BUDGET BETTER GO WELL.

 

TAX AND SPEND

I think the fevered talk of plots to dislodge the Prime Minister is exaggerated. Whoever is PM on Brexit Day better stand by for massive criticism either for paying the Europeans too much or keeping us too close to the EU. Better to leave Mrs May to take the flack is surely the wise course for aspiring leaders. Reports that some Tory MPs want to go into opposition to refresh the party are ridiculous.

All that said the government is in a fragile state and is relying on Philip Hammond to deliver a good budget next week. I’ve got a lot of time for Phil The Till. When you look around the Cabinet table and see charlatans like Johnson and Gove, there is something reassuring about the grey man with his spreadsheets. He knows Brexit is a dangerous threat to the economy. He knows we are spending billions servicing our debts. Yet he is bated for exuding gloom when he should be apeing Johnson’s unfounded cheerfulness.

On Wednesday the Chancellor ought to loosen the purse strings to help with housing, the NHS, and elderly care. He needs to address our woeful productivity and skills record. But he should be bold enough to put up some taxes to pay for it and go back on a manifesto promise to raise the 40p income tax threshold to £50,000. The elderly should have to pay some National Insurance to begin the task of tackling intergenerational unfairness.

Unlike many commentators I don’t think a General Election is at all likely so now is the time in the political cycle to take a risk with incurring the wrath of those opposed to any tax rises.

But Phil Hammond faces strong opposition in his own party. Former Minister Nick Boles wants the Chancellor to scrap his deficit reduction target. He believes it is fine for the annual deficit to remain at 2.6% indefinitely. This in the face of an Institute for Fiscal Studies warning the deficit could be on course to be £20bn higher than expected by 2021/22.

GORDON BROWN.

The former Prime Minister has been in the North this week to boost sales of his memoirs. I had a lot of time for the granite integrity of this Scottish son of the manse. His one great achievement in No 10 was in October 2008 when he showed global leadership in the middle of the economic crisis.

His great flaw was his undermining of Tony Blair in his desire to be Prime Minister. Why did he want the job so badly? When he got it, he didn’t know what to do with it. Was he a continuity man for New Labour or something else?

He claims his differences with Blair were over policy and he had nothing to do with the personal attacks. The fact is Brown could have reigned in his spin doctors Damian McBride and Charlie Whelan who were constantly briefing against the Prime Minister.

Blair should have sacked Brown after the 2001 General Election, but it’s not just weak Prime Ministers who find it hard to dismiss troublesome Cabinet colleagues.

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A DISMAL TIME FOR POLITICS

 

THE RESHUFFLE.

I would have backed Preston North MP and Security Minister Ben Wallace to be the new Defence Secretary. He was in impressive form at a terrorism seminar I attended during the Tory Party conference in Manchester. He probably lost out to Gavin Williamson because he was a staunch supporter of Boris Johnson in last year’s Tory leadership election.

But at least we have seen the promotion of another North West MP. Esther McVey was reflecting recently at a Downtown event about the fluctuating fortunes of a political life. Defeated in Wirral West in 2015, she was back representing Tatton after this year’s General Election. Now she is promoted to Deputy Chief Whip, a key post in a hung parliament where the government is trying to drive through our exit from the European Union.

THE SCANDAL.

The reshuffle was made necessary by the resignation of Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon as the crisis over MPs sexual behaviour began to unravel.

The reputation of our MPs has never recovered from the 2009 expenses scandal. The disillusionment, which partly explains the Brexit vote, was still with us as the latest revelations about sexual misbehaviour and misogyny broke. It affects all political parties so hopefully we can be spared party point scoring. The solution will require MPs to loosen further their adherence to the view that, as independent legislators, they must be free of outside regulation.

But the damage is done. It remains true that most MPs enter public life to make society a better place, but the cynics who have always claimed that they are in it for what they can get out of it feel vindicated. The critics who say MPs adopt a high moral tone in debates which is not matched by their private behaviour, have been proved right in some cases.

BEYOND PARODY.

The toxic chemistry of people with power being near young employees desperate for jobs is also present in the media.

So, it jarred with me that Radio Five Live’s Pienaar’s Politics recently had the presenter discussing MPs inappropriate behaviour one minute and following it immediately with a feature where a female MP was invited to say whether she would “snog, marry or avoid “a series of male politicians.

While I’m at it here’s another “beyond parody” moment from my week’s radio listening. Footballer Joey Barton, banned from football after betting on games he was playing in, was giving expert analysis on a talkSPORT commentary of Leicester v Everton where his fellow commentator was giving frequent plugs for betfair.

THE ROSCOE LECTURES.

Sticking to the media theme, I attended a lecture by the BBC Director General Tony Hall this week in Liverpool. He was the latest speaker in the Roscoe Lecture series promoted by Liverpool John Moores University. All credit to them for the events they mount in the impressive St George’s Hall.

The DG was worrying about the growing spending power of Netflix and Amazon. The bigger danger to the BBC comes from the constant sniping of the Murdoch press trying to bring down one of our few remaining assets that is the envy of a world where trash programmes peppered with advertising are the norm.

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THERE WON’T BE A GENERAL ELECTION.

 

 

REMEMBER THE TRUTH ABOUT TURKEYS AND CHRISTMAS

 

There is much idle talk amongst political commentators about a General Election being just around the corner. Why would the Conservatives, who have just been caught out badly with an unnecessary election, risk another one? In May Labour appeared to be way behind in the polls, now they are level pegging and would probably emerge the largest party.

The argument goes that the Tories would have to hold an election if they changed Prime Minister. This is nonsense. Mrs May is looking more confident and cheerful since her coughing fit in Manchester. It wouldn’t surprise me if she sacks Boris Johnson and Phil Hammond in a reshuffle. But let us suppose for a moment that the Grant Shapps of this world haven’t gone away and force a leadership election. In my view the next Tory Prime Minister takes office and carries on. There is no constitutional requirement to go to the country, nor is there any precedent since 1955 when Eden took over from Churchill and went straight into a General Election.

Since then there have been four occasions when the Prime Minister has changed during a parliament. In 1963 Lord Home (the Jacob Rees Mogg of his day) succeeded Harold Macmillan and waited for the scheduled General Election in 1964. Jim Callaghan took over from Harold Wilson in 1976 and served for three years till defeated in a vote of no confidence. John Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher in 1990 and served out the rest of her term before winning the scheduled election in 1992. The Prime Minister most under pressure to seek a fresh mandate was Gordon Brown, but in 2007 he finally decided not to risk it.

Some say the Democratic Unionist Party will renounce their deal with the Tories if the Brexit negotiations require the island of Ireland to be treated as one entity for customs purposes. Possibly, but when will things ever be so good for the DUP again? It will be a long time before they get a billion pounds from a British political party again.

I expect this government to totter on hopelessly divided on Brexit and incapable of a proper negotiation with the European Union. Hopefully there will be a massive change in public opinion on leaving the EU. Then all bets will be off for the future shape of politics in Britain.

THE CATALONIA CONUNDRUM.

I normally have a settled opinion on most political issues but the Catalonia demand for independence really leaves me hopelessly on the fence.

I believe in a European Union where the regions of individual countries have powerful devolved government to bring decision making close to the people and to tackle inequalities like the North South divide. That is why I believed in John Prescott’s model of development agencies held accountable by assemblies.

But regional government should be about those principles of more equal wealth distribution within countries. The Catalan region is the wealthiest in Spain and many supporters of independence don’t want to share their prosperity with poorer areas. In Italy the Northern League has the same attitude to the south of their country.

One thing I am sure of is that using violence against the Catalan people or suspending their devolved powers will solve nothing.

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NORTHERN RAIL: ARE THE TORIES SERIOUS ?

 

AWKWARD TIMES AT MANCHESTER CONFERENCE.

The May government is rattled by the growing perception that they are not serious about the Northern Powerhouse. So, it perhaps would have been easier for the Conservatives to be meeting in their other conference city, Birmingham. The city has been confirmed as the UK candidate for the 2022 Commonwealth Games following the election of a Tory West Midlands mayor. In Greater Manchester we elected Andy Burnham who has expressed his outrage at the decision to downgrade the electrification of the Leeds-Manchester rail line whilst giving the go ahead to Crossrail 2 in London.

We know the government is rattled because last week I was present at a meeting in Manchester where the Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, came out fighting over his government’s transport spending. He told a startled business audience that he was going to slay some myths and rattled off a whole series of road improvements from Cumbria to Cheshire before tackling rail. His argument seems to be that electrification could be an old hat solution and bi-modal trains with state of the art technology could be the answer.

The issue is sure to come up at a conference where the Tories are reeling on many fronts. Whereas I saw Jeremy Corbyn lauded at every turn in Brighton for losing the General Election, Theresa May comes to Manchester having “won” but with the worst Conservative campaign in living memory. The Tories are past masters at preventing unrest breaking out on the conference floor but there is sure to be some raking over of the General Election coals at the fringe meetings.

Europe will also be an issue to watch at the Manchester conference. The prospect of us effectively being in the European Union until 2021 has angered the hardline Brexiteers. There will be plenty of them in Manchester Central. The Tory activists who come to conference have always been very Eurosceptic.

Besides the Northern Powerhouse, the poor election campaign and Europe, the main challenge for the Tories this weekend will be to answer the growing opposition to austerity and cuts. Labour is shamelessly promising everything to everyone, even acknowledging that if they came to power there could well be a massive run on the pound. Nevertheless, they seem to have caught a tide of opinion against pay curbs, high rents and homelessness. The Tories’ austerity programme has been in place for over seven years now and people are fed up. There are some signs that ministers are recognising this but that can spell danger. Small concessions don’t necessarily assuage the anger. They can make matters worse as workers take industrial action to push for more and the uncertain tone from ministers gives the impression that the government is running out of ideas and is past its sell by date.

Jeremy Corbyn said in Brighton that he was a Prime Minister in waiting. It was a bold, some would say fanciful claim, but if the Cabinet infighting over Europe doesn’t stop, if the cracks are on display in Manchester, there can be no certainty over what might happen this winter.

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