved into them, finds the appalling images of deprivation, decay and crime nothing less than a terrible betrayal of the post war social settlement. IDS has toured these places and talked to the people trapped in them. Few others have bothered and very few Tories. 

To reform  benefits is obvious. What is curiously contentious is the idea of removing them from people who do not need them. The argument is they have contributed and deserve them. That is rubbish. It is like saying that because we all contribute to the NHS, we must all take medicine whether we are ill or not and all have our hips replaced even when  there is no need. Linking benefits to the tax system stops silly talk about means tests. The tax code will do the job.

The going, on this project, will now get tough. Iain Duncan Smith must press forward with vigour. The electoral reward for the Conservative Party, if he is allowed to succeed, will be huge. This was New Labour’s task but, as with so much else (except unwinnable wars) it spun itself off the track and walked away. The voters will remember. Just as they did in the post war housing crisis, when Labour failed to hit the targets for newly built homes. The Tories hit the targets and surpassed them. They went on to win two more elections, increasing their majority each time.

George Osborne and the Ministry of Defence

George Osborne has been very rude about the MOD’s financial ineptitude. He is right. This Blog would go much further and shut the MOD down.

Regular readers will know that this is not the first time I have suggested this dramatic move. The fact is that we have never used this organisational structure in full scale wartime (in WW I and II we had the Admiralty, Air ministry and War Office for the Army), but in the wars in which it has been operational is has been found incompetent. Add to this procurement chaos and a budget over which its officials have entirely lost control and the case for getting rid of this ghastly department is near overwhelming.

The defence of this isalnd nation rests with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Both have a shining record of protecting and preserving the freedom and indpendence of our country. It is inherent in our blood that these two arms should be strong.

The record of the Army is much more mixed. Some notable victories with allies are tarnished by a catalogue of retreats, evacuations and defeats, starting at the Battle of Hastings. The United Kingdom is not a land power and the British Empire was built by trade and protected by the Navy. In the order of priorities the Army should be last on the list. It needs to be cut back and brought home.

The idea that a giant Ministry of Defence is cheaper to run and more efficient that three smaller offices for each of the three services is totally flawed. Big is rarely better in management or administrative terms. More often it is unwieldy, over staffed, muddle headed, self serving and financially inept.

Michael Gove and Empowering Teachers

Michael Gove, who has a had a somewhat rough ride in the early months of the Coalition, is to announce the re-establishment of commonsense practice, empowering teachers to enforce discipline in schools. Teachers will be allowed physical contact when appropriate for order or for comfort. This is welcome news.

It is right that people should be protected from exploitation and abuse. But when such regulations have the effect of dis-empowering those who are vital in the chain of maintaining civilised order, so that anything goes, things have gone too far the other way. The failure of the remote and spinning hierarchy of  New Labour to see this, is one of many reasons why Labour is now in opposition and New Labour is dead and buried.

Likewise Health and Safety. Lord Young’s report is welcome. Its recommendations need to be put into effect quickly. As the Tory Conference gathers in Birmingham, these snippets of news are helpful. While in no way wishing to downgrade the critical importance of eliminating the deficit, there is a lot else that needs attention in our country, to which this government must apply itself with vigour. Sorting out school discipline and organising realistic rather than over zealous Health and Safety are good places to start. The word cuts is becoming a bit over used.