The latest figures released by the Department of Work and Pensions show a telling but frightening story as to the societal damage New Labour have inflicted upon Britain. According to the data, over a million people have been on constant state benefits since 1997 whilst another 1.9 million have been on benefits for over seven years.
These results are not as surprising once New Labour’s welfare policies have been inspected. Although they claim to support the most vulnerable in society they seem to have penalised them at every opportunity. State benefits are set at a level where it is more beneficial for an individual to remain on them rather than seek employment. And, if they do find work, they are hit almost straight away by an income tax that penalises them for earning. This is not just damaging to the economy, but it is hugely damaging to society and individuals as long term unemployment often leads to unrest within communities and families. There are teenagers in Britain who have never had a working parent with similar prospects for themselves.
This is further evidence that a free-market system with greater incentives and scope for efficiency creates a fairer society. Once again, socialists have undermined the very people they are supposed to protect. Labour claims to be the party of the working classes, yet every post- war Labour government has finished with unemployment higher than when they started. This is undeniable evidence that Labour has had a negative impact upon society. But will voters learn from their mistakes? I very much doubt it.
It’s unusual for me to be in support a policy of Alistair Darling’s; in fact I can’t remember when I last agreed with him, but if he carried through his signalled intentions to freeze public sector pay, this would be an uncharacteristically prudent move.
It is estimated that a freeze in public sector pay could save £5billion for the public coffers – every little saving counts at the moment and any politician signalling cuts in public expenditure is a step in the right direction. But this would not be the sole benefit of the pay freeze. It could signal the beginnings of a culture of change in the public sector towards efficiency mirroring the private sector.
Currently, and for the past decade, civil servants have enjoyed the best of both worlds. They have received good pay, comfortable working conditions, bonuses, unparalleled job security and huge pensions with very little downside. This has resulted in a stagnation of public services with no incentive to cut costs or boost productivity with no external and very little internal competition. Long-gone are the days when a public sector job was done in the vein of public-interest. A freeze in pay would send out messages that the public sector needs to really earn our money rather than automatically receiving it.
The chances are Alistair Darling won’t carry out his threat of freezing public sector pay. If David Cameron comes into power, he has already stated that he won’t be cracking down on public sector pay as ‘that is not the way we do pay in this country’ (whatever that means…). Even if this warning gives some departments a nudge in the right direction, I fear it will be a long time before we see a much-needed large-scale review of efficiency, waste and spending in the public sector.
Volunteering is an activity that the government does not understand. For politicians, the populace is seen in crude terms, often through the lens of focus groups.
A report from CFE entitiled Cultural Volunteering in the East Midlands, paid for by a collection of publicly funded bodies, apparently demonstrates the “value of volunteering both to the individual and the organisations they volunteer for". This is not exactly a revelation.
The policy recommendations make depressing reading. It argues for the development of a regional policy and strategy on volunteering. While local government “is expected to facilitate an environment in which volunteering is increased and ensure local people can identify opportunities to volunteer and thus fulfil an active role within their communities".
Included in the recommendations is the suggestion that “Local authorities could maximise the engagement of cultural organisations and volunteers by providing volunteer managers in cultural organisations with appropriate information about services, polices and decisions". In essence this is a blueprint for undermining volunteering in the East Midlands.
By its very nature volunteering is set apart from the coercive state. Although usually well intentioned, politicians are taking away the autonomy of charities and with it the values that make them distinct from politics. It is a pity that many charities are happy to lap up public funds not realising that they are drinking poisoned water. Further, they are undermining those charities that know better.
Much is being said about how we need to revise our constitution: we should change the voting system, actually have one for the second house, perhaps have primary elections, state funding of parties, maybe even give the whole liberty and freedom thing up and fall sobbing upon the shoulders of the European Commission. However, I've a simpler idea, one that has two benefits. Firstly, it would provide me with a well paid sinecure shouting at and making fun of politicians and secondly, it would actually be useful whatever else we did to the political or governance system.
I want to revive the post of Jester: in it's proper, medieval sense that is. Not just a funny looking man in odd clothes (I've got that part of the job description right at least) who told unfunny jokes (ditto) but one who was licenced, authorised, to shout out when someone was talking b?**?!cks. If the Minister for Equality started to say again that the gender pay gap is 24% or more then that stick with bells on gets waved. Repeat in Cabinet that ID cards will help to prevent identity theft and the bells on the silly hat are also tinkled.
Someone proposing that wind power can meet all our electricty needs would be greeted with the report showing that it is indeed possible for peak demand to coincide with not a breath of useable wind in the entire country and something unfunny from Shakespeare. The full capering and preening upon the table, boncing with the blown up pig bladder and provision of a whoopee cushion would be reserved for those who say something extraordinarily stupid: like stating that a 50% tax rate will increase revenues, or that the economy is well placed to weather the storm. Of course, no one would be silly enough to say such things, would they, so the full production would indeed be a rarity.
The sad thing is we shouldn't actually need a Jester, someone to perform this office. If we had emotionally and intellectually continent adults (or even ones who were intellectually coherent) in office then of course they would be able to manage things themselves. But while we've got the politicians we do there is indeed a need for someone to leap up and shout "B?**?!ks" at them when they're being, as they are all too often, stupid.
If I don't get the job then I nominate Roy "Chubby" Brown.
There are many bad Bills set to be brought before the House of Commons in Building Britain’s Future, Labour’s platform upon which they will be fighting the election. For example:
As part of the Digital Britain Bill the government has decided to switch off FM radio. I for one still use it and find it entirely adequate for my needs and am not keen on being forced to buy a new radio because the government wants to direct technology. There is also a plan to introduce a legal right to broadband, which is preposterous in the extreme.
The Child Poverty Bill will put into law the desire to abolish child poverty by 2020. This is something the Conservative government should immediately overturn if they come into power. In this instance a child is judged as being in poverty if they are part of a household earning less than 60 percent of median earnings. It is therefore not a goal to reduce actual poverty (which should be measured in absolute terms), but a goal for household equality.
In forcing companies to publish the difference in salaries between men and women, the government has hit upon a terrible policy. Flexible working arrangements that offer fewer hours for less pay are being undermined. This legislation will discourage companies from employing women in junior positions in case they skew the results (undermining their ability to attract women for more senior positions). The unintended consequences will prove this to be counter-productive.
There are two even greater concerns that transcend the problems with any individual Bill. Firstly, how on earth does the government expect to pay for this? £4.2 billion on the Child overtly Bill; £655 million on the Improving Schools and Safeguarding Children Bill; £117 million on the Equality Bill; the list goes on. Accepting that the government is already trimming the edges of government in cognito, the fiddling needed to also cover these policies would put Madoff to shame. What will be cut?
The other concern is the fact that so much of these Bills are filled with trite nonsense. As Simon Jenkins points out in The Guardian:
What is "a mandatory job for every school-leaver unemployed for a year" or "a guarantee to local people of more power to keep their neighbourhood safe" or a "guarantee of a personal tutor for every parent" or an "enforceable entitlement to see a consultant"?
To sum up, Building Britain’s Future is full of bad, expensive polices that have no chance of working.
Labour are on the back foot. The political agenda is being set by the opposition parties who both seem content and intent to continue raising the pressure on the government’s spending commitments. Increasingly this is looking like the battlefield upon which the next election will be fought.
This is undoubtedly a good thing. People are getting increasingly disillusioned with the promise of politics, and in this moment of realism, policies for a smaller government will certainly go down well with the electorate. Even though Labour has bottled the comprehensive spending review (CSR) they are not in control of the headlines and even the usually complicit BBC is putting in the boot.
The government has spent and spent, and we have got nothing in exchange except a serious amount of debt that even by the best predictions will be a serious drag on our economic future. In adversity there is an opportunity for those that believe the government should play a less pervasive role in the running of our lives.
So what should the next government do? There are of course privatizations that still need to be undertaken; welfare to fundamentally reform; education to liberate; a flat tax to be put in place; the BBC to be overhauled; medical saving accounts to be created; and much more besides.
Conservative leader, David Cameron, gave a speech at Imperial College, London, on Thursday, outlining how the Conservatives would roll back the state. This would involve publishing information relating to any public expenditure over £25,000 (why not publish everything?), abolishing such things as ID Cards, reviewing Ripa and also the extradition treaty between the UK & US.
It's painfully true that our freedoms have been eroded faster than ever over the past 12 years, but the Conservatives are just as culpable having been a subservient opposition that has failed on a number of occasions to stand up for liberty. When they form the next government (which they seem certain to do) they will have little room for manoeuvre. It will have to be spending cuts and/or higher taxes (obviously higher taxes would only be to service debt rather than expand government further, but you can't trust politicians). What they will need to do is explain why abolishing large swathes of government is the right course, and why society will be vastly improved without them.
Shining a light on public expenditure is not reining in the state. We will no doubt see the black pen of government used again. If the Conservatives really want to rein in the state then they will need to cut spending and cut taxes. They could then re-energize the UK economy and improve government revenues through expansive growth to pay off the accrued debt of Labour's creation. The beast must be starved to set us free, and allow us to never again be the playthings of authoritarian politicians.
But politicians are a breed that have evolved into beings that can't say no, and seek to interfere in all business. They aim to micromanage all, or they fear that they will be accused of being uncaring and out-of-touch. The blame for this though covers us all: the politicians are mostly at fault for neutering us via centralization and we for our blind apathetic allowance for it to occur. Is it a surprise that scepticism arises when a politician says he will roll back the state.
The MP expenses scandal dominated the headlines during much of my time at the Adam Smith Institute. Each day I watched with great interest as new stories unfolded. The one thing that struck me about the public’s response to the scandal was how genuinely surprised so many people appeared to be that the MPs would do such a thing. It was a stark contrast to what I perceive as very low expectations among Americans for the scruples of their elected representatives.
Beginning with Watergate, the American public’s confidence in government officials has been rocked by scandal after scandal. Hollywood and the news media only foment the discontent with sensationalized accounts of government corruption. Public opinion has spiraled downward to the point that there is almost an assumption that all politicians engage in some sort of clandestine impropriety. For example, what surprised the US public about the Monica Lewinski affair was not that Bill Clinton was messing around with an intern, but that he actually got caught doing it.
I believe that this deeply ingrained distrust of politicians is one reason why Americans resist increased state involvement in their lives: they do not trust government to do the right things for the right reasons.
Perhaps the MP expenses scandal will awaken the UK electorate to a similar sense of governmental skepticism. If such a nationwide mentality were to develop and lead the public to take matters into their own hands (i.e. tell the government that it has had its chance at managing the national infrastructure, and it is time for the citizenry and the markets to take over), then what is now a blight on the reputation of Parliament may eventually be celebrated as the first step towards freedom.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Jacqui Smith, but her latest interview makes me wonder how and why she remained in one of the most crucial public jobs for so long. She seems genuinely unremorseful for her part in the expenses scandal and still fails to understand why the public are so angered.
She claims that she was treated unfairly by the media and the public, as she received a lot more criticism than other MPs who had made claims for much greater amounts. She sounds like a school playground excuse, ‘the other children are all misbehaving too!’
The fact is, one of the jobs of a Home Secretary is to combat crime, her position became untenable once she decided to start robbing us of our hard-earned money. Like many MPs she thought she had the ‘right; to whatever she wanted without any repercussions.
It is difficult to get into the mindset of an MP who fiddles their expenses but still tries to convince themselves and the public that they only ever went into politics to help society. They’re either still trying to pull the wool over our eyes, or they’re pulling it over their own. In the interview Jacqui Smith claims that she stepped down from politics because it was the right thing to do ‘for her’ and ’her family’ – well at least she’s not lying to us any more, she admits there was no consideration for the public in her decision to step down. She had simply milked the system for as much as she could.
The real kicker came when she admitted, with a ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ face, that she would probably still be in public office if the expenses had not been exposed. Yes Jacqui, it’s our fault you’re corrupt!
A flabbergasted European Union has for the past 12 months been telling Ireland that the "No" they returned in the referendum of 2008 was not "their final answer". Today the EU announced that concessions had been granted to the Irish in areas covering military neutrality, taxes and abortion. Or in political terms: the voters of Ireland have been offered a bribe to vote 'yes' so that the planned federalization of Europe can continue unabated. As for the rest of the European nations who have already ratified the treaty, there are no special favours or opt-out areas on offer.
If a single 'no' to a EU treaty can grant you negotiable policy areas imagine what the UK could have achieved had we been able to express ourselves freely and openly on how we felt towards the EU and the Lisbon Treaty. But this quite clearly shows that there are areas of public policy that have once again been handed over meekly by parliament to the control of Brussels/Strasbourg. If the Irish felt those areas were of national importance and are enough to swing the vote to a 'yes' what are we going to regret losing control over?
Rather than continuing the charade of European elections every 5 years, with an ever-decreasing turnout, we should finally hold the referendum that has been continually promised us. We are now 36 years into a partnership with our neighbours which has hardly ever been beneficial. Thirty-four years have passed since we last held this contract to account, it is time for a re-assessment especially in light of what Ireland have protected and what we no longer have control over. In the meantime we shall have to hope that the Irish see past the bribery and realize that there is no benefit to further integration. Should they vote 'no' it could finally open the door to a referendum in this country.
The latest figures released by the Department of Work and Pensions 
Conservative leader, David Cameron, gave a 
The MP expenses scandal dominated the headlines during much of my time at the Adam Smith Institute. Each day I watched with great interest as new stories unfolded. The one thing that struck me about the public’s response to the scandal was how genuinely surprised so many people appeared to be that the MPs would do such a thing. It was a stark contrast to what I perceive as very low expectations among Americans for the scruples of their elected representatives.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Jacqui Smith, but her latest 
A flabbergasted European Union has for the past 12 months been telling Ireland that the "No" they returned in the referendum of 2008 was not "their final answer". Today the EU announced that concessions had been granted to the Irish in areas covering military neutrality, taxes and abortion. Or in political terms: the voters of Ireland have been offered a bribe to vote 'yes' so that the planned federalization of Europe can continue unabated. As for the rest of the European nations who have already ratified the treaty, there are no special favours or opt-out areas on offer.