Labourhome - Stories by snowflake5

Labourhome - Stories by snowflake5 http://www.labourhome.org/ Back to the roots... en-us Copyright 2007 - LabourHome.org Mon Sep 8 07:06:04 2008 Labourhome Labourhome Labourhome http://www.labourhome.org/favicon.ico http://www.labourhome.org/ [Blogs] Populus on the Energy Company Windfall tax http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/9/5/17557/20996 A Populus poll was done for the Times dated 29th August-31st August 2008.

The Times predictably focused on the question of whether David Miliband would improve Labour's fortunes - he wouldn't, he would put us 20 points behind instead of 16. But we all knew that anyway. Only the Times is surprised about it.

The really interesting questions in the poll related to the economy and what the government should do to help.

On who do you trust on the economy it was:

Cameron/Osborne 39%
Brown/Darling 30%
Refused 6%
Don't know 25%

The interesting thing is that those who trust Brown/Darling are higher than the numbers who will vote for us, and the Don't Knows are running very high - which means that if the govt pulls off a recovery, there are rewards to be had.

On the question Do you support a one-off windfall tax on energy companies it was

Support 58%
Oppose 32%
Don't know 10%

On the question, Should the govt

Increase public spending on measures designed to help make buying a home more affordable and to get the housing market moving again

The answer was

Support 82%
Oppose 14%
Don't know 4%

On the question should the govt provide

A one-off payment targeted specifically at poorer families with children under 16 to help pay for higher fuel bills

Support 68%
Oppose 29%
Don't know 3%

In other words the general public are supporting centre-left solutions that can only happen under a Labour government.

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]]> 2008-09-05T17:55:07-05:00 [Blogs] SNP's local income tax idea http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/9/3/131426/3252 proposed a local income tax to replace council tax in Scotland, and he is courting the LibDems to support him on it.

The main reason local income tax is a bad idea is that it puts too much pressure on a small band of people - workers.

In the UK as a whole, we have 62 million people, of whom 29.56 million people work i.e. 47% of the population support the other 53% (the bulk of whom are pensioners, the next largest group is children, followed by housewives, the sick and the unemployed). Income tax and national insurance on this group already raise the lions share of tax money. The rest of tax is spread on the whole population except children - VAT, fuel duties, alcohol and cigarette duty, council tax.

What Salmond is proposing is to take the council tax (which falls on a wide range of people) and dump it all on the workers (a smaller group who are already burdened).
You can see straightaway what will happen if demographics change and the pensioner group increases - the local income tax will have to rise to meet the bill, while the old in comfortable houses live off the backs of the young.

Salmond proposes to get round this by saying that the local tax will be fixed at 3% and will not rise - and he hopes to make up the difference by asking for a subsidy from the Department of Work and Pensions of £400 million. The DWP currently pays this to Scotland as council tax rebates for lower income people. But of course if you abolish the council tax, then you abolish the rebate and there is nothing to pay. And in any case why should central govt subsidise such a mad scheme? The DWP is right to say NO.

Also, the SNP are supposed to want Scotland to be independent - what on earth are they doing proposing schemes that will only work if they get a subsidy from England and Wales?

Of course the LibDems are daft enough to go along with this and vote with the SNP in the Scottish Assembly.

What scuppered Margaret Thatcher's poll tax was the way the money levied per person kept ballooning. The local income tax will be the same - they'll start with 3% and end up having to raise the rate sharply as demographics change

]]> 2008-09-03T13:14:26-05:00 [Blogs] Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter pregnant http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/9/1/182625/2462 news that Sarah Palin's 17-year old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant. Apparently there will be a shot-gun wedding.

It's hard not to feel sorry for the girl. 17 is way too young to be expecting, too young to be married, and this will ruin her chances of going to university and getting an education (which will affect her earning ability later in life).

Plus she has to go through it in public because her mother was not only silly enough to preach abstinence to her daughter (instead of talking to her about contraception), it's part of Palin's policy platform that if elected vice-president, she and McCain will continue with the mad Bush policy to abandon all proper sex education in the US in favour of abstinence teaching - and hence because of this policy platform, Bristol becomes fair game as proof of her mother's idiocy.

It's an important issue in Britain too. The Tory religious fundamentalist Nadine Dories is also believes that the Department of health shouldn't spend money on sex education. She writes on her blog that:

"The money that the Department of Health spent on their campaign could have been used on developing a national standard for sex education within schools, which taught the principles of self respect and at least began to address the issue of values, morals and ethics within education and wider society."

Yeah - all the abstinence preachers advocate "self-respect" instead of condoms. That kind of "moral guidance" got poor Bristol Palin knocked up.

P.S. it's interesting to note that even in the motherhood stakes Sarah Palin can't measure up to Hillary Clinton. Chelsea Clinton is charming, well-mannered, well-educated, knows how to keep herself out of trouble and is a real credit to her mother. And the other famous Dem, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, raised five children successfully before entering politics.

The Republicans tend to preach family values but their children don't turn out that well. See Dubya (son of Bush Sr) and his drug and drink escapades, his daughter Jenna and her drunken escapades, and now Sarah Palin's daughter getting herself knocked up. The Dems seem to make better, more responsible parents.

]]> 2008-09-01T18:26:25-05:00 [Blogs] Musings on Identity http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/8/23/15824/5388 iPlayer.

The episode featured Boris Johnson, whom we all know is of mixed ancestry, Russian-Jewish on his mothers side, Turkish-English-French-German on his fathers.

But what was striking about the program was how anxious he was about this. He starts off the program assuring the viewers that he has "loads" of British ancestors. He's quite comfortable during the Turkish section of the story, he's clearly very proud of his Turkish great-grandfather. But when he learns that the de Pffefels are German, not French, it's a bit too much. At one point he remarks to the camera "I hope the people of Henley will bear in mind that at least half my antecedents are actually English. I know it looks like I'm some kind of foreign toff here, which is not necessarily good PR, but at least half of my antecedents are English. English. Loads of them."

He turns out to be descended from minor German kings, and from the Hanovarians, through George II. Boris is thrilled to bits. "I have British royal ancestry" he declares. "I've always felt I was the product of newcomers to Britain, so it's totally bizarre to be told my great times eight grandfather is George II of England". In his mind this makes him legitimately British. Of course George II, being only the second Hanovarian king, is ethnically entirely German and he was born in Germany too - in other words another newcomer.

All of which throws up interesting questions of identity and highlights the differences between the Labour and Conservative parties.

There is no way a Labour politician would have been as anxious about being foreign as Boris was (and a Labour politician would have been embarassed to be descended from a king rather than thrilled). Labour has always accepted that Britain is a mixed place, not just as regards the recent immigrants from the Commonwealth and Eastern europe, or the early mix of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, celts and Vikings, but also due to the great movement of people that took place from the Renaissance up until WW1 (when passports were first introduced), during which time people literally went back and forth across Europe as they wished, and all sorts of people settled in Britain and were absorbed, including imported kings.

Conservatives however have quite a narrow view about identity. I can't help wondering whether Boris and his father adopted their caricature Englishness (cripes and piffle and all the rest of it) because they felt that as incomers they must be more British than thou.

You see this in other Conservative politicians too. Michael Portillo used to never talk about his Spanish father, and felt he had to display fierce hatred towards the EU to compensate for having a European parent (and part of the reason he lost out on becoming Tory leader was due to this foreign-ness, the other part being that Tories were suspicious of anyone with a gay past). Michael Howard adopted such a hardline attitude to immigrants in the 2005 campaign, even his own grandfather would have been sent back to the Nazis had his would-be policies been in place in the 1930's. But perhaps Boris, Portillo and Howard felt that to get anywhere in the Conservative party while being slightly foreign requires you to deny your father three times before the cock crows.

I can see now why Boris wanted to leave Henley and become Mayor of London. He's probably more comfortable in London as most people there are incomers just like he is.

]]> 2008-08-23T15:08:24-05:00 [Blogs] The Olympics and funding - some figures http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/8/23/101843/707
First of all, according to the National Lottery Good Causes site of every £1 raised by the lottery, only 28p goes into good causes.

The good causes are shared out as follows:

Charities, Health, Education & the environment 50%
Sports 16.67%
Arts 16.67%
Heritage 16.67%

Camelot says the totals raised for good causes are as follows:

2001/2 £1,941m
2002/3 £1,378m
2003/4 £1,309m
2004/5 £1,354m
2005/6 £1,509m
2006/7 £1,419m

which means that the amounts going into sports is

2001/2 £323.56m
2002/3 £229.71m
2003/4 £218.21m
2004/5 £225.72m
2005/6 £251.55m
2006/7 £236.55m

Therefore the amount in 2006/7 was some £87m less than in 2001. This is no surprise - the numbers of people playing the lottery are down from the heyday of the mid 90's, as people realise how difficult it is to win anything.

If medals are down to money, you would imagine that we would have done better in Athens and Sydney than at Beijing.

Step in the Labour government - following our Tone winning the 2012 Olympics for us, our Gord announced in the 2006 budget that he'd put in £265m into sport - up from £84m for Athens and £65m for Sydney.

It's the surge of government money that has made the difference.

But of course it's too much to expect the media to give credit where it is due, much less people like John Major, busily touring the studios trying to rehabilitate himself by taking the credit for Beijing.

]]> 2008-08-23T10:18:43-05:00 [Blogs] Looks like the next general election will be about foreign policy http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/8/19/125828/681 loving being on the front line. Not content with the photo-op, he began spouting about banning Russian shoppers from London, which even the Daily Mail's readers were aghast about.

But as Freemania and Labour Matters points out, Cameron is simultaneously cuddling up to the Russians in the Council of Europe:

Happy to jet off to be photographed with the Georgian President, the Conservative leader remains silent about his Party’s close links with the United Russia party of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev on the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly.

...........On the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly, UK Conservative Party members don’t sit with the moderate parties of the right - such as the German CDU/CSU or the French UMP - but with the more extreme right-wing groups like the Danish People’s Party, the Italian National Alliance, as well as Russia’s United Russia party, as part of the ‘European Democrat Group’.

In fact, the European Democrat Group is chaired by a United Russia member, while Cameron’s Conservatives are the honorary president (Baroness Knight); vice-chair (David Wilshire MP), political officer (Robert Walter MP) and co-treasurer (Christopher Chope MP). So while he’s talking tough for the cameras, his MPs are closely tied to the very people he’s supposedly opposed to.

For the unitiated, Putin is chairman of the United Russia party, and Medvedev is one of their representatives. So we have the very strange Conservative policy of shunning the moderate German CDU and French UMP (who have been allies of Britain every time they've been in office), and cuddling up to the extremist United Russia, while at the same time making trips to cuddle up to United Russia's sworn enemies in Georgia. Confused?

Conservative foreign policy is such a mess it's hard to start. In the first place, the Caucasus is such a volatile place, it's dangerous giving unilateral guarantees in case they draw us into a war. If fighting Saddam's rag-tag army in Iraq was unpleasant, fighting Russia would be a million times worse. Therefore the sensible thing to do is to conduct all policy within the EU and NATO - so we arn't left holding any baby on our own.

Only the EU is Cameron's other foreign policy mess. He hates the EU - he would clearly like to leave, else why would he give hints that he will stop free movement of people (something only possible if Britain exits the EU?) He similarly shuns the German CDU and the French UMP because they are pro-EU - but the Chancellor of Germany is from the CDU, and the French UMP control both the French Presidency and the French Assembly, which has implications for Conservatives acting within both NATO and the EU. Not to mention the fact that the EU benefits Britian, individuals and business alike, and the EU has been instrumental in making sure the eastern european countries didn't go down the paths taken by both Georgia and Russia.

Gordon Brown by contrast appears to have learnt all the right lessons from the Blair-War years. He's pulling us out of Iraq. It's clear from his circumspect behaviour over the Georgia-Russia thing that he won't get us involved in any more foreign conflicts if he can help it. When he announces troop increases for Afghanistan, he does so with no pleasure at all - it's clear the decisions are made because he's sat down with the generals and worked out there is no choice, rather than because he's getting a thrill out of war. Brown is cleaning up Blair's mess, but it's also clear he has no taste for war and won't involve us in any more wars if he can help it. He is aware of the difference between defending us and keeping us safe, and involving us in conflicts that do not benefit us. Hence, while being circumspect on Georgia, he is renewing our Trident nuclear defence.

Most Brits understand soberly sending troops because needs must - but don't like it at all when leaders are gung-ho and involving us in all sorts of conflicts that don't concern us at all, and which we can't afford. They understand maintaining defences such as Trident, but don't like us entangling ourselves in conflicts that don't serve our needs.

The next election will be about foreign policy. Who do you want as PM? Someone as diplomatically illiterate as Cameron, who will draw us into any number of conflicts simply as a by-product of his photo-opportunities, or someone like Gordon Brown, who is sober, considered and sensitive to the implications of a wrong move diplomatically? Someone who will leave the EU due to childishly blaming the EU for the ERM debacle, or someone who understands that Britain's interests and prosperity requires remaining a full member of the European Union?

The issue becomes even more acute if John McCain wins the US presidency. Because McCain likes war (indeed Cameron's Georgia policy is a direct copy of McCain's). If McCain controls the White House, Britain would need a determinedly neutral Prime Minister in order not to get drawn into escapades much worse than Iraq.

]]> 2008-08-19T12:58:28-05:00 [Blogs] Debt as a Percentage of GDP http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/8/18/12139/6632
Luckily Eurostat include everything in their debt calculations, so we can get a true picture of what has happened. The Eurostat figures are compiled in accordance with code ESA95, and includes all PFI debt as part of consolidated government debt. Therefore the figures quoted for the UK will be higher than those produced by the UK Treasury. The figures also include all local government debt and state government debt as well as federal government debt. The aim behind these figures is to give a true picture of debt by including all possible sources of government debt.

Here's the UK's debt figures as a % of GDP:

1996 51.3%
1997 49.8%
1998 46.7%
1999 43.7%
2000 41.0%
2001 37.7%
2002 37.5%
2003 38.7%
2004 40.4%
2005 42.1%
2006 43.1%
2007 43.8%

Therefore it is a total LIE for Tories to claim that they bequeathed healthy public finances to Labour, and it's bloody cheek of them to criticise the Labour performance, given how dismal theirs was. Our performance is pretty good compared to that of our major competitors too - see this Eurostat link for everyone else's stats

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