Bolitics The New Condem Government

[tonyh29]

Pretty piss poor Stuff from Atos / government there

It's one thing targeting people abusing a system but something like that is a disgrace and shouldn't have been allowed to happen

Been allowed? I'd suggest that it is intended - not the woman dying but her treatment by Atos and the DWP.

It's not a point just against this government as this is the continuation of the previous process under Purnell (there are new things and these include the proposed jump in financial sanctions and the change in meaning of statutory redifinition of 'work related activity').

I think some of IDS reforms have merit .. This ATOS lead witch hunt isn't one of them and something has to be done .... It's clear that the people carrying out the medical assessments aren't even qualified ... I assume they are being paid on results for every claimant they can deem "fit for work " or something ?

[chrisp65]

Atos are being paid £100Million to get that particular disability benefit down from £600Million. It suggests that to justify their very existence they would be aiming at proving a saving of £101Million as a minimum.

IDS was one of the few tories I had any time for. He had some quietly sensible ideas and indisputable facts about tough loving people out of dependancy. But somehow I feel those original ideas have been blunted or perverted and now its just about the bottom line, get the bill down.

[tonyh29]

A little over two years ago, Treasury Minister David Laws was discovered to have claimed more than £40,000 in parliamentary expenses and paid it to his long-term partner, against parliamentary rules. He resigned and was later ruled to be guilty of breaking six rules. Today he became a junior minister in the Department for Education.

The worse of it with Laws is that If he had allocated his constituency home as his second home he would have still been in the cabinet, having claimed £30,000 more..... He can't even exploit the system and fiddle expenses properly , how can we trust him in the cabinet ?

[snowychap]

I think some of IDS reforms have merit .. This ATOS lead witch hunt isn't one of them and something has to be done .... It's clear that the people carrying out the medical assessments aren't even qualified ... I assume they are being paid on results for every claimant they can deem "fit for work " or something ?

I think the Atos people are all qualified medical health professionals (though I think that can vary from being a physio to a doctor) but, in actuality, they would appear to be glorified data inputters as they just input the answers (or the results of them) to a questionnaire.

I have no idea how they are being paid but there has been a lot of coverage of the criticisms of the new assessments (WCAs) over the past couple of years.

Which IDS reforms do you think have merit?

[tonyh29]

Which IDS reforms do you think have merit?

Not sure if it's passed yet but the main one was about child poverty ..labour chucked billions at it but missed their targets , IDS is proposing getting families to work but through The universal crediit system with a tax credit system so rather than losing all benefit it's a gradual removal as you hit thresholds ... Well it's a bit better worded than that but it's along those lines

Raising the retirement age was a sensible move though to be fair that was a Labour initiative that IDS just brought forward .... Mind you I don't have a state pension so I would say that :-)

The housing allowance cap sounded sensibleas well , though i did hear on the radio the other week about London councils trying to move people to Stoke or something ..so i have to assume it isnt working as intended

[peterms]

The housing allowance cap sounded sensibleas well , though i did hear on the radio the other week about London councils trying to move people to Stoke or something ..so i have to assume it isnt working as intended

The policy is working exactly as intended. The debate about poorer people living in areas the rich don't want them to goes back at least to Edwardian times, when there was a conflict between clearing areas like east of Oxford Street to create more posh housing, and having poor people live close enough to the rich that they could service them as scullery maids, waiters and so on. If they were forced too far away, or worse if they had alternative employment choices, it wouldn't be feasible.

Before these changes were introduced, plenty of commentators explained that people would be forced away from areas where they had lived for years, where their families, friends, kids' schools were. The government's approach was that some families were "exploiting the system" by claiming high levels of housing benefit (as though they and not the landlord got the money). The obvious answer is to control rent levels and give security of tenure, as was done successfully for many years. Instead, security of tenure has been massively weakened, rents are uncontrolled, and so owners can rack up rents to stupid levels, force people out, and rent or sell to richer people, or else continue taking far more public funding via housing benefit than under a rent control system.

The general approach was followed in a different way by Wandsworth and Westminster in the 80s, using allocations policies to change who went into social housing, by selling off housing to the private sector and so on. There was also an explicit political dimension to this, and the leader of Westminster, Lady Porter (Tesco inheritee) was found to have misused public resources to gerrymander whole areas. This was found illegal and she was surcharged £42 million, so she fled to Tel Aviv.

Current policy is much in line with both the Edwardian approach and that of Lady Porter. At present, many parts of London are seeing property prices rise to record levels, as foreign money from corporations, tax dodgers, criminals and the like floods into London, buying up safe investments like property. Many of the properties bought then stand empty, because they're not wanted as housing, just as a safe place to hold assets. Since this creates a risk of displaced and homeless people squatting them, squatting has now been made a criminal offence, because the property rights of wealthy people are valued more highly than the human right to a home.

It's not some sort of mistake or unintended by-product of a well-intentioned policy, Tony. It's part of a systematic and ruthless process of the transfer of resources from poor to rich. And it's not stopping anytime soon.

[blandy]

...it isnt working as intended

That goes for everything they've done, assuming you take them at their word for what is "intended".

Aside from any party political or political outlook type reasons, they're basically incompetent - incapable of doing anything right - they mess everything up.

[tonyh29]

they mess everything up.

I don't know the plan to kill off the Lib Dems seems to be working well

[snowychap]

Which IDS reforms do you think have merit?

Not sure if it's passed yet but the main one was about child poverty ..labour chucked billions at it but missed their targets , IDS is proposing getting families to work but through The universal crediit system with a tax credit system so rather than losing all benefit it's a gradual removal as you hit thresholds ... Well it's a bit better worded than that but it's along those lines

The idea of trying to do something about the poverty trap and the marginal deduction rate at that level is good but the whole 'make work pay' mantra seems little more than a rather glib soundbite.

It was oft repeated by ministers that no one would be 'cash poorer' when Universal Credit is introduced - implying that everyone would be better off after its introduction in comparison to when they were repeating this phrase. One way to sort that out would be to make a lot of people 'cash poorer' in the year before the introduction of Universal Credit - now they wouldn't do that, would they (e.g. tax credit hours threshold increase from 16 hours to 24 hours per week).

Raising the retirement age was a sensible move though to be fair that was a Labour initiative that IDS just brought forward .... Mind you I don't have a state pension so I would say that :-)

As you say, it wasn't really a Duncan Smith reform.

Edit: That came across in a way that I didn't mean. What I meant to remark upon was that the increase in retirment age may well impact most unfavourably upon those at the manual end of the job market.

The housing allowance cap sounded sensibleas well , though i did hear on the radio the other week about London councils trying to move people to Stoke or something ..so i have to assume it isnt working as intended

I think the housing benefit changes are to do with the DCLG and not the DWP - and there is much to be worried about concerning the 30% decile LHA change, the single room rate for under 35s and the proposals about under 25s. That's before you even get on to the points Peter makes.

On Newsnight last night they had a debate around the huge increase in the requirement for and use of food banks. One of the three was a former Cameron speechwriter who now runs a charity concerned with dealing with former offenders (it didn't say exactly what the charity did) and I think he nearly let the cat out of the bag regarding the wishes of a large proportion of the Tory party (and I'd put a lot of the loyal 2010 intake in this crowd). He was praising the reaction of 'churches and charities' to the problems that meant food banks were having to spring up all over the place (though Paxman helped him when he rather implied that the problems may have been a good thing, too) and said that what he wanted to see was 'more localism in welfare delivery' (may not be verbatim).

That may sound a great idea (especially when it is couched in terms of reducing the inefficient delivery by a centralized single office in Westminster) but when he goes on to say that he wants the welfare to be delivered by those organizations on the ground that have real connections with the community (i.e. the churches and charities that he has previously praised), that they should be the ones responsible for deciding how this should be done and who should get it, and questions the morality of the needy then he sounds like he is wistfully harking back to 'dole' queues.

[tonyh29]

David Cameron says he doesn't like reshuffles, and one can see why: he's not all that great at them. I have already recounted the mess that was made of the attempt to shift IDS to Justice. But here are further observations, based on some snatched conversations today with the fired, hired, depressed and amused.

1) This Government is in a hole because of the economy. The Chancellor is about as popular as Fred Goodwin. But the reshuffle happened in a different space from that reality, so the watching public (such as it cares) will see George Osborne, the main guy associated with the biggest problem, still in place and standing there grinning as though he's just won the lottery. This, him still being there, will puzzle, but possibly not surprise, a great many people.

2) Chris Grayling going to Justice is a good appointment. The former minister at welfare is not the monster of Left-wing caricature. Rather, as Matthew d'Ancona pointed out at the weekend, he is an intelligent individual interested in public service reform.

3) Ken Clarke has been treated appallingly and should have walked, but he doesn't seem to have quite had the heart to do it. Many people – normal people coming home from work, who haven't been following the reshuffle on Twitter etc – like Ken Clarke regardless of his views. He is seen widely as authentic, experienced and fair. A government that makes less of him – or even humiliates him – is an odd government.

4) Grant Shapps has a lot to prove. I've never bought the Shapps schtick, but let's see what he can do. One of the main tests of this reshuffle was whether Cameron was prepared to appoint a strong chairman who would tell Osborne – the not so masterly strategist – where to get off. I don't think Shapps will do that. But perhaps he is made of sterner stuff. Let's see.

5) In some respects the PM was very indecisive. Baroness Warsi managed to play him like a fiddle. You're offering me a "brown woman tokenistic" appointment, I hear she told the PM's team, before bargaining her way to something called a "Senior" Minister of State.

6) But others were dispatched with total brutality and twisted logic. You have been brilliant, Cameron told one man. You've been loyal to me, you've delivered brilliantly. But you know what? I need to let you go to move more people through. A lot of enemies, with a hate in their hearts that will only harden, have been created.

7) In Heathrow and the third runway he's gifted his rival Boris – who is furious at the sidelining of Justine Greening – a wonderful issue. The idea that there is a green light for a third runway just because Patrick McLoughlin has turned up at Transport is a joke. Clegg and the Lib Dems are opposed, crucially so is Ed Miliband, and Boris can lead the charge. There is fun to come.

8) Hunt being promoted to Health will strike a lot of people as quite, quite bizarre.

9) It's good that Gove stays where he is at education. Mind you, he'll need to watch out for Laws, who may try to adopt co-Secretary of State airs.

10) The Government is in a hole and this reshuffle won't change that, but Labour shouldn't crack open the champagne yet. Increasingly, as people get more tired of a government going round in ever-decreasing circles, the question will be: what's your plan Labour? I see the party's spokesmen constantly visiting factories and issuing statements about how rubbish the government is on the economy. Beyond that spin, I can see very little of substance there. Soon, that will matter.

some blog view in the the notso Torygraph

not a bad summary all in all

[tonyh29]

and said that what he wanted to see was 'more localism in welfare delivery'

Camerons "Big Society" ?

I don't think Cameron has fully got his message across on this it is as you say appears to be localisms of welfare and relying on charities , though the idea of using dormant bank accounts to fund it seemed a reasonable idea

but I do like the idea of communities coming together .. The Jubilee parties ( and to a degree the Olympics ) have been quite nice to see .. I hope the introductions made at Jubilee parties carry on and that number 12 will look out for the little old lady at number 8 and dig the snow off her path in the winter etc etc ... but I'm not sure if this is what Cameron had in mind or that it can be government lead

Edit:

may come back to the other points you raised but I have some deadlines to meet and I really shouldn't be on VT right about now :-)

[snowychap]

10) The Government is in a hole and this reshuffle won't change that, but Labour shouldn't crack open the champagne yet. Increasingly, as people get more tired of a government going round in ever-decreasing circles, the question will be: what's your plan Labour? I see the party's spokesmen constantly visiting factories and issuing statements about how rubbish the government is on the economy. Beyond that spin, I can see very little of substance there. Soon, that will matter.

It won't matter 'soon' unless this government falls. I don't think it will matter until late 2014 probably.

Of course, Tories will want to make it appear to matter just as Labour wanted to make it appear to matter the other way around and people, when asked directly, may say that it does but until they come to formulate their opinion of where to shove their cross, I can't see that it matters much.

[snowychap]

Camerons "Big Society" ?

I don't think even he (Cameron) had any idea what he meant when he was talking about this, really.

Most people like the idea of communities coming together (and even pulling together when something bad occurs) but, in order to do that effectively, one would need to have communities everywhere and I really don't think that is the case.

Even then, I'd recall the Attlee quote:

In a civilised community, although it may be composed of self-reliant individuals, there will be some persons who will be unable at some period of their lives to look after themselves, and the question of what is to happen to them may be solved in three ways – they may be neglected, they may be cared for by the organised community as of right, or they may be left to the goodwill of individuals in the community. The first way is intolerable, and as for the third: Charity is only possible without loss of dignity between equals. A right established by law, such as that to an old age pension, is less galling than an allowance made by a rich man to a poor one, dependent on his view of the recipient’s character, and terminable at his caprice.

[snowychap]

I see that Nick Boles has been rewarded for his frequent TV appearances by being made the Minister for concreting over the green belt.

Edit: Or the Minister for lean-tos.

[Jon]

The housing allowance cap sounded sensibleas well , though i did hear on the radio the other week about London councils trying to move people to Stoke or something ..so i have to assume it isnt working as intended

The policy is working exactly as intended. The debate about poorer people living in areas the rich don't want them to goes back at least to Edwardian times, when there was a conflict between clearing areas like east of Oxford Street to create more posh housing, and having poor people live close enough to the rich that they could service them as scullery maids, waiters and so on. If they were forced too far away, or worse if they had alternative employment choices, it wouldn't be feasible.

Before these changes were introduced, plenty of commentators explained that people would be forced away from areas where they had lived for years, where their families, friends, kids' schools were. The government's approach was that some families were "exploiting the system" by claiming high levels of housing benefit (as though they and not the landlord got the money). The obvious answer is to control rent levels and give security of tenure, as was done successfully for many years. Instead, security of tenure has been massively weakened, rents are uncontrolled, and so owners can rack up rents to stupid levels, force people out, and rent or sell to richer people, or else continue taking far more public funding via housing benefit than under a rent control system.

The general approach was followed in a different way by Wandsworth and Westminster in the 80s, using allocations policies to change who went into social housing, by selling off housing to the private sector and so on. There was also an explicit political dimension to this, and the leader of Westminster, Lady Porter (Tesco inheritee) was found to have misused public resources to gerrymander whole areas. This was found illegal and she was surcharged £42 million, so she fled to Tel Aviv.

Current policy is much in line with both the Edwardian approach and that of Lady Porter. At present, many parts of London are seeing property prices rise to record levels, as foreign money from corporations, tax dodgers, criminals and the like floods into London, buying up safe investments like property. Many of the properties bought then stand empty, because they're not wanted as housing, just as a safe place to hold assets. Since this creates a risk of displaced and homeless people squatting them, squatting has now been made a criminal offence, because the property rights of wealthy people are valued more highly than the human right to a home.

It's not some sort of mistake or unintended by-product of a well-intentioned policy, Tony.

Excellent post Mr Mountie. Worth a

On this part.

It's part of a systematic and ruthless process of the transfer of resources from poor to rich. And it's not stopping anytime soon.

Is this not their (the Conservatives) raison d'etre?

[Awol]

It's part of a systematic and ruthless process of the transfer of resources from poor to rich. And it's not stopping anytime soon.

Is this not their (the Conservatives) raison d'etre?

They are continuing the policies pursued by the last government which chose to hand the bill for bankers gambling debts to the taxpayer.

There is no doubt that the crowd in office are utter, unadulterated shite, but they are no different from the utter, unadulterated shite that preceded them.

It proves the maxim that whoever you vote for the government still gets in.

[CrackpotForeigner]

One of the things that I most loved about London in the time I spent there was the way you'd see a brand new Bentley parked next to a beaten up old Fiesta in the residential areas (yes I suppose I'm gauging wealth and class by type of mo'a, but never mind).

I remember thinking how civilised this was, a sort of recognition (in a roundabout way) that Wealth is not the measuring stick for one's worth as a human being.

Now it seems that is changing, just as Wealth increasingly becomes the measuring stick.

[peterms]

It's part of a systematic and ruthless process of the transfer of resources from poor to rich. And it's not stopping anytime soon.

Is this not their (the Conservatives) raison d'etre?

They are continuing the policies pursued by the last government which chose to hand the bill for bankers gambling debts to the taxpayer.

There is no doubt that the crowd in office are utter, unadulterated shite, but they are no different from the utter, unadulterated shite that preceded them.

It proves the maxim that whoever you vote for the government still gets in.

It's very true that Labour have been suckered in to defending the interests of the rich rather than the poor. Keir Hardie, Nye Bevan, Attlee, would be appalled. Some of that may be accidental, for example when the bank crisis started, it's possible that they didn't fully realise the impact of the advice Mervyn King and others were giving them.

Part of it was intentional, though. Thinking about the way Blair and Mandelson infiltrated a party they had no liking or respect for, used it as a platform to make contacts which have enriched them ever since, is pretty sick-making. Also lesser beings like Paul Boateng, who cemented his entree to the right circles with a spirited plea that Lloyds "names" should be bailed out by the taxpayer instead of making losses - a one-way bet much like the bankers several years later.

But despite this catalogue of shame, the Tories really are worse, by several degrees. They must be removed, and we must again learn the lesson of Thatcherism - keep them out of office for a generation, at least.

But we must look beyond the Labour Party to do that. They are still confused, directionless, supine.

[Awol]

But despite this catalogue of shame, the Tories really are worse, by several degrees. They must be removed, and we must again learn the lesson of Thatcherism - keep them out of office for a generation, at least.

Kept out of office by whom (and I mean the political alternative rather than electorate)? In any realistic scenario it is a toss up between Conservative or Labour because an alternative with mass electoral support simply doesn't exist. We must learn the lesson of every previous Labour government - i.e. that they inevitably end in national economic ruin - and ensure they are kept out of power for a generation, at least.

But we must look beyond the Labour Party to do that. They are still confused, directionless, supine.

Ah, good. Suggestions then?

[peterms]

But despite this catalogue of shame, the Tories really are worse, by several degrees. They must be removed, and we must again learn the lesson of Thatcherism - keep them out of office for a generation, at least.

Kept out of office by whom (and I mean the political alternative rather than electorate)? In any realistic scenario it is a toss up between Conservative or Labour because an alternative with mass electoral support simply doesn't exist. We must learn the lesson of every previous Labour government - i.e. that they inevitably end in national economic ruin - and ensure they are kept out of power for a generation, at least.

But we must look beyond the Labour Party to do that. They are still confused, directionless, supine.

Ah, good. Suggestions then?

You're joking, right? I can't be sure.

The 1945 Labour government was the most progressive ever, bequeathing us amongst other things the NHS, probably the single biggest achievement of any government ever, anywhere.

Wilson's lot, despite armed forces/security forces treachery (capital offence), managed fairly well until upended by the currency crisis the tories had left behind.

Callaghan was a waste of space, as many knew and said at the time. He ended by inviting in the IMF, wholly pointlessly, and doing their bidding. Fool. The global crisis was beyond his control, as well as beyond his imagination.

Similarly, the kowtowing of Blair and Brown to international capital in 2008 left us unable to defend our own interests.

But your conclusion that Labour governments end in ruin is just mad. There's no connection at all between your notion, and the simple facts of global recession. Yes, Blair and his familiars may have made it easier to be a lying, thieving international tycoon, but most Labour PMs don't do that, haven't done that.

Where else to go? I've gone Green. Principles with practicality. Not just tree-hugging.