A week or so ago I wrote about how Jack Straw was trying to claim that it is not a lack of planning that we have so few places in our prisons, but rather we are locking up too many criminals (I think he learnt that argument on day one of spin school). On that same day the Ministry of Justice sta
Government
Following my post on the story in the News of the World about a couple (Sean and Chloe Ash) who have been driven apart by the benefits system, someone has posted a reply in the name of Sean Ash, wanting to put the record straight. Of course, one cannot tell on the internet if someone is really who he says he is, but it reads to me like it really is Sean - read it and judge for yourself.
Given that the NOTW and ConservativeHome wanted to make this an illustration of the wisdom of Ian Duncan Smith's proposals, particularly with regard to the £20/week tax-break for married couples, the following comments by Sean seem significant:
"I was not fighting for married couples to get more money, I am not a greedy man and I am very religious and value life over money any day of the week."
"It [the reason Sean contacted NOTW] was more to do with married couples on sickness benefits looking to return to work being awarded low affordable housing.. not MORE money."
It's interesting that a member of the Murdoch stable has chosen to twist a story to favour a feeble Tory proposal, contradicting the views of the person whose story they were supposedly telling. This tells us something both about the propagandizing nature of the Murdoch press, and about the fragility of Rupert's relationship with Gordon.
Government
It is clear the readers of PL are a forgiving, trusting bunch. Where else would you find 42% of a community that bought Kennedy's excuse of believing smoking out an open window was alright?! Only 23% of you thought that the Liberal Democrat was smoking on the train as a protest stand for classical liberalism. 35% of you (the less forgiving, probably more shrewd of you!) thought he was lying law breaker. Good on you Charlie – at least he has some character, even if he is the slightly a more serious, Scottish version of Boris.
The Communities and local government select committee, chaired by Labour MP Dr Phyllis Starkey, has rubbished (excuse the pun) the government's strategy for reducing waste in landfill sites. You may remember the plans for fortnightly bin collections and fines for not re-cycling were the solution to the growing landfill problem. Well, Mr Starkey and his committee have damned the policy as "half-hearted and likely to fail". The report says plans to charge householders who fail to recycle £30 a year are too timid and too complicated and a reward of up to £30 for "
Government
Well done to ConservativeHome for pointing out the story in today's News Of The World about the couple who are splitting up because they are financially better-off living apart.
Not so well done to both CH and the News of the Screws for their slant on this story. They both seem to think that this demonstrates (in the words of the Screws) the wisdom of "David Cameron's tax-break pledge to give married couples an extra £20 a week", or (in the more accurate words of CH) "the problem that Iain Duncan Smith's social justice report was attempting to begin to address".
So a £20/week tax-credit will make a difference to a couple who stand to lose £878/month if the man gets a job, will it? And is this related to whether they are married? Or would this couple face the same disadvantage if they were co-habiting? Is it only children of married couples who deserve to have their dad living at home?
Our broken welfare system needs a complete overhaul. A £20/week tax-credit to married couples is such an ineffectual and partial solution that it is an insult to anyone who genuinely cares about putting this right. It has nothing to do with a genuine desire to rebalance the system, and everything to do with appealing to traditionalists within the Tory party.
What does this story really tell us? Sean Ash is on disability benefit because of 'painful sciatica'. Chloe Ash is on disability benefit because of 'manic depression'. Between them, thanks to these debilitating medical conditions that have prevented them from taking employment of any kind and the generosity of the welfare system to non-workers, they have a disposable income of £1,702/month. That is £20,424/year. This puts their household income somewhere between the fifth and sixth decile in terms of income distribution (figures available for download from the ONS). In other words, around half of all households in the UK have a lower final income than Sean and Chloe. Not bad remuneration for doing nothing.
Now Sean has decided to take a job, his loss of benefits means that the household would be worse-off (£1,472/month) than if he stayed on disability. So they have split up, because, as Chloe says, staying together "meant my little boy would suffer". I bet their little boy is really glad that his mum and dad protected him from pain by splitting up.
And the answer to this is to give a £20/week tax break to married couples?
Government
Every year we spend £23bn on government project cock ups. That is £900 per household! This cost simply comes from the extra costs added to projects because the government runs over budget - it doesn't take in to account the fact the most of these projects are either completely pointless or should have been commissioned using public money in the first place. Of the 300 schemes that were analysed by The Tax Payers' Alliance, over half were running over budget. Here are some examples:
Amazingly, the report says 14 major public sector projects racked up cost overruns bigger than the Millennium Dome, which went £204 million over budget. Andrew Allum, the chairman of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said "Having had first-hand experience of public sector capital projects, it's clear that the politicians and civil servants in charge lack the management experience and subject knowledge to run them effectively." PL's philosophy exactly. The government has the worst project planners and economists on planet earth, I am sure of that. It's not just the fact that these projects don't get delivered on time and more often than not are not quite what we hoped they'd be, but we are spending so much money - significant amounts - on this incompetence.
So it turns out that the car is more environmentally friendly than the train for a family of three or more. That's one in the eye for enviro-nutters. It is also one in the eye for this government's completely muddled and irrational environmental and transport policies. As for the spiralling cost of rail transport... Which reminds me, I have to catch a South West Train today, nothing could fill me with more dread. And now it turns out I'd better off in the comfort of a car.
Government
From "News in Brief", The Times, July 12:
Idle civil servants
Lord Jones of Birmingham (try not to laugh) made his maiden speech in the House of Lords today, on the subject of the Energy White Paper. In a largely unremarkable spiel, most of which simply restated government position, the only comments that went beyond that position were the following:
"In the UK, we are used to being largely self-sufficient in terms of our electricity generation: the people are used to it. But times are changing, and they are changing at a time of rising demand and prices and at a time when energy supplies are becoming increasingly politicised. This is not a position anyone in this country will be comfortable with."
"If nuclear is not available to the energy market as an option, it is likely that in its place much of the new investment will be in gas or coal generation, which, of course, emits higher levels of carbon and leaves us increasingly dependent upon imports for this nation’s electricity generation."
So the argument is being warmed-up that nuclear power somehow reduces our dependence on imports and therefore increases our energy security. Let's have a look at that.
Firstly, nuclear power, as part of the portfolio alongside gas, coal and renewables, does contribute to the diversity of our electricity supplies. Diversity, it is widely recognised amongst energy-policy experts, is the key to security. I am not disputing that point.
But Lord Jones is going beyond that. He is slipping into the realms of autarky - the false economic notion that we are more secure if we are self-sufficient. Though it is a view that is slipping out increasingly often nowadays (I heard a Merrill Lynch energy analyst make the same error recently, before quickly retreating from it when challenged), it is a view that carries little weight amongst serious analysts. We were never more self-sufficient than when we produced most of our electricity from British coal. And our electricity supplies were never less secure, thanks to the dominant position in which this put the mining unions.
But even if it were a valid position, are Lord Jones's claims true? Are we "used to being largely self-sufficient"? And will we be less dependent on imports if we have nuclear rather than gas or coal?
The answer is "no" to both these questions. We import all our uranium for the nuclear power stations, and we have been importing a large proportion of the coal for our coal-fired power stations since the mid-1980s. We are not used to being self-sufficient, and importing uranium will not make us less dependent on imports than importing other fuels. And if it is "rising demand and prices" that Digby is worried about, he should have a look at uranium prices - a tenfold increase in the last few years makes the increases in fossil-fuel prices look insignificant.
This is not an argument against nuclear. This is only one small part of the issue. But it is an unfounded appeal to economic nationalism that ought not to be part of the debate. It makes one suspicious about the merits of the case for nuclear, if these are the tactics that Lord Jones and his political masters have decided to resort to.
Government
Yesterday I reported how the government had spent billions on trying to get kids to do some sport with the incredible result of making absolutely no difference what so ever. Today, it has come to light that another one of the government's attempt to stop our kids turning in to a nation of Bernard Mannings have also failed in spectacular fashion. The Department of Health's initiative to get kids eating more fruit has cost £42m to set up and they have blindly invested a further £77m in the scheme since the launch.
He is officially back. Jack Straw that is. He has come up with an ingenious solution to prison overcrowding problem too. Instead of building our way out of the problem - i.e.
Government
Government