Bolitics The New Condem Government

[drat01]

I see that the courts have questioned that imbecile Gove and his idealogical led attacks on education. Maybe they are just ensuring that something the Tory party agreed to pre-election that they actually deliver on.

link

The government has been defeated in the High Court over the way it scrapped part of England's school building programme.

The education secretary's decision to axe Buildings Schools for the Future (BSF) projects in six local authority areas was ruled unlawful as he failed to consult on it.

A judge ordered Education Secretary Michael Gove to reconsider the move.....more on link

Then we see that the ridiculous sell off of the forests for private enterprise is now all screwed up

link

Again another stupid idea, one that was obviously imposed so that "friends" in commerce would prosper.

The whole Gvmt is a mess, Tory party extreme policies, none of which they have a mandate for are being forced through. The LibDem's in Westminster are being openly challenged by their councilors for supporting these cuts.

But rest assured the most ridiculous marketing led thing of all, Big Society, will save the day. God help us all

[Dodgyknees]

Big society based in libraries that don't exist, on buses that aren't funded, in care homes that have been shut down and in playgrounds and parks that have had their funding cut, on Islands like here where no life-guards can protect you and where no tourist centres can direct people to community aspects, where museums and galleries are being closed, school funding is being cut so parents can no longer spend time in school doing acitivies, where playgrounds are being sold off, parks are being sold off for the next corporate giant to sit there and make money.

Welcome to the big society, where nothing you have is of any use.

[meregreen]

See the Tories tried to privatise the coast guard helicopter service . Only the fact some corrupt government bastard was discovered to be "advising" the potential bidder, caused the plan to be scuppered. Expect the Tories to try again in the future. Better not take my lilo out to sea then, might not be able to afford the rescue bill.

[blandy]

When will the soufflé of spin collapse?

David Cameron is leading Britain through a huge and unpredictable experiment. I'm not talking about his decision to impose massive cuts in the middle of a recession. That's not an experiment at all. We know how that ends. Look up the history of the 1930s Great Depression, or – as George Osborne once said – "look and learn from across the Irish Sea." No: I'm talking about a genuine test. The Prime Minister is trying to see how far you can separate your political rhetoric from your actual political action, before the entire soufflé of spin collapses. How long in politics can you say one thing and do precisely the opposite?

This week alone, the headlines have been dominated by three subjects where Cameron is doing the polar opposite of what he is telling the public. Let's look at them.

Deception One: The banks. The story of the Great Crash of 2008 is clear, and understood by almost everyone. Starting in the 1980s, the rules introduced to stop banks from gambling with our money were systematically stripped away. The politicians who did this – Thatcherites and their New Labour spawn alike – said bankers were perfectly rational beings, so there was no need to tie them up in "red tape" and "restrictions." Set free, they effectively took our money to Las Vegas and blew it all, then demanded we pick up the tab. The bill and the shock have broken the global economy.

After bankers crashed the economy in 1929, some committed suicide. After they crashed the economy in 2008, they demanded even bigger bonuses.

David Cameron told the British people before the election he was "outraged" and would ensure it "never happened again." He promised extensive re-regulation and that all bankers' cash bonuses in nationalised banks would be strictly limited to £2,000. Yet in private, he assured a closed-door meeting of senior City execs: "My father was a stockbroker, my grandfather was a stockbroker, my great-grandfather was a stockbroker." He hoovered up their donations so enthusiastically that half of the entire Conservative Party's income now comes from financiers.

In power, Cameron has served his paymasters, not his people. When the EU tried to restrict bankers' bonuses in line with Cameron's election promises, Cameron vetoed it. When the state-owned banks paid themselves bonuses of more than £2m with our money this week, Cameron approved it. It's appropriate that the conditions imposed in return for these bonuses are called Operation Merlin, since he was a mythical figure, and this proposal is full of them. For example, the banks only have to increase lending "should sufficient demand materialise" – a loophole so vague that senior bankers call it "meaningless."

But worst of all, when there have been international moves to reregulate the banks to prevent another crash, Cameron has scorned them. So it's all going to happen again. The US Treasury Department's Inspector General, Neil Barofsky, recently wrote we will "end up in a similar or greater crisis in two, or five, or ten years' time. It is hard to see how any of the fundamental problems in the system have been addressed to date. [The bailouts] saved our financial system from driving off a cliff in 2008, [but] we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car." Can you afford another crash?

Deception Number Two: The Big Society. It is unfair that people keep saying the idea of the Big Society is "incomprehensible" and "unclear." It's actually a clear proposition, articulated plainly by Cameron. It is the belief that as the state cuts back its services, volunteers will step in to provide those services for free. So you can stop paying the local librarians, or the local youth club, or the local museum, and local people will step in and run it themselves, for nothing. The state "crowds out" volunteers, and when it retreats, they come flooding back.

This is perfectly comprehensible. The only problem is that it doesn't match reality. To find out why, just look at the facts. The sociologist Amitai Etzioni conducted a major international study of volunteerism. He found that volunteering is highest where state funding is highest, and lowest where state funding is lowest. So high-tax Massachusetts has the most volunteers in the US, while low-tax Mississippi has the fewest. High-tax Sweden has the most volunteers in Europe, while low-tax Eastern Europe has the lowest. Far from "crowding out" volunteers, a big state attracts them, and a small state drives them away. Why? There are several reasons. A well-funded state can recruit, train and direct volunteers. And in a high-solidarity society, people are less panicked about losing their own jobs and more likely to trust their fellow citizens enough to want to give something back to them.

If Cameron had bothered to look, he would have known all this. If he had wanted to increase volunteerism, he would have increased the budget to promote and recruit volunteers. Instead, he all but shut it down when he came to power. This shows that the Big Society was always a rebranding trick – a way of making the biggest cuts to public spending since the 1920s sound upbeat. I'm not taking away your library, I'm empowering you to run it!

Deception Number Three: Multiculturalism. In a speech last weekend, Cameron argued that Britain has allowed some ethnic minorities to fall into "segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values." We should stop encouraging immigrants to be separate and to retain the culture of the country they came from, however patriarchal and fundamentalist it might be. Instead we should promote a "liberal society" where we all mix with each other in one shared culture.

I agree. I am the son of an immigrant and passionately in favour of immigration – but the best way to welcome immigrants is not to put them in a brightly coloured box called Exotic and Different, where they are free to oppress "their" women and gays.

But while Cameron preaches against ghettoising minorities publicly, he is actively promoting it in the most important and formative place of all – our schools. When I was a kid growing up in the London suburbs, I went to school with children from every kind of family – black, white, Muslim, Jewish, atheist. Because we all knew each other as real people, few of us became racist: we'd always remember our friends and know any stereotype about them was absurd. But in the area where I grew up, that doesn't happen any more. Children are now parcelled off to separate "faith schools" – children of Christians to the left, kids of Muslims to the right, and so on.

Some 70 per cent of the "free schools" established under Cameron are religious separatist schools. They are free to indoctrinate children into deranged ideas like creationism, Hell and the caste system. So Cameron's policies ensure that many more children will be raised in "segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values."

Yes, all politicians lie – but I can't think of many others who week after week deliver speeches demanding X, while they are ruthlessly and knowingly doing the exact opposite of X. Beneath Cameron's entire agenda runs the biggest lie of all: that Britain is facing an "unprecedented" level of debt. In reality, Britain's national debt has been higher as a proportion of GDP for 200 of the past 250 years. So here's the experiment. How many blatant lies are you prepared to take from your Prime Minister?

[Dodgyknees]

My article on IW lobby

[Gringo]

See the Tories tried to privatise the coast guard helicopter service . Only the fact some corrupt government bastard was discovered to be "advising" the potential bidder, caused the plan to be scuppered. Expect the Tories to try again in the future. Better not take my lilo out to sea then, might not be able to afford the rescue bill.

And why not. If you want to go and be stupid out at sea and not know what you're doing and get in trouble - pay the cost or take out insurance against it. Same for mountain rescue and potholers.

[meregreen]

See the Tories tried to privatise the coast guard helicopter service . Only the fact some corrupt government bastard was discovered to be "advising" the potential bidder, caused the plan to be scuppered. Expect the Tories to try again in the future. Better not take my lilo out to sea then, might not be able to afford the rescue bill.

And why not. If you want to go and be stupid out at sea and not know what you're doing and get in trouble - pay the cost or take out insurance against it. Same for mountain rescue and potholers.

Are you for real. Insure my lilo!!!! Not everything should have a price attached to it. Saving lives should be our duty as decent human beings, not a commercial business. Presumably if a ship finds itself in trouble you would only rescue those who are insured, the rest are fish bait.

[Gringo]

See the Tories tried to privatise the coast guard helicopter service . Only the fact some corrupt government bastard was discovered to be "advising" the potential bidder, caused the plan to be scuppered. Expect the Tories to try again in the future. Better not take my lilo out to sea then, might not be able to afford the rescue bill.

And why not. If you want to go and be stupid out at sea and not know what you're doing and get in trouble - pay the cost or take out insurance against it. Same for mountain rescue and potholers.

Are you for real. Insure my lilo!!!! Not everything should have a price attached to it. Saving lives should be our duty as decent human beings, not a commercial business. Presumably if a ship finds itself in trouble you would only rescue those who are insured, the rest are fish bait.

Are you for real? How many lilo users get rescued by the "coast guard helicopter service"

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

We should take to the streets and demand an even higher banking levy and fairer tax cuts, instead of these lofty suburbs in Surrey getting it nice and towns in the shit like Newcastle getting disproportionately raped.

Maybe not as exciting as Egypt but, well, this Guvmints approach is woeful.

[Awol]

We should take to the streets and demand an even higher banking levy and fairer tax cuts, instead of these lofty suburbs in Surrey getting it nice and towns in the shit like Newcastle getting disproportionately raped.

Eh? I thought the middle classes we bearing the brunt of tax rises rather than receiving tax cuts? Don't disagree with you reference the banks though.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Tax rises, I mean, not cuts.

A lot of the poorer areas are being taxed disproportiantely heavy IMO, and should receive cuts to help promote small buisnesses and economic growth in the areas. Although the UK needs to decentralise as a whole, it's far too dependent on London. Take a leaf from the Chinese book and cut spending in London and then spend more in areas that need to catch up with it.

[peterms]

Bit of a panic on the big society front.

It seems that Mr C is concerned by some recent developments, thought to include the head of CSV saying his plans are destroying volunteering; the CABx issuing redundancy notices to lots of staff; and the head of the "Big Society Network" saying "The big society is a raw ideology promoted by the PM. It is divisive, even within the Cabinet, and it is increasingly loathed by the public".

I see they are reviewing the cuts to CAB, reinstating the funding for one year only. Like they are reviewing 15% of the sales of our forests. A little reassuring gesture to make people think the ship has changed course, while it ploughs on ahead towards the iceberg.

David Cameron to rescue 'big society' with extra cash

Prime minister pledges to stand by his 'defining mission' even though he concedes that cuts have threatened his key project

David Cameron is launching a frantic bid to rescue his much-criticised plan for a "big society" as he promises to back the project with public money and new initiatives to help it survive savage government cuts and public scorn.

Writing exclusively for the Observer, the prime minister confronts his critics head on and insists that he will never abandon what he believes is the defining mission of his premiership.

Cameron says the big society is not a government initiative, but the opposite – one that will see power handed from Whitehall to the people. "It has the power to transform our country," he declares. "That is why the big society is here to stay."

In a clear change of emphasis, however, he concedes that massive cuts to the budgets of local authorities, which in turn have had to pass them on to charities, could imperil the whole programme unless help is provided. "We understand that while the opportunity lies in the future the local authority cuts are happening now," he says.

As a result Cameron and his ministers will make a blizzard of big society announcements, including details of a £100m transition fund to help hard-pressed charities and social enterprises compete, for the first time, for government contracts.

To give the same organisations the working capital to set up and run community schemes, ministers will also lay out plans for a big society bank, whose reserves will be boosted by £200m from Britain's biggest high street banks.

The Observer can also reveal plans, to be announced within the next few weeks, to set up a big society university, backed by a multimillion-pound endowment, that will train future generations of community workers.

The first stage will be to announce which company or organisation has won a £20m tender to train an army of 5,000 big society workers over the next five years. The successful bidder will then, from 2015, have the contract to establish a permanent institute for community organising, which will hand out formal qualifications in community work.

Cameron's decision to, in effect, relaunch the big society follows stinging criticism from leading figures in the charitable sector and local government, who have said that attempts to foster a new spirit of philanthropy and volunteering are being fatally undermined by massive cuts to local government and charity incomes.

Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, who is stepping down as executive director of Britain's largest volunteering charity, Community Service Volunteers, sent a wave of near panic through Whitehall departments – which have all been asked to develop big society initiatives of their own – when she said spending cuts risked obliterating the country's existing army of volunteers.

In his article Cameron addresses Hoodless's claim head on. "I would ask people to look beyond the headlines and see a much bigger structural change in how the voluntary sector can work in future," he writes. "We are in the process of opening up billions of pounds' worth of government contracts so charities and social enterprises can compete for the first time. The scale of this opportunity dwarfs anything they ever had before."

Claims from Labour and others that talk of a big society is a way of concealing the cuts agenda are also rejected. "That is simply not true," the prime minister argues. "I was talking about social responsibility long before the cuts. Building a stronger, bigger society is something we should try to do whether spending is going up or down.

Controversially, banks that lend money to the big society bank will do so on a normal commercial lending basis, meaning they will make a profit.

Toby Blume, chief executive of community charity Urban Forum, told Civil Society magazine: "Why is this news? How does it differ to their normal lending to the voluntary sector? It is merely a bolt-on to their commitment to make finance available to small and medium-sized enterprises."

Separately, in an interview in the Observer marking publication of the freedom bill, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg says the coalition has made good progress in rolling back many of the intrusive laws passed by Labour.

However he told Henry Porter that people were right to continue to be suspicious of central diktat. "You shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government – full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good."

[Gringo]

However he told Henry Porter that people were right to continue to be suspicious of central diktat. "You shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government – full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good."

See, not everything clegg says is drivel. BIAD. Without real democracy govts always corrupt.

[peterms]

However he told Henry Porter that people were right to continue to be suspicious of central diktat. "You shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government – full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good."

See, not everything clegg says is drivel. BIAD. Without real democracy govts always corrupt.

To be fair, Nick has actually put his words into action, by demonstrating in very clear and concrete ways exactly why we shouldn't trust government. I hadn't realised that it was such a conscious strategy on his part. Perhaps he's secretly an anarchist.

[snowychap]

Perhaps he's secretly an anarchist.

A whack from Dibble and a reassuringly pejorative comment from the Tory shires ought to get him there.

[meregreen]

See the Tories tried to privatise the coast guard helicopter service . Only the fact some corrupt government bastard was discovered to be "advising" the potential bidder, caused the plan to be scuppered. Expect the Tories to try again in the future. Better not take my lilo out to sea then, might not be able to afford the rescue bill.

And why not. If you want to go and be stupid out at sea and not know what you're doing and get in trouble - pay the cost or take out insurance against it. Same for mountain rescue and potholers.

Are you for real. Insure my lilo!!!! Not everything should have a price attached to it. Saving lives should be our duty as decent human beings, not a commercial business. Presumably if a ship finds itself in trouble you would only rescue those who are insured, the rest are fish bait.

Are you for real? How many lilo users get rescued by the "coast guard helicopter service"

I was being sarcastic. There are many people who are rescued by helicopter though. If you wish to bill them for it fine. It would probably come at a great cost to their purse. The cost to our sense of humanity however , would I think be far greater. The world would be a far sadder place if every act of mercy carried a bill.

[leviramsey]

See the Tories tried to privatise the coast guard helicopter service . Only the fact some corrupt government bastard was discovered to be "advising" the potential bidder, caused the plan to be scuppered. Expect the Tories to try again in the future. Better not take my lilo out to sea then, might not be able to afford the rescue bill.

And why not. If you want to go and be stupid out at sea and not know what you're doing and get in trouble - pay the cost or take out insurance against it. Same for mountain rescue and potholers.

Are you for real. Insure my lilo!!!! Not everything should have a price attached to it. Saving lives should be our duty as decent human beings, not a commercial business. Presumably if a ship finds itself in trouble you would only rescue those who are insured, the rest are fish bait.

Are you for real? How many lilo users get rescued by the "coast guard helicopter service"

I was being sarcastic. There are many people who are rescued by helicopter though. If you wish to bill them for it fine. It would probably come at a great cost to their purse. The cost to our sense of humanity however , would I think be far greater. The world would be a far sadder place if every act of mercy carried a bill.

That's what insurance works for: low-probability catastrophic events.

There's a bill for rescue services anyway: the question is whether it's fairest to bill those who derive the benefit from the rescue services or to bill everyone regardless of whether and how much benefit they derived.

[peterms]

I had thought this government didn't do irony. I take it all back.

Big society tsar Lord Wei 'doesn't have enough time to perform role'

Man kickstarting volunteering revolution finds working for free three days a week is incompatible with 'having a life'

It could become the allegory of the "big society" age. The man appointed by the prime minister to kickstart a revolution in citizen activism is to scale back his hours after discovering that working for free three days a week is incompatible with "having a life".

Lord Wei of Shoreditch, who was given a Tory peerage last year and a desk in the Cabinet Office as the "big society tsar", is to reduce his hours on the project from three days a week to two, to allow him to see his family more and to take on other jobs to pay the bills.

A common criticism of the plans, under which the government hopes that communities will take over the running of local services such as schools and charity projects, is that people don't have time to run a public service on top of holding down a job and seeing their families.

Wei has told friends he is cutting his hours to allow him to earn more money and "have more of a life". He originally worked three full days a week and will now work two days, with the hours split over three, while taking on more non-executive directorships with private companies.

The role is voluntary and Wei had to to give up jobs in the charitable sector when he was appointed to avoid a conflict of interest. Whitehall sources said that when he was invited to take the role he had expected it to be remunerated but was told only the night before that it was a voluntary post and there would be no salary. Other unpaid coalition advisers include Lord Heseltine and the "digital champion" Martha Lane Fox – both millionaires.

Much of Wei's work has focused on how to free ordinary people from the daily grind to give them more time to do voluntary work and involve themselves in their communities under the big society plans. Since taking the post, Wei has had a relatively low profile and there have been suggestions that he has not made enough impact on the public understanding of 'big society'. The scheme is reported to be facing Whitehall resistance and the stretched capacities of local authorities.

Wei, 34, is a former management consultant who has no private income to fall back on. He was a member of Teach First's founding staff team, then worked for Ark, one of the biggest sponsors of academies, before setting up the Shaftesbury Partnership, a social entrepreneurial company.

A Cabinet Office spokesman suggested that Wei had worked extra hours in the early phase of the programme. "The government remains committed to devolving power to citizens and supporting a big society," he said.

[Gringo]

See the Tories tried to privatise the coast guard helicopter service . Only the fact some corrupt government bastard was discovered to be "advising" the potential bidder, caused the plan to be scuppered. Expect the Tories to try again in the future. Better not take my lilo out to sea then, might not be able to afford the rescue bill.

And why not. If you want to go and be stupid out at sea and not know what you're doing and get in trouble - pay the cost or take out insurance against it. Same for mountain rescue and potholers.

Are you for real. Insure my lilo!!!! Not everything should have a price attached to it. Saving lives should be our duty as decent human beings, not a commercial business. Presumably if a ship finds itself in trouble you would only rescue those who are insured, the rest are fish bait.

Are you for real? How many lilo users get rescued by the "coast guard helicopter service"

I was being sarcastic. There are many people who are rescued by helicopter though. If you wish to bill them for it fine. It would probably come at a great cost to their purse. The cost to our sense of humanity however , would I think be far greater. The world would be a far sadder place if every act of mercy carried a bill.

Not me wishing to bill them for it - this is labour policy that was kicked off back in 2007. Another example of how different the tory and labour parties aren't.

[drat01]

Interest rates to rise

Inflation running very high

Economy stagnating

Jobless rising

Youth jobless now @ 20%

But don't worry Pickles / Cameron / Gideon say its all OK. Clegg nods in the background