Tag: Tories

PEOPLE, NOT POLITICIANS, LEAD ON TAX

Demands for people and companies to pay their fair share of tax, and for company chief executives pay and bonuses to be capped is being led by the grass roots not their leaders.

It’s all very well for David Cameron to jump on the bandwagon and pick on comedian Jimmy Carr’s tax avoidance scheme, but the Prime Minister joins most politicians in failing to address this issue for years.

The Labour Party should have taken a lead while it was in office for 13 years but Tony Blair was so focussed on being “business friendly” that there was little pretence that the party was going to be true to its socialist grass roots and narrow the gap between rich and poor through the tax system. Indeed Lord Mandelson said he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.”

It’s unlikely the public was relaxed, even during the economic good times. They certainly aren’t now as the recession bites hard.

It should now be clear to politicians that there are votes in fairness. There is nothing incompatible between fair taxes, bonuses and salaries and a competitive society. There’s a lot of nonsense talked about our top entrepreneurs being poised with their passports ready to flee Britain for some low tax foreign paradise.

There are a few who are prepared to endure boredom in boiling Qatar or humid Hong Kong. Good luck to them. We must have fairness in Britain and politicians of all parties with the guts to outsmart the clever accountants and their tax loopholes.

THE SECRET POLICE ELECTIONS

It seems as if the government is hell bent on ensuring a low turnout in the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners.

These are entirely new posts that the public have no experience of. Voting will take place in November when the weather is likely to be even worse than it is at the moment. Finally there will be no freepost for the parties to communicate with the public.

If you are tempted to run as an independent in say Merseyside, you will need £60,000 to contact every elector.

At the moment we only know the Labour candidates in the North West. I went along to their launch this week and encountered two familiar faces, Tony Lloyd and Jane Kennedy.

Tony was returned unopposed by the Greater Manchester Labour Party and will shortly stand down as MP for Central Manchester.

Jane Kennedy, a former MP, won a bruising contest with another ex Liverpool MP, Peter Kilfoyle, and the chair of the Merseyside Police Authority Cllr Bill Weightman. Bill opined that the Commissioner role should not be a bolt hole for former MPs.

That was a mild comment compared to Jane Kennedy’s criticism of Peter Kilfoyle for suggesting that being born in Liverpool was a key qualification for the job. She described that to me as the “little Liverpool campaign” and was glad Labour members had rejected it.

Mayor Joe was at the photo call having surprisingly intervened in the selection process to back Kennedy. He justified his decision with a rambling analogy related to choosing cakes. I wondered whether he’d have been present if Kilfoyle had won to which his response was “We’ll never know now.”

Anderson is clearly happy to continue mixing it in the political field. Earlier in the campaign he’d told the Leigh MP Andy Burnham not to interfere in a Merseyside election when the Shadow Health Secretary had given his support to Kilfoyle.

Labour made its choice in Lancashire in a more seemly manner. Lancashire County councillor Clive Grunshaw from Fleetwood is a member of the current Lancashire Police Authority. He may be up against Geoff Driver if the current Conservative leader of Lancashire County Council decides to go for the Tory nomination.

In Cheshire Labour has chosen Halton councillor John Stockton. He may face Baroness Helen Newlove for the Tories. Her husband was murdered by three youth in Warrington in 2007.

There are a number of issues to return to about these new posts as we run up to November including their effectiveness, their relationships with the Chief Constables and what it tells us about the attitude of the the Tories (the traditional party of law and order) and the police.

LABOUR LANDSLIDE IN NORTH WEST ELECTIONS?

LABOUR LANDSLIDE IN NORTH WEST TOWN HALLS?

Labour could be heading for the dominance of Town Halls in our region that they last enjoyed in the mid 1990s.

The local elections on May 3rd have been overshadowed by coverage of the elections and referendums on elected mayors. We need to remind ourselves that in Lancashire the issue is completely irrelevant. In most cases the old model of electing councillors to the Town Hall and the leader being chosen internally remains.

There are old fashioned elections for a third of the metropolitan councils in Greater Manchester and Merseyside. There are also contests for a third of the councillors in seven district councils in Lancashire and the all purpose councils in Blackburnwith Darwen,Warrington and Halton.

The political background against which these contests are taking place does have similarities to the mid nineties. In 1995 and 1996 the dying Tory government of John Major suffered successive hammerings in local elections which left them in control of only one council in the whole of the North of England.

Things aren’t that bad for the Conservatives this time but events have conspired to make it likely that this will be the election where the government really suffers the mid term blues. Last year the Tories dodged the bullet, partly because of the collapse of the Lib Dems. This time both coalition parties are likely to face the wrath of the voters for a range of reasons.

The economy is always the main factor and however much Ministers might look for signs of recovery, people and businesses are suffering.

Then there was the Budget. Far from helping Conservative and Lib Dem candidates in the North West, a range of unhelpful headlines will ensure a frosty reception on the doorstep, phone or Twitter.

The underlying strategy to keep bearing down on our national debt was right. What was wrong was not to foresee the reaction of people to the granny tax, the pasty penalty and the removal of tax relief on large charity donations.

So let’s look at how all this might play out on the ground in the North West with Labour having a healthy lead in the polls and the Lib Dems fighting with UKIP for third party status.

Labour is further helped by the fact that on the last three occasions when these seats were contested they did badly so they have “easy” ground to make up. In 2000 Tony Blair suffered mid term blues, in 2004 the Iraqwar was underway and in 2008 Gordon Brown’s brief honeymoon was over.

Last year the Tories made up for northern losses by taking Lib Dem seats in the south. This year they are defending some unlikely gains when Gordon Brown was in charge.

The Lib Dems may not repeat last year’s catastrophe which saw them lose nearly every seat they were defending in Liverpool and all in Manchester, but they could end up with less than three thousand councillors nationally for the first time since 1986.

Lancashire offers most prizes to Labour with the probability that they will win full control of Rossendale and become the largest party in Pendle, Chorley and Burnley. In Pendle and Chorley the Conservatives are currently the largest party, but in Burnley it’s the Lib Dems.

A Labour recovery in Burnley would mark the end of eight dark years for the party. They lost control in 2004 initially to a surge from the British National Party who were in turn replaced by the Lib Dems.

On the back of that the Lib Dems got Gordon Birtwhistle elected as MP which illustrates the importance of these polls for the General Election in three years time. If your council base is knocked away, you can lose the activists you need to fight the parliamentary contest.

An outside prospect for Labour is West Lancashirewhere they would need a net gain of six seats to resume the control they lost in 2002.

On Merseyside the most significant contest will be in Wirral. All hell has broken out around Wallasey Town Hall in the last couple of years. Two years ago the Tories took minority control. Last May Labour were back only for the Tories to link up once again with Lib Dem support to put Conservative Jeff Green back in charge in February.

Steve Foulkes, the long standing leader of Labour in the peninsula is standing down and added to all this a tale of alleged council officer incompetence is being revealed. Labour’s new leadership is hoping it can gain full control for the first time in ten years.

Labour has never had full control of Sefton. They need a net gain of five seats which will be difficult in this historically balanced council, but deep Tory divisions centred on ex Tory Sir Ron Watson may help.

In Greater Manchester, Lib Dem minority control of Stockport is in jeopardy. A lot will depend on whether the consistently underperforming Tories can help Labour in squeezing the Lib Dems.

Labour should take full control of Rochdale where the Lib Dems have been hit by defections to the Tories and Labour should consolidate the hold that they gained in Bury by the drawing of lots in a dead heat ward last May.

Trafford is likely to remain the one Tory bastion in Greater Manchester although Labour entertains a thin hope of removing the Tories overall majority.

Labour will hold the unitaries of Blackburn with Darwen, Halton and Warrington. In the latter case a particularly interesting contest will take place in the Lymm ward. Long standing Tory matriarch Sheila Woodyatt is up against Labour’s Su Williams. Williams is well regarded for her local community work and it might make a difference.

It is a reminder that for all the national political tides at work, local candidates can often make a difference.

GEORGE AND THE BATTLING GRANNIES

You’ve got to hand it to the toff from Tatton, he doesn’t lack political courage.

At one stroke George Osborne has knocked the walking stick out of the hands of pensioners and rewarded his millionaire friends with a massive tax cut.

And yet for all the controversy the income tax cut and the age related tax allowance freeze will create, the Chancellor gave a confident performance. The signal was given out that the government’s determination to bring down the deficit was on course and the Coalition was holding together.

The ludicrously leaked budget was all about Tories and Lib Dems showing how much influence they had on the decision making process. Both parties got prizes. The Tories cut the 50p rate, the Lib Dems are now close to their pledge that people earning less than £10,000 should not pay income tax.

Osborne must now pray for growth and that the newly enriched millionaires will not only “stay and pay” but will invest to help the recovery. We must remember the government has only just begun the cuts agenda. There is the prospect of a further £10bn cut in welfare benefits.

The Chancellor ran up the white flag on the 50p rate effectively saying that private sector accountants had outwitted Treasury officials who draft our tax laws. We’ll see how effective the government’s pledge is to clamp down on aggressive tax avoidance.

He must also hope there will not be a big backlash over the “granny tax”. There is an argument that the golden generation born into the welfare state after the war, enjoying full employment and retiring on good company pensions should share the burden with the young suffering from tuition fees, unemployment and the prospect of retiring at 70 on average salary pensions.

The problem for politicians is that the old vote and the young don’t. The scrapping of the age related allowance is going to hit soon-to-retire couples really hard.

Labour still isn’t trusted on the economy but Ed Miliband did well in the House of Commons when he invited Tory MPs to acknowledge they would personally benefit from the income tax cut.

BUDGET IN THE NORTH WEST

The Chancellor’s announcement of investment in the Preston-Blackpool, Manchester-Bradford and Manchester-Sheffield rail lines is welcome. The links between Manchester and South Yorkshire are particularly bad. The full commitment to the vital Northern Hub at Piccadilly Station is still awaited though.

Manchester has done well, getting £150m over five years from the Treasury in return for promised economic growth through tax increment financing. The city is also to be part of the government’s superfast broadband project.

Surprisingly Liverpool wasn’t included, another blow after the city’s failure in its bid for the Green Investment Bank.

VIV BINGHAM OBE

The funeral was held yesterday of one of the finest Liberals the North West has produced.

Although he never made it to parliament, Viv Bingham served the party at every level from fighting hopeless seats to becoming Party President.

A principled man, he was sometimes a thorn in the side of his party leaders particularly on the issue of nuclear weapons. He was a confirmed unilateralist.

But overwhelmingly people responded to his friendship and warm hearted personality.

Over thirty years he fought a range of seats from Heywood and Royton and Hazel Grove to West Derbyshire and Stalybridge and Hyde.

The highlight of his career was his year as President of the Liberal Party 1981-82.

Viv brought all his diplomatic skills to bear in his party’s sometimes difficult relations with the newly formed Social Democratic Party.

The many tributes in recent days are eloquent testament to the passing of a true Liberal.

JOBS, MAYORS AND WIRRAL IN A WHIRL

Who’s going to pull us out of this economic mess? Big companies, SMEs, or the North West’s answer to Mark Zuckerberg lurking on one of our university campuses like Lancaster or UCLAN?

Unemployment might top three million by year end according to some forecasters.

Certainly last week’s jobless figures did nothing to raise spirits in manufacturing areas like Lancashire.

Hard on the heels of the unemployment statistics came news of disappointing sales results at BAE Systems. That’s a big company employing thousands of people at Warton, Salmesbury and Chorley.

They’ve been hit by falling defence orders and may lose a major contract for Eurofighter Typhoons for the Indian air force to the French. It should be pointed out however that Dassault Aviation is only the preferred bidder and frantic efforts are being made to ensure all is not lost.

Then there’s AstraZeneca employing three thousand people at Alderley Park in Cheshire. There’s another giant in the job cutting business because producing new highly profitable drugs is getting more difficult.

Finally in this catalogue of tottering titans, we have General Motors which owns the Vauxhall plant at Ellesmere Port. Despite a highly efficient and cooperative workforce, the American based management is reported to be contemplating cuts in its European operations here and in Germany.

So what’s to be done? BAE, AstraZeneca and Vauxhall are big potatoes in the North West economic stew. If they are downsizing, where are the jobs to come from?

The Institute for Public Policy Research North published a report last week that might provide part of the answer.

The document “Beyond bricks and mortar boards: universities and the future of regional economic development”, points out that knowledge-based industries employing staff with high level skills will see the most significant growth in job creation by the end of the decade.

So universities like UCLAN will be central to skill creation, but the report says there needs to be wider recognition of the role universities can play in the North West economy.

As well as producing highly skilled people, the report identifies their economic impact in university towns like Lancaster where high incomes are generated and the institution is a significant employer.

Like everyone else, universities have had to adjust to the new regional policy landscape which has seen the Regional Development Agency and North West Universities Association swept away.

The report challenges the new Local Enterprise Partnerships to make the best use of the universities in this region.

At the launch of the report in Manchester there was an acceptance of this approach, but efforts by a few attendees to trash the reputation of the RDA were resisted. The Vice Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University, Prof. John Brooks, was not alone in criticising the lack of regional focus in the new arrangements.

From the rarefied company of academics in Manchester I was quickly back to low politics on Merseyside.

First I dropped in on Alec Salmond charming an audience in St George’s Hall with his demand for Scottish independence. The First Minister is a clever politician lacing his address with references toLiverpooland all the fine football managers his country has bequeathed the city.

I wanted to ask him a key question but wasn’t lucky enough to be called so I’ll ask it here. “Mr Salmond, you have a mandate for a yes/no referendum on Scottish independence. What you don’t have is a mandate to ask a question about ‘ devo max’ which could muddle the answer and would show your lack of confidence that you can get full independence. What’s your answer?’’

Then it was on to Wallasey Town Hall to see the latest chapter in the soap that is Wirral politics. Steve Foulkes has been deposed as Labour leader after just nine months back in office by a coalition of Tories and Lib Dems which may only have three months in power before Labour sweeps back in the May elections.

Wirral was one of the councils most opposed to a city region mayor. I fear they will become increasingly marginalised conducting their power struggles whilst Liverpool benefits from the cash that will follow the election of a mayor.

On that subject I have only one thing to say this week and it is to Phil Redmond. In a Liverpool newspaper, the Tarporley resident tells us he wants to be provided with a series of answers before he deigns to tell us if he’s a candidate or not.

Find out for yourself Phil, and then decide one way or the other. Unlike arty seminars, politics requires decisions.