By Stephen Tall
| Sat 10th September 2011 - 8:45 am
The Chancellor George Osborne has been left red-faced by his controversially potty-mouthed acceptance speech at the GQ awards when picking up a gong.
His references to the magazine’s adult content, and use of the word ‘wankers’, has attracted widespread criticism for crudeness, and conduct unbecoming the dignity of his office — even his usual supporters in the Tory party, such as ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie, have turned on Mr O. See what you think here:
Buried amongst the furore caused by #harigate this week was a pretty damning ruling by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) against the Sun and the Daily Mail. The complaint in question was made in relation to the AV referendum nearly two months ago by Electoral Reform Services – the business arm of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS).
The Sun and Mail were asked by the PCC to print letters apologising for some articles run during the AV referendum campaign. The article which ran on page 2 of the Sun and the front page of the Mail quoted George Osborne after he stood up in Parliament to claim that the ERS, one of the major funders of the Yes campaign would benefit financially from a ‘yes’ vote. This story was then re-run by Sky News and the BBC – subsequent rebuttals gave the story legs across a range of national media outlets.
You can be forgiven for not noticing since few journalists like to turn the spotlight on their own profession’s sometimes questionable practices.
Let’s just think about the context in which this fallacious claim was printed:
George Osborne just made a historic announcement about the Royal finances.
His reforms, signalled first in his Budget a year ago, pave the way for a first-born daughter of Kate and William to be Heir to the Throne.
The heir is supported by £16 million a year revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall estate. At present the Duke is Prince Charles. But a girl cannot become a duke, so Osborne is changing the rules.
“We propose to correct this anomaly by making clear that in future the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall will go to the heir whether
Just before the general election Nick Clegg complained that the gap between the mean average incomes of the richest fifth as compared to the poorest fifth in Britain had risen from 6.9 to 1 in 1997 to approach 7.2 to 1 towards the end of Labour’s 13 years in power. This shift took the UK one quarter of the way towards becoming as unequal in income as the world’s most unequal large affluent country, the United States.
Within the last 15 months the emergency budget, the March 2011 budget and the comprehensive spending review combined have moved Britain far faster towards …
Cabinet ministers have agreed a far-reaching, legally binding “green deal” that will commit the UK to two decades of drastic cuts in carbon emissions…
The deal was hammered out after tense arguments between ministers who had disagreed over whether the ambitious plans to switch to more green energy were affordable. The row had pitted the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, who strongly backed the plans, against the chancellor, George Osborne, and the business secretary, Vince Cable, who were concerned about the cost and potential impact on the economy…
Green groups had feared that ministers would refuse to back the committee
“Let it be heard clearly around the world — from Shanghai to Seattle, and from Stuttgart to Sao Paolo: Britain is open for business,” George Osborne proclaimed rousingly in last month’s Budget. But what does this say about how Osborne views the UK? Unpick the assumptions underlying the rhetoric and the language reveals an intellectual wasteland beneath.
The reductionist’s reductions
There are two arguments against this world view. The first is that it is a highly reductionist view of any country, particularly one as culturally and socially rich as Britain. The second is that it is equally reductionist in its view of …
With the AV referendum drawing closer – and postal votes hitting doormats this weekend – there’s plenty of coverage of it in today’s newspapers, including a rather excellent piece in The Observer by former Liberal Democrat Leader Paddy Ashdown. The majority of Paddy’s piece has its sights firmly set on the increasingly pernicious NO campaign, most pertinently on this week’s “bizarre” intervention into the debate by the chancellor George Osborne – which unsurprisingly makes it onto The Observer front page.
Here’s an extract of what Paddy has to say:
What I am perplexed and deeply disturbed by is that those
It’s been rather a self-inflicted wound by the Coalition Government to leave such a long gap between announcing that it would abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance and publishing details of what will be introduced in its stead. I’m happy to wait until we know what the replacement will be like before judging whether the EMA abolition is a good move or not, but it’s not exactly a surprise that many people have made up their minds knowing only part of the story given that huge gap.
That said, the substance of the issue is an important one and the noises coming …
Earlier today the Liberal Democrat Press Office’s Phil Reilly tweeted, “Income Tax cut – from the front page of the @libdems manifesto to the pockets of 25m taxpayers”.
Certainly better to pick from the front page than the back page, as announcing a barcode would have been lacking a little in interest (except, perhaps, to one of my former economics lecturers, who once tried to persuade us that the checksums on barcodes matched up with a warning from the Bible and predicted an imminent Second Coming).
That however wasn’t the only major policy was a distinct Liberal Democrat flavour to it. So too was the news about pensions. As Stephen Williams MP put it, “Proposals for a £140 flat rate pension, together with the Lib Dem commitment of restoring the earnings link, will ensure our pensioners get a fair deal”.
Both of those announcements were unsurprising, but one decision that had been up in the air was over the Green Investment Bank and how much power it really would have. George Osborne’s previous strange absence from the debate was put to rest when he announced a series of pieces of good news on the Green Investment Bank: starting a year earlier, £2 billion more in funds and, crucially, it can borrow. As Paul Waugh put it “Big victory for Cable”, not to mention Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, who had taken the lead in settling the internal debate over how much powers to give.
Amongst the details was success for the long-standing Liberal Democrat calls for water rates relief in the South West, though overall the details did not add up to a particularly green budget, Green Investment Bank aside. The IFS’s initial analysis is that, “The Chancellor also insisted that green taxes will rise as a proportion of total receipts. This remains the case on current Treasury forecasts, but by the narrowest of margins”. Some of the non-financial measures, such as the new standard for zero-carbon homes, give the Budget a greater overall green tinge than the pure financial numbers show. How deep that tinge is will depend on how measures such as the presumption in favour of sustainable development pan out when the details are settled.
Here’s the email from Nick Clegg to party supporters about the Budget:
Today the coalition government has announced a budget that will return the UK to sustainable and balanced economic growth and which puts helping Alarm Clock Britain at its heart.
We are increasing the income tax threshold by £630 to £8105; lifting hundreds of thousands of low income earners out of paying income tax and putting £126 back in the pockets of low and middle income earners. This is in addition to the last budget that took nearly a million of the lowest income earners out of tax and made millions of hard working individuals £200 better off. We are making a real difference in people’s lives – from the front page of our manifesto to people’s back pockets.
Alarm Clock Britain will be further helped by the measures we have taken to give motorists a fairer deal. We are shifting taxation away from the pumps and onto the broader shoulders of the oil companies instead – with fuel duty being cut and taxation on oil companies rising.
At the same time we are making the wealthy pay their fair share with increased measures to tackle tax avoidance, higher charges for non-doms and a special tax on private jets. This budget also places green growth front and centre – the Green Investment Bank will begin operation next year with £3bn of capitalisation, delivering an additional £18bn of investment in green infrastructure by 2014-15.
We were left a toxic economic legacy by Labour with a record deficit and debt. Under Ed Balls Labour have no answers and solutions to the mess they left. The difficult decisions we have taken in government have rebuilt confidence in Britain’s ability to pay its way, kept interest rates lower than they would otherwise have been, and have provided the stability that business and individuals need to invest in the UK’s economy.
There are no easy decisions in this budget. But we are delivering a budget which will mean that that those who can pay more will; and those who are working hard to make ends meet will get a helping hand. This budget is progressive, green, liberal and what our country needs at this time.
It’s boring and slow and tedious and old-fashioned to wait until you hear what someone from another party says before deciding whether or not you agree with it, isn’t it?
So hats off to those forward thinkers in Manchester Labour party who haven’t had to wait for the Budget to put down a motion for the forthcoming council meeting:
Motion – George Osborne’s Budget
Council notes the damaging impact of George Osborne’s budget on the people of Manchester. Councillors: Leese (proposer), Karney (seconder), Priest, J Battle, N Murphy, Evans, Andrews
There’s been some promising chatter in the run up to next week’s Budget about two major changes to our tax system, both of which have often been talked about across the political spectrum and both of which politicians have previously ended up shying away from because of the political hurdles involved.
The move is expected to be signalled by George Osborne in his Budget next Wednesday. Although such a huge change would take years to implement, the Chancellor is determined to be seen as a reformer and not just
Matthew Oakeshott’s departure as a Liberal Democrat spokesman for criticising the ‘Project Merlin’ deal with the banks over bonuses and the like may have got the headlines, but the real story is revealed by Anthony Hilton in the Evening Standard – all the members of the Commission threatened to resign in protest at government interference with their work.
The Government offered to emasculate the Independent Commission on Banking as it tried to strike a deal on bank bonuses a few weeks ago. I am told it backed off only when Sir John Vickers, chairman of the inquiry, and his entire committee, Clare
The Financial Times has been reporting this week again about the ongoing vigorous debate within government over the forthcoming Green Investment Bank and how much power it will have:
Nick Clegg is now the main driving force of the government’s “green investment bank” amid a Whitehall struggle over how precisely the new entity will function…
The Treasury is determined to hold back financing until the deficit is under control, towards the end of the current parliament. Officials have also argued for the bank to be a fund with little or no leverage.
A quick update to my previous post about the Green Investment Bank, where I wrote:
Largely unreported there has been a heavy debate over whether the Green Investment Bank will in effect simply by a pot for government grants or whether it will have the ability to operate much like a traditional bank. The more bank-like the Green Investment Bank can be, the more it will be able to do with its initial funding if, for example, it is able to issue bonds and underwrite loans. Helped by the backing of some Conservatives, such as Oliver Letwin, Chris Huhne seems
Sharon Bowles, Liberal Democrat Euro-MP for South East England, is the highest placed British person in the GFS Power 50 list of the most influential figures in global financial regulation.
The list is voted on by readers of Global Financial Strategy, and Sharon Bowles came out twentieth due to her role as Chair of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. This committee of MEPs has an important role in debating and amending European-wide financial regulation, including new rules on bank capital and bankers’ bonuses.
The VAT rise will mean tighter purse strings for everyone, with the poorest being hardest hit. But there is an alternative which some sections of the media and certain politicians seem reluctant to talk about, let alone act on.
The £120bn tax gap is more than the NHS budget and over three times the budget for education. It dwarfs the £13bn brought in by the VAT increase. At a time when George Osborne is telling the British public that we’re all in this together, 38 Degrees members are calling on him to do more to make sure everyone plays by the …
If there is one issue where destiny seems be demanding the Liberal Democrats to be bold, it is the issue of Britain’s dysfunctional banking system. Ninety per cent of the banking industry goes through the Big Six in the UK, some of which are not actually UK banks at all – and, in those circumstances, it is hardly surprising that they don’t do the job that needs doing. Funding local enterprise.
A fortnight or so ago, things were looking quite bleak, at least for the coalition’s will to act. George Osborne had indicated that he wasn’t going to force the banks to be transparent …
Best was his line on the “spectacular” coupling. “I can’t believe,” he said, “that someone middle class, from the Home Counties, could get together with someone so wealthy whose family own a string of mansions.”
Not Kate … he was talking about his beautiful relationship with Nick Clegg. Touché.
During the Conservative Party Conference, George Osborne announced a simple change to child benefit. He took a difficult and historic decision to remove payments to households with at least one higher rate taxpayer, saving an estimated £1 billion of public money from going directly to the highest paid 12% in our society.
In what turned out to be my last blog post, I railed – somewhat hysterically – against the reaction to this modest cut. It was clear that the right wing press would oppose such a move. But what was less clear, and more galling, was the way the …
Sorry Nick. Sorry Vince, I can’t find the figures that back you up
Both Nick and Vince have claimed that there was no option but to reverse their pledges on tuition fees. The public sector finances were in a far worse state than they expected and they had no option.
That would be a justification that would be just about sellable to people. A promise made in good faith which became unsustainable due to information not known about at the time could be legitimately broken.
The problem is, I can’t really find much that backs that claim up.
Paul Walter has spotted an under-reported point in the child benefit coverage of the past few days: that payments for children aged 16 to 18 were originally intended to be stopped, but that this plan was dropped after Nick Clegg intervened.
Paul spotted this in a “deep trawl” of the Telegraph:
The controversial decision to “pre-announce” the child benefit decision was made 10 days ago by the key Conservative power-broking trio of David Cameron, Mr Osborne and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, it is understood.
A couple of days later they informed Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, and his party
Alongside the widely publicised lopping of child benefits for higher-rate taxpayers, George Osborne has also announced plans for a cap on how much any one non-working family can get from the State.
The maximum will be set at £26,000 and starts in 2013. It’s likely to affect larger families, particularly those put into private rented accomodation by their local authority.
This capping seems to be pretty much impossible to do with the system as it is right now. There’s a host of different benefits and credits, all administered by different people and, in some cases, totally different tiers of government. …
George Osborne has announced that the Coalition Government plans to scrap child benefit payments for families where one or both parents is a higher rate taxpayer.
Child benefit is currently paid to families (normally to the mother) where any children are under 18. It isn’t a means tested benefit: you have to apply and show you’ve got children, but there are no long, complicated forms to fill out where you give details of your financial situation.
So is the change a good idea? From my staw polling, most – but certainly not all – Lib Dems seem to think this …
On Friday I mentioned how the old Liberal Democrat policy of integrating and simplifying the tax and benefits systems is getting a revival courtesy of Iain Duncan Smith. The former Conservative leader turned Work and Pensions Secretary has been arguing hard for the funds to introduce a simplified universal benefit that also is more generous than current rules to people in low-paid jobs. This would mean that people who currently find that taking a job makes them worse off, or only marginally better off, than being unemployed thanks to loss of benefits would lose less of their benefits and so …
Clarity of purpose is a virtue. But stubbornness doesn’t necessarily win any plaudits when more flexibility is appropriate. The shock tactics of Osbornomics have now been fully embraced. The message is clear: this Coalition is not for turning.
In the run up to the Election the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats adopted distinctive positions on the best approach to cutting the fiscal deficit. Despite Nick Clegg’s apparent secret conversion to the Conservative position of early and deep cuts, the LibDem manifesto commitments were directed at cutting in 2011/12 and after, and the rhetoric around budget reductions was to proceed at a …
At the time the coalition government was negotiated, Trident looked to be one of the most contentious policy areas for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to agree on. However, for all the barbed Cameron – Clegg exchanges over Trident during the election, it now looks as if the biggest tensions on the issue are coming from within the Conservative Party.
In my series of posts reviewing the content of the coalition document, I pointed out the compromise it contained on Trident:
It will be replaced unless there is a better value for money alternative. What the wording leaves unclear is the
Last week, people across the UK celebrated Refugee Week – a time to reflect on the contribution refugees make to their communities around the UK, and celebrating that refugees are welcomed and valued here.
As we approach the 60th anniversary of the UN Convention for Refugees next year, it is ever more important that the new government honour our proud tradition of offering shelter to those fleeing persecution in their own countries. It is clear that the main countries refugees have been fleeing from over the last ten years – Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Eritrea – are countries where …
Good morning, and welcome to your super soaraway Daily View on this, the first full day of Liberal government in the UK.
Today in 1958, Velcro was trademarked before going on to applications in haberdashery and space travel.
Birthday boys today include Arthur Sullivan, Armistead Maupin and Stevie Wonder.
2 Big Stories
There’s no doubting from the papers that today is all about the new inhabitants of Downing Street. From a Lib Dem perspective, there’s wor Vince, about to wage war on the banks. Or is he? Does the update to the Guardian’s article, filed 90 minutes after the article itself, herald the first hint of trouble in Paradise?
City is right to fear Vince Cable
Make no mistake, Cable’s appointment matters. David Cameron could have given him another economic job that would have kept him well away from anything to do with City reform. Last night it was mooted that the MP for Twickenham might be made chief secretary to the Treasury, and thus responsible for the delicate negotiations with Whitehall ministries over spending cuts.
As their hopes recede of using our broken voting system to secure a majority government on a minority of support in the country, the Party most set against reform, the Conservatives, and their media proxies begin to reel out the scare stories.
What Ken Clarke has been sent out to do (FT.com – requires registration) – and has been willing to do – diminishes him. It can hardly diminish his party.
Ken Clarke is a fervent European but he has been willing to return to the frontline of Tory politics. No doubt he believes he has done a deal…and he has calculated that he can hold back the forces of Euro-scepticism in the Tory party. The gag he is now prepared to wear, on European matters, is a measure of how unsound his judgement has become.
Jason Connor The Greens, Lib Dems and Conservatives are all standing. They all see sense and believe in democratic choices....
Mick Taylor @Lawrence Cox. To read your comment one might want to believe that the Triple Lock has ensured pensioners have decent pensions. It hasn't and UK state pensions ...
Chloe A Blue Labour response recent events in Hampshire. Well worth a read.
https://www.paulembery.com/p/for-the-race-obsessed-british-state...
theakes A new strategy/approach requires a new leader...
Kira Collins You use the phrase “fiscal federalism” and “financial autonomy” but have not used the phase I had hoped to see that is drawn out of both: fiscal autonom...
Both of those announcements were unsurprising, but one decision that had been up in the air was over the Green Investment Bank and how much power it really would have. George Osborne’s 
The list is voted on by readers of Global Financial Strategy, and Sharon Bowles came out twentieth due to her role as Chair of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. This committee of MEPs has an important role in debating and amending European-wide financial regulation, including new rules on bank capital and bankers’ bonuses.
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Damian Collins at Hereford Military History Festival in September
The Joy of Six 1529
Labour deputy claims that Farage is a threat to democracy
We do have a two-tier policing system but it is not what our homegrown racists think it is.
Jason Connor 
Mick Taylor 
Chloe 
theakes 
Kira Collins 