Blogs

Government  

• An accounting rule that has plunged more than two dozen hospital trusts into an irrecoverable financial position is to be ditched, Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, is to announce today. Now "absolutely confident" that the National Health Service would record a small surplus at the end of this financial year, Ms Hewitt said it could now use part of the £450m contingency reserve that strategic health authorities had built up to find the £179m needed to end a rule that the health department had long ac-cepted was "unsustainable". http://www.ft.com/cms/s/26d60290-dcca-11db-a21d-000b5df10621.html  
• Plans for a new generation of casinos, including the first "supercasino" in Manchester, will be thrown into confusion tonight with knife-edge votes in the Commons and Lords. Defeat in either House will ensure that the order implementing the supercasino and 16 smaller casino locations proposed by an independent panel cannot go ahead and Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, will have to return to the drawing board. But the Tories decided last night against killing Manchester's hopes in the Lords by backing an amended version of Ms Jowell's legislation which will still allow the 17 casinos to open. The vote is hanging in the balance in the Commons however, where Tory MPs have been given a three line whip requiring them to vote against the proposals, backed by the Liberal Democrats and a hard core of Labour rebels. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1577416.ece  
• The total bill for the Government's failure to pay English farmers their subsidies on time over the past two years could reach £500 million, a committee of MPs is expected to say today. The cost includes up to £305 million in fines from Europe, £156 million on "fixing" the failures at the Rural Payments Agency and £21 million in interest payments to farmers last year. In a long-awaited report which is expected to be critical of the Government, MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee are expected to determine whether responsibility should rest with a wider range of ministers and officials than who have lost their jobs so far. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/28/nfarm28.xml  
• The Tories' lead over Labour has fallen sharply in the wake of the Budget, according to the latest monthly opinion poll for The Independent. The survey by CommunicateResearch puts David Cameron's Conservatives on 35 per cent (down five points on last month), Labour on 31 per cent (+2), the Liberal Democrats on 20 per cent (+3) and other parties on 14 per cent (unchanged). The Tory lead has dropped from 11 points to just four. Labour's recovery is mainly due to a swing back to the party among middle-income groups - a key target of Gordon Brown's final Budget last week. Labour's support among the C2 social group, credited with keeping Margaret Thatcher in power, has risen from 23 per cent to 32 per cent in the past month. Among the next highest group on the scale, the C1s, Labour is up from 27 per cent to 32 per cent. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2398889.ece  
• The SNP is heading for victory in the Scottish parliamentary elections on May 3, in what would be a severe blow to Gordon Brown shortly before he becomes Prime Minister, an opinion poll for The Times suggests today. Mr Brown could go into the next general election with the Nationalists the largest single party in his own backyard, and facing the prospect of an SNP-led minority executive in Edinburgh seeking to challenge him at every turn. The Populus poll puts the Nationalists ahead of Labour in both the first-past-the-post and proportional-representation sections. They are on track to win 50 seats in the 129-seat Scottish Parliament, seven more than Labour. The Liberal Democrats would have 18 MSPs, the Conservatives 17 and the Greens one.  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1577453.ece

EU  

Government  

• Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, today launched the Government's search for a partner to deliver a new £1.2m Innovation Exchange - a programme to support the third sector's capacity to innovate. The Innovation Exchange programme - being put out to tender today by the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) in the Cabinet Office - aims to provide third sector innovators with access to the people and potential capital they need to make their ideas a reality.  
• Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton today announced a comprehensive review of the health of the working age population, assessing current health levels and providing a benchmark against which to measure future workplace health improvements.  

Liberal Democrats  

Government  

• Tougher community sentences and more measures to rehabilitate criminals are among a raft of law and order ideas being unveiled by Tony Blair. The prime minister's policy review will also back units for mentally ill prisoners and a police reorganisation. The Lord Chancellor said the government had to constantly look to improve its approach to law and order. But the Tories accused Mr Blair, who is due to step down, of "grandstanding" in the "dying days of his premiership". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6498003.stm  
• Local authorities insisted they were "delivering" today as new figures showed council tax will go up over the coming year by an average of 4.2 per cent. The rise equates to around £53 on a Band D property, one occupied by two-adults, and means that the average council tax for such properties will be £1,258 in London, £1,284 in other metropolitan areas and £1,348 in shire areas. Although the increase is the second lowest annual rise since the 1994-95 period, it is still far higher than current consumer price inflation of 2.8 per cent. Councils are doing "everything in their power" to keep bills down, and many people can look forward to a real terms cut over the next financial year, according to the Local Government Association. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=1UCJRSI2ELMMHQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/03/27/ncouncil127.xml  
• The National Health Service is facing a much bigger cash crisis than thought, the Conservatives said yesterday as they unveiled figures showing an overspend of £2.7bn in 2005-06, which will have to be recouped this year and next. The NHS as a whole recorded a deficit of £536m last year, but the Tories claimed the true figure could be five times as high, with frontline services now facing severe cuts in order to make up the difference. The Department of Health spent £74.3bn in 2005-06, £2.7bn more than its original "near-cash resource limit" of £71.6bn. Ivan Lewis, the health minister, told parliament in December the NHS deficit was "the main reason" for the overspend. The Conservatives accused the government of concealing the true extent of the overspend by using "sleight of hand" in the government's accounts. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8cd7ca90-dbff-11db-9233-000b5df10621.html  
• A former senior civil servant has said the purchaser/provider split in the NHS is not working. Professor Chris Ham, formerly head of strategy at the Department of Health, said the shake-up was hampered by an "Achilles heel" of GPs and primary care trusts' inability to negotiate with big hospitals. http://www.epolitix.com/EN/Bulletins/PressReview/fullpressreview.htm?bulletindate=27-Mar-2007  
• A government programme to help council tenants and lower earners into property ownership has been criticised by MPs. The Commons public accounts committee said shared equity schemes, which cost about £500m a year, wasted money and did not help enough people. Under the schemes, tenants buy part of a property and a housing association, lender or the government owns the rest. The MPs said this did not necessarily serve as a route to full ownership and some "less deserving" people benefited. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6497701.stm  
• London is bidding to be at the forefront of the latest commercial space race by spending £12m to help launch a groundbreaking new satellite. The London Development Agency's backing could help telecommunications satellite company Inmarsat, which is based in the capital, win a £600m satellite development contract from the European Space Agency. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/bfc990c4-dbfe-11db-9233-000b5df10621.html  
• Pupils should be able to suggest suitable punishments for bullies in their school, according to an MPs' report into bullying. The Commons Education Select Committee also warned that children should not be excluded from school for retaliating against bullies. The report called for schools to record all bullying, including homophobic. But the government said this would be too bureaucratic for head teachers - and would shortly issue new guidance. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6496725.stm  

Conservatives  

Government  

Government  

• The Government is to dramatically overhaul its strategy on crime by ending its drive for ever-tougher sentences and instead putting more emphasis on rehabilitating offenders and sending fewer of them to prison. Cabinet papers leaked to The Independent show that ministers admit their current approach alone will not solve the complex problem of crime in Britain today. The significant change of emphasis will be welcomed by critics who claim Tony Blair has not lived up to his own rhetoric because he has been "tough on crime" without being "tough on the causes of crime". http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2393313.ece  
• A postcode lottery still exists in NHS dental care, according to the consumer organisation Which?, with huge variations in the availability of dentists around the country. Fieldworkers posing as patients newly moved into an area contacted 466 dental practices across England - and only about a third (36%) said they were taking on new NHS patients. This is no significant improvement, says Which?, from 2005 when the figure was 31%. The findings are published a year after the government brought in new contracts for dentists that were intended to make NHS dentistry more available. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2042648,00.html  
• Secondary students will be offered cheap school transport under plans to open up popular schools in wealthy areas to pupils from poorer neighbourhoods, as well as to promote eco-friendly travel. Pupils will be charged a maximum of 50p a journey for travelling on school buses or chartered coaches, or for passes for public buses or trains, the Department for Education will announce today. The subsidised travel will be available from September 2008 to all secondary school pupils in 20 pilot local authorities, regardless of ability to pay. Poor children will not have to pay at all. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article1567403.ece  
• Tony Blair and his work and pensions secretary, John Hutton, are to announce today that they want to push through big changes in the government's welfare programme by the summer, including a new role for the private sector. Mr Hutton will outline his timetable today at a conference that will also be addressed by the banker David Freud, who carried out a welfare review for the government. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2042642,00.html  
• The UK is set to fall far short of meeting the renewable energy demand of its biggest corporate customers in 2007, even as the government continues to set ambitious targets. About 3,500 of the country's biggest energy customers - from chemical producers to retail chains and banks - want to buy 34 terrawatt/hours (34bn kilowatt/hours) of electricity from renewable sources in 2007. That is three times the 12.2TWh of accredited renewable electricity produced in the UK in 2006 and far exceeds estimates for 2007, a Datamonitor study has found. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d7d33e20-db10-11db-ba4d-000b5df10621.html  
• Tens of thousands of second-home owners have won an unexpected reprieve, The Times has learnt. But rural campaigners who have been pressing for an extra levy on holiday properties to try to contain local house prices said that it was a "disgrace" that the Government had refused to go ahead with it. The reprieve comes as ministers prepare for more damaging headlines over council tax rises. Tomorrow ministers are expected to confirm rises of more than 4 per cent from next month, with average bills going up by more than £50 to £1,320 a year. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1567423.ece  
• Two of the Government's rising junior ministers urge Gordon Brown today to embark on a radical reform of schools as the Chancellor's leadership campaign gathers pace. Writing in The Times, James Purnell and Jim Murphy suggest that, in an effort to refresh Labour's appeal to aspirational families, able children could be given their own funds to develop their talents in secondary schools. Both ministers are Blairites who are expected to support the Chancellor as leader but their proposals are intended to ensure that his campaign has a broad appeal within the Labour Party and challenges David Cameron's appeal to the middle classes. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1567439.ece
• The government is way behind its target to halve child poverty by 2010, figures due to be published tomorrow will show. Official statistics will show that the government is still struggling to make progress on the issue having missed the first milestone, a reduction of ne-quarter by 2005, by some 300,000 children. In last week's Budget, Gordon Brown, the chancellor, said his planned increases in the child and working tax credits would lift another 200,000 above the poverty line. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that an additional £4bn a year will be needed on top of last week's measures if the target of reducing the numbers below the poverty line from more than 4m in 1998, shortly after Labour took office, to around 2m is to be achieved by 2010. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/567577ee-db2e-11db-ba4d-000b5df10621.html
• Ministers risk parliamentary defeat this week over the contentious decision to site Britain's first Las Vegas-style super-casino in Manchester, after a last-minute move by the Tories to oppose the plan. The Conservative U-turn means the government faces tight votes on Wednesday in the Commons and the Lords. Both houses will get a single vote on approving the sites for the super-casino and 16 other new casinos that were recommended by the government's advisory panel earlier this year. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e3f33346-db2d-11db-ba4d-000b5df10621.html

Conservatives  

I'm off skiing for a week, and JG has already headed off on holiday for a fortnight, so things may go a little quiet round here for a while. But LP should still be posting the summaries and maybe the odd additional posting if something catches her eye, so there should be something to keep things ticking over.

I had noticed that The Independent had ceased to be a newspaper and had become instead a soap-box from which Simon Kelner and his staff could bore on about Iraq and the environment. A sad decline from the refreshingly open-minded and wide-ranging paper of its launch. But I didn't know why.

The BBC is in many ways excellent (when you compare the quality of TV and radio in other countries, for example), but is nevertheless a persistent irritant with occasional outbreaks of festering sores. The priority given to football over everything else on Radio FiveLive is a long-term annoyance, as is the English bias of a supposedly British broadcaster (e.g. regularly giving preference to second-grade domestic English football games over Scottish, Welsh or Irish internationals of various sports). Their blatant and boring pursuit of a vendetta on Iraq is another persistent scab, particularly when their talking-up of opposition puts the lives of our troops in greater danger than need be, and drives the country towards more rather than less violence. Their liberal (in the American sense) bias, exposed by Robin Aitken and acknowledged by more independent-minded BBC journalists such as Jeff Randall, Andrew Marr and Jeremy Paxman, is perhaps the most egregious example of the problem that Hayek identified in The Intellectuals and Socialism.

My answer is that BBC1, Radios 1, 2, 3 and 5 and the various digital services should be privatised, leaving Radio 4, BBC2 and the World Service to produce high-quality programming that would not be provided by the market. All the talk of providing what the viewers want and giving them value for their licence-fee is hogwash. The market should provide what people want. If the government is going to tax us to provide something, it should only be for things we need but which will not be provided for by the market. It is quite clear from the various competing television and radio channels that the market can and does provide what BBC1, and Radios 1-3 & 5 offer - often better than they do. The BBC has to decide whether it is a commercial organisation pursuing ratings, in which case it should not be tax-funded, or a public service, in which case it should not pander to the lowest common denominator in the search for ratings. At the moment, they want to have their cake and eat it.

I admit this plan would not remove the bias, but it would dramatically reduce the amount we have to pay to support it. It would retain some of the pockets of individualism, such as can be found in the Newsnight team, to balance a reduced liberal majority. And it would expose most of those who are happy spoon-feeding the public with their sloppy metropolitan chatter to the reality of having to provide the public with what they actually want, rather than what the presenters want to give them.

The latest example of their unconscious bias was yesterday's reporting of the Budget debate on Radio FiveLive. Having suffered a recurrence of my chronic irritation, I was looking for fellow sufferers with whom to share sympathy, and came across a couple of excellent blogs that I have added to our blogroll. Biased BBC is the definitive site for recording examples of dripping-wet, state-funded reporting. Some Stuff is a newish blog with a wider interest than just the BBC or the media, but Ralph clearly shares my irritation with their partial reporting. I recommend them both to you.

Forget about what the BBC, the Government or the Tories say about the impact of the changes to personal taxation and benefits announced by Gordon Brown today. Here is what it really means for people of working age (comparing the current system with the system as it will be in 2009, according to Gordon's announcements, taking 2009 because many of the announcements are delayed or staged).

• Those earning between around £5,000 and £18,000 p.a. get to keep less of their wages than before.
• Those earning over £18,000 keep more of their wages, with the greatest benefit (proportionately) going to those being paid in the £40,000s.
• Couples with one principal wage-earner continue to pay more tax than two-income couples on the same combined household income, thanks to his rejection of any form of joint or transferrable allowance.
• The negative impact on low-earners is to be compensated mostly through increases in the threshold for withdrawal of Working Tax Credits (WTC) and, for those with children, increasing the level of Child Benefit for the first child and of the child element of the Child Tax Credit. Those with one or two children will be best-insulated by these measures from the effects of the changes to income tax. Those on low incomes with many or no children will be the worst hit.
• To avoid these increases dragging too many more people into the means-tested benefits bureaucracy, the withdrawal rate for WTC has been increased to 39%. Because losing benefits has the same impact as paying more tax on a household's net income, this has further increased the effective marginal rates of taxation on poorer households. In some cases, marginal rates of taxation are now approaching 100% - in other words, you barely keep a few pennies of every extra pound that you earn. Marginal rates of taxation determine the incentive for people to work harder, longer or smarter to earn more money, so increases in marginal rates act as a disincentive to work. Gordon announced this change as "further strengthening the incentives to work for families with children and low-income working households". The precise opposite is the case. The disingenuity of this claim marks Gordon as either a knave or a fool.

The BBC's reporting of the Budget debate on Radio Five Live has been fantastically lop-sided. On the most basic measure - air time - they broadcast the whole of Gordon Brown's speech but cut off both David Cameron and Ming Campbell mid-flow.

Instead of hearing their words, we were given John Pienaar's conclusions to save us the bother of making up our own minds. DC had been "outmaneouvred", he was "like a man who had had his legs cut off from under him", he was "floundering" and "drowning", unable to respond to the "magic" of Brown's cut in the basic rate of income tax to 20%.

To be fair, Cameron had missed the main point - that the cut to 20% had been largely paid for by the replacement of the starting rate (10%) with the basic rate, which Brown disingenuously announced as the abolition of the starting rate - sounding as though tax on income within the 10% band would now be zero, rather than the 20% that is actually intended. This is dangerously close to deceiving the house, but it did seem to have done the job in deceiving DC.

Ming Campbell (whose Treasury team, headed by Vince Cable, have a real understanding of economics, unlike the Tories) was not taken in, and, in his earnestly dull but intelligent way, nailed the point - that the changes to income-tax rates benefited middle-income earners but penalised low-income earners. We were not allowed to hear much more of his speech (in many ways a blessing, but hardly balanced) before the BBC cut back in and Pienaar told us that Campbell must have "mis-read" the announcement, that the effect was not to penalise the poor. This is what we need from the BBC - insightful analysis of the impacts of the budget. So why has Campbell got that wrong, then, John? Because Gordon "would not do that", apparently. What insight!

No wonder the big beast of the political jungle has survived so long, when the elephant guns of the media have been aimed largely at his predators. How strong is the beast really, if he needs that sort of protection?

Only a couple more hours and Gordon will giving his final Budget to Parliament. There will be much patting on the back by his loyal followers, though probably mostly by himself. He will claim the longest period of economic growth in the history of mankind and beyond and take all the credit for it (ignoring the rise of China and the stable global economy and the fact that inflation is rising at a concerning rate in the UK).

Gordon Brown will announce today that the government is to spend an extra £1bn to lift 200,000 children out of poverty as he uses his final budget to help put Labour back on track to meet its target for alleviating deprivation among the young.
http://business.guardian.co.uk/budget2007/story/0,,2038983,00.html

Have Tony Blair and Gordon Brown been reading Picking Losers? Probably not. But there are hints that someone is mentioning the P word over at the Department of Health. But don't get too excited, all is not what it seems.

Has there been a government better at "charging for old rope" than this current one. As I understand, our taxes go, in large parts, to the funding of all things NHS - including their car parks. However, our money that went to towards building these car parks and maintaining them was only taken from us on the premise that we wouldn't actually use them, it transpires. If we actually want to use these car parks, paid for by us, then the NHS is going to make us pay more. Lots more. What better why to make a quick buck than to charge us twice for the same thing?

Gordon Brown has exhibited a "Stalinist ruthlessness" in government, belittling his cabinet colleagues whom the Treasury treats with "more or less complete contempt", according to the man who was Britain's top civil servant until two years ago.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/db4b60b8-d65c-11db-99b7-000b5df10621.html

 The prospect that the National Health Service might provide only core services, with patients forced to pay for any other treatment or meet it from private insurance, was raised by the government yesterday.

So what can we expect from Wednesday's budget, apart from Gordon Brown boring us all to tears? Well, the buzz word at the moment is green and it's an expensive word at that. It seems the biggest losers on Wednesday will be the evil folk that are deliberately going around doing their best to destroy planet earth - yes, I'm talking about you Mr Car Driver. Mr Brown does not care that you have not got a viable alternative to get to work unless you live in London - in fact the less viable the better. For if these green taxes actually worked the Treasury would be out of pocket, the car industry would collapse and cost of running over crowded trains would bankrupt the country.

The Independent led yesterday with a report on Greenpeace's attempts to prevent BA opening a service from Gatwick to Newquay. Their strap-line in the print version read:

"The battle of Newquay. British Airways faces a showdown with the green lobby over a new daily service from London to Cornwall. The fight may determine whether the booming aviation industry can be brought back to earth."

It is clear where The Independent's sympathies lie. They include an op-ed piece from Emily Armistead of Greenpeace, entitled "Fastest way to damage the earth". Yup, those pesky flights to Newquay will be the ruin of us all.

Just one small problem. Can you see what it is?

Or your children will suffer. Headline in The Times today: University squeeze on children of graduates. Is there any need to say anything more? Can't get a much more obvious example of government picking losers. It's us. All of us (rich and poor alike).

Let's encourage the "right" people to go to university by telling them that they will then become the "wrong" people. Their children will have less chance of going to university than the children of people who were excluded in this generation. If you want the best for your child's education, make sure you marry someone with as little education as possible. Logic problem? Mixed message? Downright stupidity?

Government  

• The chairman of the Commons Treasury select committee has outlined the key themes of Gordon Brown's forthcoming Budget.  John McFall, an ally of the chancellor, said that support for education, families and welfare to work schemes would be central.  
• A timetable for elections to find a new leader when Tony Blair quits is expected to be agreed next week by Labour's National Executive Committee. Mr Blair is expected to announce his retirement as prime minister after the Scottish and Welsh elections on 3 May. There will then be a seven-week contest for the position of Labour leader and deputy leader, the BBC understands.  
•  Nearly £300,000 has been spent in three years on televisions and games consoles for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said. MPs were told that, since 2005, the Ministry of Defence had spent nearly £260,000 on TV sets and more than £38,000 on Sony Playstations  

Conservatives  

Don't forget to vote in the "what is Boris anyway?" poll.