With the current scramble by the new coalition to find savings and reduce the size of government, it is perhaps a strange time to be proposing that, in one area at least, the state should expand its remit, but the case for renationalising the railways has never been stronger.
I am certainly not a fan generally of nationalisation of anything, and still think that the coalition should flog the Tote, Channel 4, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link etc, but think that the British Railways must return to public ownership, not for reasons of ideology or sentiment, but simply because there is …
Nick Clegg has repeatedly promised in recent weeks that the coalition government’s deficit reduction plan will be fair. But it will not be easy to deliver on these words. ‘Fairness’ cannot be measured simple by considering the gap between the richest and the poorest: as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown, during the last three recessions, it was low to moderate income households who were hit hardest.
All the evidence so far suggests that it has been no different this time round. It is the working poor who are struggling most when it comes to the labour market, security of …
The Coalition Agreement stated under paragraph 15 on Foreign Affairs that, “We will work to establish a new ‘special relationship’ with India and seek closer engagement with China, while standing firm on human rights in all our bilateral relationships.”
Labour commentators have speculated that by making a distinction in UK’s relationship with the two Asian giants, India and China, the Coalition may be seeking to pitch one against the other.
I disagree and believe this careful choice of words was used to encapsulate the different historical links UK has had with these two countries and to point the way forwards.
It may sound a challenge, cutting £44 billion from public spending.
But actually, it’s easy.
Not only that, it can be done without hitting the least well off. Without cutting worthwhile public services. And if you’re so minded, you can even drape a “progressive” label over it all.
How to do it?
Simple.
You see, the last Labour Budget contained overall spending totals for the government that mean a cut in spending of £44 billion (using the calculations form the Office of Budget Responsibility). Now, because Labour didn’t publish any departmental spending total plans beyond the current financial year, we don’t know where those £44
It’s Refugee Week, and this year the British Red Cross is focusing on the issue of destitution among asylum seekers in the UK. A recent poll, commissioned by the British Red Cross, found that many people have conflicting, negative opinions and a lack of understanding of the legal definition of asylum:
Although 89% correctly said the definition of an asylum seeker is someone fleeing persecution in their own country, 28% still thought an asylum seeker is someone who has come to this country to illegally look for work.
57% of people thought that asylum seekers were given vouchers to cover living expenses up to £100 a week with 14% thinking the weekly amount was over £100.
In reality, asylum seekers receive accommodation and vouchers equalling just £35 a week. Refused asylum seekers on the other hand, do not receive any support at all.
This year’s Look Beyond the Label campaign is fronted by an interactive viral video featuring Hollywood star Dougray Scott, singer Karen David and stand up comedian Stephen K Amos. The video is hosted on a Facebook application, where people can click “like” to vote for an end to destitution in the United Kingdom. Viewers can also share the application on their own Facebook profiles, write comments showing their support, or click through to read other refugee stories.
Margaret O’Donnell, British Red Cross Head of Digital Media said:
“This year we are asking people to look beyond labels like ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum seeker’ and use their online networks to advocate for an end to destitution in the UK.
“Now, more than ever, people can make their voices heard by taking a stand using social media. Sharing, tweeting and discussing the issues of destitution and asylum, allows people to speak out in their own digital communities to ask for change to a process that results in thousands of people each year living in destitution.”
The connection between standing local election candidates and the AV referendum may not seem obvious at first, so imagine this scenario…
It’s quite likely that the referendum will be held on the same day as local elections, such as the May 2011 local elections.
The arguments over electoral reform will attract to the ballot box some people who don’t usually vote in local elections. If the pro-AV campaign goes well (and it starts with a lead) many of those people will be well disposed towards Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.
And what will they find when they get handed another …
At the weekend Liberty held its AGM. Jo Shaw was there…
We are, as our esteemed director, Shami Chakrabarti said on Saturday “a gobby lot”. In that, the Liberty membership share much in common with the membership of the Lib Dems. Both share a tradition of being unwilling to shut up, of asking difficult questions and not necessarily toeing the line which might be expected or helpful for the leadership.
Liberty was formed 76 years ago in response to police brutality against protestors against hunger and unemployment. Police tactics at demonstrations and the politics of dissent are currently high in …
When the Coalition announces its Emergency Budget next week, attention will rightly focus on the Government’s plans to cut the deficit. But the Budget will also be a chance to set out an agenda for a more competitive economy and more productive private sector. With the Office of Budget Responsibility’s revised projections suggesting the UK’s trend rate of growth will be slower than was hoped for this Parliament, it is now more important than ever before to improve the UK’s business environment.
Even while running up huge debts, the last Government felt it necessary to set out an ambitious …
Running Canada a close second as the current country of choice to look at for deficit cutting lessons is Sweden. As I previously looked at the Canadian experience, now it’s the turn of Sweden.
The think tank Bruegel has published a pamphlet from Jens Henriksson about the Swedish experience of turning a budget deficit of over 11% of GDP into a surplus. He was a policy adviser to the Swedish government during this period.
The pamphlet spreads over more than 40 pages, though politically the most important point is made by him right at the start:
is not a paper about how to get rid of the welfare state. On the contrary, it is about how to strengthen the economic foundations for whatever kind of social model that is preferred. The budget consolidation in Sweden was dramatic but it preserved, and in many ways modernised and improved, the welfare system.
As with Canada, Sweden was able to tackle its budget deficit at a time of a much healthier world economy than the one that provides the backdrop to our own current efforts. Even so, it’s worth bearing in mind just how bad the Swedish economy had got:
Sweden experienced negative growth three years in a row between 1991 and 1993, averaging minus two percent. Over three years the debt almost doubled, unemployment tripled and the budget surplus turned into a large deficit. The combined effect of an exploding budget deficit, high interest rates and record-high levels of unemployment was staggering.
The ten lessons Henriksson lays out are:
Sound public finances are a prerequisite for growth. That does not have to mean an aversion to borrowing or major monetary expansion. Henriksson is happy with plenty of the former if the money is wisely invested and Sweden did plenty of the latter, but you cannot just forever put off dealing with public finances.
If you are in debt, you are not free. His underlying point is a sound one: if you are in too much debt then you end up in thrall to the international financial markets. However, becoming debt free is not the only way to avoid this problem; many countries (including Britain) have run manageable debts for long periods of time without running into that problem. So although the exact criteria may not apply to the UK, the basic point does – the less dependant you are on international borrowing to keep the government’s finances afloat, the more freedom you have to do what you want.
The one responsible must put her or his job on the line. The argument here is that this is what gets credibility with the public, financial markets, civil service and political colleagues. If they all know that person X is deadly serious, it then becomes easier to achieve the goals. For example, civil servants may be tempted to try to avoid having to make cuts in their budget and ride out the political impetus to curb the deficit. If they know that they can’t do that, they are more likely to offer up suggestions based on their detailed knowledge of the more obscure corners of the public sector.
Set goals and stick to them. Once again the theme of strong public commitments making the overall job easier features in Henriksson’s list. Here he argues that just as public targets for inflation make controlling inflation easier, so too do they for a deficit.
Consolidation should be designed as a package: “An ad hoc hodgepodge of measures will only have a limited chance of success. Presenting the consolidation measures in one package makes it clear to all interest groups that they are not the only ones being asked to make sacrifices … If a consolidation package consists of both tax increases and expenditure cuts the distributional effect can be fair. When studying the distributional consequences, do not only use the income distribution perspective. There are other dimensions that also are important, such as for instance gender, age and geography.”
Act structurally but be consistent. Perhaps the most surprising recommendation in the pamphlet, this point in Sweden meant a uniform 11% cut from all budgets – a very different approach from the Canadian one of looking at each area of government activity and deciding if it is necessary. The downside of a flat rate cut across the board is that there is no particular reason to believe that the least desirable expenditure is equally distributed across the board. Against this Henriksson argues that only flat rate cuts really get an understanding of the absolute need to find efficiencies seeping in to all corners of the state. It also avoid problems with some sectors feeling they have been picked on unfairly compared to others. In this respect, our coalition government, with its ring fencing of certain expenditure including the NHS, is going for the Canadian model rather than the Swedish one.
Do not leave the problems to the local authorities. Again, this contrasts with the Canadian approach of displacing many issues from the federal government to lower levels. Henriksson’s warning is based on the Swedish experience where local authorities faced a really tight squeeze: “In Sweden it meant that we saw big cuts in schools, healthcare and childcare because they are financed through local taxes. This created enormous political problems.”
Be honest to citizens and financial markets: “Never say that it won’t hurt. Never say that it is peanuts. Having been honest about the effects will not make it much easier, but being dishonest can lead to disaster. This will help ordinary people to plan ahead and to limit shocks.” The comments of Cameron, Osborne and Clegg neatly fit this lesson.
Stick to one message. Tackling a deficit is not simply about producing a list of items to cut or taxes to raise; it’s also a communications challenge to bring the public with you and to win confidence from the financial markets. That makes mixing in tax cuts with the rest of the package tricky: “At one time the government decided to cut down on expenditures to finance a tax cut in VAT on food. The result was that people became furious. ‘You are not cutting down because you need to. You are cutting down because you want to’. That was an impossible argument to handle, since the message was budget discipline, but the action was .” On this point (and the linked argument against making any spending increases, even small ones in popular areas), the coalition government is taking a very different course from Sweden – looking to use tax cuts and targeted spending increases to garner wider support for the tough measures and also because they are justified in their own right.
Stick to it. Once you have sorted out the deficit, make sure you reform the systems that caused the problem in the first place.
Overall there are many similarities between Sweden’s approach and the current British one, but also some notable differences – no across the board percentage of cuts and a mix of the tough measures with tax cuts and spending increases. On both those fronts the British approach looks to better suit our circumstances, provided that the rest of the package delivers the necessary financial changes. Whether or not that is the case will be much clearer after the forthcoming budget.
You can read the full pamphlet from Jens Henriksson here:
The Lib Dems’ Federal Policy Committee (FPC) operates under the Chatham House Rule: you can repeat what was said, but not who said it. But often what happens at FPC goes completely unreported.
In some cases this is understandable, people throwing their toys out of the pram isn’t something we really want to report (oh not that often, honest!), and sometimes it is just because we are discussing issues (such as the manifesto) that we quite rightly want to keep under wraps until it is launched.
But someone (who of course will remain nameless) made the point at last week’s …
When should the Government’s promised referendum on AV be held? That’s the question causing a fair amount of debate at the heart of the coalition.
From the simple good governance point of view, the answer is as soon as possible – because the sooner it is held, the more time there will be if AV is passed to get the law and then the administration right in good time ahead of the next general election. Late changes to election rules have been the bane of the electoral system far too often in the last decade.
Today, the Social Liberal Forum has published an open letter to Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander expressing our concerns prior to the emergency budget which will be unveiled next week. By coincidence, Simon Hughes, Malcolm Bruce and Lord Oakeshot are reported in the FT today expressing similar sentiments on capital gains tax.
The SLF letter covers a lot more ground than CGT including socio-economic inequality, income tax and VAT. But it is a fundamental issue which, more than anything else, will determine the future direction of the coalition. For the past month, Tory backbench MPs and the rightwing press …
A common thread running through the Press Complaints Commission’s defence of its work is that it has been primarily created to deal with individual complaints, rather than being a regulator whose role is to improve the press overall. That’s why, for example, the PCC emphasises the proportion of complaints made to it which are concluded with the complainant happy with the outcome rather than, for example, focusing on how widespread certain practices are and whether they are increasing or decreasing.
To give an example: if a blogger were to complain to the PCC about a newspaper taking their work and reusing …
It’s been interesting to see the final list of nominations for Labour Party leader which, for those that missed it, is:
Diane Abbott
Ed Balls
Andy Burnham
David Miliband
Ed Miliband
The response from all quarters about the list first that its very ‘samey’, with much said about tokenism and the inclusion of Diane Abbott, not because she’s black or a woman but because she represents the old left of the party. That got me to thinking about who would be the best from a Lib Dem point of view.
A Leftie
Dianne Abbott is the only real left leaning candidate. A Labour party under her ministrations would …
A simple enough question to pose for today, with the Queen’s Birthday Honours in the news: should honours go to people who have already received wide-spread public acclaim and wealth such as Catherine Zeta Jones or should the honours be reserved for otherwise unrecognised people? Over to you…
There are many things, in policy terms, that rank and file members will be expected to swallow as a result of the Coalition. There are Lib Dem red lines drawn in the agreement. There are abstentions arranged for the Parliamentary Party on particular issues. The cuts are to come, and we have Danny as Chief Secretary, with the enormous responsibility of managing this process, and making sure that Lib Dem guns are stuck to.
It is a huge opportunity and an unenviable task. What is more, the rationale for the various cuts have to be clear, and the PR of it all has …
Simon Hughes caused quite a stir by setting out his priorities for how Lib Dem MPs should behave if they are not in the government.
Clearly there is a balance to be struck between supporting our party’s attempt to deliver strong-yet-compromise government in a time of national, and indeed global, emergency, and living our principle that dissent is not weakness. The push-and-pull of coalition government is not the time for hiding our values in the name of unanimity, but voicing them louder than ever to strengthen Nick’s negotiating stance and affecting change that we want to see.
On the surface, David Cameron is the first Prime Minister in generations for whom ‘The Ireland Question” is down the list of priorities.
The Good Friday Agreement has been a glorious success, with the recent devolving of policing powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly the final piece of the power-sharing jigsaw and the birth of a more conventional policy rather than tribal politics in the province.
The 2010 general election saw the Alliance Party gain a seat, the moderate nationalist SDLP doing better than expected and the the failure of the anti-power sharing Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party to make gains seems …
Arriving from in Fermanagh from England in July 2008, five weeks after having had a stroke, I was understandably more concerned with my recuperation than with politics. However fate has a sense of humour and I found my new constituency plunged into the center of a political battleground that allowed me the opportunity to look at Northern Ireland politics. It allowed me to compare and contrast politics here with my 20 odd years of political activism in the Labour Party in England.
Enniskillen is my home now and nestling on the Island between Upper and Lower Lough Erne is the greatest …
I have now been a political activist for quite a long time! Starting with campaigning for a Palestinian state and against apartheid in my teens, joining the party as a Liberal student, and then elected to Parliament in 1983 when Mrs Thatcher was at the height of her powers. Twenty seven years later, I have never forgotten what I came into politics to do. Fight for social justice, civil liberties, internationalism and a fair and responsible Britain where power is handed back to and not taken from the people.
For many people in our country these are not characteristics which …
Overseas places come and go as the fashionable one to talk about in Westminster political circles. After 1992 it was Japan, with the fourth Conservative general election victory in a row spawning comparisons with Japan and the long period of Liberal Democrat rule there. In the run up to 2005 it was the Australian state of Queensland, where an incumbent state government had seemed set for re-election but suffered a shock defeat, put down largely to complacency amongst its supporters. And of course, as a third example, when in doubt there’s always the 1960 US Presidential election, Barack Obama or …
Last night the new Parliament had its first vote on the Queen’s Speech; the government parties voted together of course. So there I was rubbing shoulders in the voting lobby with all these Tories, many of them new, most of them – through no fault of their own – from rather privileged backgrounds. Never before have I felt quite so aware of my state comprehensive / red-brick education – and immensely proud of it too.
I was also made acutely aware that our new bed-fellows are not very much like us but that our Labour opponents will nevertheless work hard to …
The Coalition Government has avoided the temptation to reorganise Whitehall departments. The Department for Children, Schools and Families has been renamed the Department for Education but there has not been the wholesale reshaping we saw under Blair – which led to the creation of such historical oddities as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) and a vast amount of anomalies, cost and muddle.
ODPM, of course, could not by definition outlive the retirement of John Prescott. So it morphed into the Department for Communities and Local Government. The D then suddenly disappeared and now we have ‘CLG’.
We’ve begun to see how the cutbacks in the Transport Department’s budget are going to affect Britain’s railways. There were always going to be some projects that would need to be delayed, but we should be careful that Transport Secretary Philip Hammond doesn’t just look at the impact on his own budget but also the impact on the industry and communities that build and maintain Britain’s railway network. He should also look forward beyond the end of this Parliament.
At the moment, after years of cuts and rationalisation by the previous Conservative and Labour regimes, Britain is now down to one …
The 2010 general election will live long in the memory for a variety of reasons – the end of New Labour, a surprising Con-Lib coalition, the first TV debates – but one crucial aspect of the campaign that had politicians and commentators chattering with excitement was the entrance of a new political player – the internet.
Social networking and Web 2.0 opened the floor of the political debate to everyone, from satirical photoshoppers to cynical bloggers and, of course, let us not forget Twitter gossip worth its weight in retweets.
Whilst the political parties did their best to tackle new media during …
David Laws has resigned and the story has more or less moved along. For my part I know and like David a lot and his loss is a real blow to the Liberal Democrats, the Government and the country. But most of all this was a personal story.
So I was appalled by the decision of Stonewall’s Chief Executive Ben Summerskill to take the airwaves and print media to launch his own mini-campaign against David.
The very organisation that you would expect to have the courage to stand up and explain the moral realities of being gay and struggling with a public …
It is one of the great battles of 21st century Liberalism to balance the party’s commitment free trade while not damaging the foundations of the welfare state which were established by previous Liberal governments.
But the point at which both sides of the debate come together can be summed up in a single word: ‘Employment’, as both sides search for efficient and equitable ways to create sustainable jobs and aid Britain ’s economic recovery.
When casting his eye across the various options open to Britain , new Business secretary Vince Cable should perhaps look at renewing the Eneterprise Allowance Scheme …
Peter Downes, a former comprehensive school head-teacher and current Liberal Democrat councillor, examines the new coalition government’s education policies …
1. While it is encouraging to see that the Lib Dem case for a ‘pupil premium’ has been accepted as a policy by the coalition, how this will operate is unclear. The foreword to the Coalition Agreement stated:
extra money following the poorest pupils so that they, at last, get to go to the best schools, not the worst.’
Does it mean:
a) that the extra money to be allocated to pupils who are considered poor because they are on Free School
Whilst political pundits struggle to fathom the implications of coalition and ‘new politics’, the signs are that Lib Dem voters are optimistic and that they are responding well to the new vision. It seems that when the new order combines with a strong local campaign and a candidate who offers the traditional Lib Dem promise of ‘service and action all year round’ success follows.
A series of elections over the last two weeks brought first an encouraging result in the extended Parliamentary election in Thirsk and Malton. This being a safe Tory seat with a notional majority of over 14,000 and …
After an extended election break, we’re reviving our Saturday slot posing a view for debate:
The election campaign of 2010 will, above all, be remembered for the transformative effect of the television debates, and the breakthrough of Nick Clegg. They were, in the main, substantive discussions in which real policies – and real political differences – were openly debated. But they also re-inforced the impression that British politics is, above all, about personality; and in particular, that the quality politicians need above all is empathy, an ability to connect with the voters they seek to represent.
Empathy is a vital quality of leadership. It is one which is perhaps tipping the balance of opinion in the Labour party against David Miliband, who comes across as less of a listener than his brother and rival, Ed.
But empathy can all too easily tip over into something else: an overly emotional reaction which blinds politicians to sound reason. The moment a politician loses his rag – however understandably, however provoked, however gloriously – is the moment I feel my respect draining away.
I do not want a politician who knows only how to emote. I want a politician with cool, clear, concise judgement. Our leaders are faced with umpteen improbably tricky decisions before breakfast: they cannot afford to waste their energies as the mood takes them.
Perhaps the ultimate exemplar of the non-emoting politician happens also to be the world’s most powerful leader, President Obama. Yet he has come in for criticism in recent days from the Washington media for failing to show sufficient anger at BP, forcing Obama to declare himself somewhat falsely ‘furious’ (while reasonably pointing out he wasn’t hired to yell at people):
Graham Evans Whatever the message, we need a leader who can clearly enunciate it, and not simply make party policy on the hoof. Ed Davey's intervention on the issue of local...
Peter Davies "Wanting to tear down historical statues , monuments , portraits, sanatise books etc ….It’s what the Taliban did in Afghanistan." It's also something Cromwe...
PM If Brexit is the cause of all our problems in the UK, what is the cause of the similar, or even worse, problems in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy etc?
The ...
David S Even if one's conclusion after examining all the complexities of the Civil War (which is a good deal more than "monarchy vs. democracy") is that Cromwell was a ...
Pawel Urbanski Much-needed piece. You are right that young people are the audience, but I am not sure Europe is the way in. The polling you quote shows they already agree with...
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Joy of Six 1603
Methodism at Horton, Gower
Latest voting intention and leadership ratings opinion polls
Graham Evans 
Peter Davies 
PM 
David S 
Pawel Urbanski 