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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Marf’s and other reaction to Cameron’s speech
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Marf’s and other reaction to Cameron’s speech
“His (Cameron”s) effort today at Tory conference in Manchester this year will not be ranked as great. It was perfectly fine, with all sorts of boxes ticked. But it will be largely forgotten within 24 hours. This was a holding speech designed to buy time while Cameron and the rest of the Tory leadership attempt to work out what on earth to do about the resurgent Ed Miliband.
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Con/Cameron - Steady as she goes. We've got you through ther worst, don't let Labour ruin it.
Lab/Milliband - Let's go on an journey into the unknown but to a much fairer destination.
Lib/Clegg - Zzzzzzzzzzzz....
UKIP/Farage - Give ALL the parties a good pasting.
Personally, I expect the items of significance in the last few weeks have been Godfrey Bloom making a laughing stock of himself and Ed Miliband decisively positioning himself as Red Ed and deciding to run against Fleet Street. The rest has been irrelevant, though I'm sure it all kept the party faithfuls engaged.
The rhetoric on enterprise and business was a relief though, there needs to be at least one party in the UK which supports business, Labour seem to have lost their appetite for it without Tony Blair and since there are 25m private sector employees, this could be a decent hunting ground for the Tories if they can effectively make the argument that supporting business supports jobs. All it will take is one major company like JLR threatening to withdraw investment and jobs from the UK because of Ed's power cuts and higher corporation tax to make the headlines and I'm sure the Tories will call on their mates in big business just before the election to tell the country how dangerous Ed will be for people's jobs...
There are plenty on the right who seem to think there are millions of jobs out there which are being turned down by people who think they are beneath them . The reality is that there are not .
Within 10 miles of where I live Tesco have just 1 vacancy and that is part time , within 20 miles there are 8 vacancies 6 part time 1nights and 1 seasonal job . Filling all those will not impact much on the numbers of unemployed .
It's easy to over-look this, because Labour have successfully glossed over the fact they have been proved wrong on the economy and have moved the debate on to "the cost of living" but it's very significant, IMO, particularly in light of where we was this time last year when Labour was setting the "double-dip" agenda on the economy.
It's also a warning that if Labour has got the "cost of living crisis" as wrong as they got the "economic crisis" this time last year, i.e. the cost of living eases significantly as the economy improves, then the heat will be on Labour to come up with a Plan C for their election strategy.
But more importantly, what on earth is going on with Tory strategy? If Miliband has shifted Labour way left (untrue, but that's their argument) then why are they also vacating the centre ground in favour of further shifts Right?
Greed is good, the poor are feckless wasters, the rich are worthy, the super rich and big business even more so, etc.
Have the Tories privately conceded the next election, and think the best they can hope for is to cobble together enough of a Rightwing "core" to deprive Miliband a majority? (with the help of their media attack dogs, kept fully onside)?
And yet David is possible the more scary in this photo.
Finally a labour person who sees the relationship between spending cuts and surpluses!!
For years the left on here as been arguing that the way to a surplus is to create a bigger deficit!
Or people doing what you did, and starting up their own companies and employing more people, generating income and (hopefully) income into the country.
Cameron was clear, - work study or learn if you want benefits -seems fair enough to me.
It is perfectly possible to do what we did when the government runs a deficit, of course. After all, that is what we did.
A surplus sounds enticing, but in practice may be far less so for anyone who does not have a very high income. But all that will come out in the debate. Whichever way you look at it, it's a sharp tack to the right economically from the Tories.
F1: apparently no-one's won the Korean Grand Prix from pole before. Anyway, here's Gary Anderson's set-up guide (sounds like a Mercedes/Red Bull circuit):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24347358
Still seems a bit unfair on people of modest backgrounds who come to the end of their degree/course/training scheme and can't find work....
If you had nowhere to stay after college or training imagine the pressure in your final year to get a job - something.....anything!
While others can concentrate on their finals...
Or coming out of the army at 21 or 22 after a three year stint. You can't live with a parent for whatever reason....
The Romney strategy in other words. See a policy then scream socialism at it while ignoring how out of touch the public thinks you are. It certainly worked wonders for Romney in the somewhat more right-wing arena of US politics. How can it possibly fail?
The key point for me is the Tory promise relating to surpluses. That means vast cuts - such as those that look like being inflicted on the under 25s. ...
There has been no change in Tory policy. The primary fiscal mandate adopted by George Osborne in 2010 is to balance the cyclically adjusted current budget within a five year rolling period.
The "cyclically adjusted" bit means that the budget should balance at midpoint of a natural economic cycle with the result that surpluses are made in uptimes and deficits occur in downtimes with the account balancing over a cycle.
What Osborne is saying is that once the budget is brought into balance public spending should be maintained at a level proportional to revenues which keeps the current budget balanced over the length of the cycle.
His second fiscal goal was to reduce debt as a % of GDP by the end of this parliamentary term which he will achieve mainly due to asset sales and non-recurring items.
Osborne does need to revisit the secondary goal as there is a requirement for the UK to bring debt as a % pf GDP down to the Maastricht treaty commitment of 60%. And even if this EU obligation didn't exist the 60% level is generally accepted as the appropriate level by the trans-national economic agencies such as the OECD and IMF.
Once the intervened banks are sold and the cyclical budget balanced, say in 2017, the UK's debt to GDP ratio is likely to be around 80%-90%. Provision will need to be made in fiscal plans as to how this can be reduced to 60% and over what period the government should aim to realise the reduction. At present the OECD are using 2030 as a target date when estimating the amount of additional fiscal consolidation needed in its member countries.
So a combination of GDP grpwth, public sector expenditure restraint and tax revenue increases will be needed to meet a new debt goal. All this leads to the need to sustain a surplus on the CACB over a number of years, but so far this has not been announced or even discussed in public by Osborne.
It should be noted that the 60% Debt to GDP ratio obligation applies to all UK governments and is not a discretionary Tory or Coalition commitment.
There's a difference in timing. Let's say - purely as an illustration - that there are 1.5% of voters who are racists, loonies and fruitcakes and that they currently support UKIP.
When Cameron made his comment they represented 1.5% out of 2.5-3.0%: ie 50-60% of the total. Cameron may have had the case. Now they represent 1.5% out of, say, 12% - I.e around 10-15% of UKIP's support. Just on maths Heseltine does not have a case.
You can argue that Cameron should have withdrawn his comment before he did - but then different calculations come into play (politicians don't like withdrawing under pressure).
Equally - and I haven't seen the interview - did Heseltine say UKIP were racists? I think he said that many in the party - but not Farage - found a racist agenda appealing. That's a more nuanced message.
But fundamentally, Tarzan just represents himself these days. He's even less relevant than Ken Clarke...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCovGqMiZyA
Moving heartfelt words which encapsulate Cameron more than any photoshoot ever could.
Easy answer - "people's princess" Blair.
How do 'people' "troll" their own site...?
Not as mental as the state confiscating land or fixing prices, but still crackers.
The average of the next three weeks polls will be the only reliable judgement on the conference season.
Taking YouGov, as an example rather than the sole determinant, if Labour's poll lead averages between 7% to 10% or more, Milband will have won.
If the lead is less than 4% Cameron will have won.
If it remains in the 4% - 6% range then the conference season will have had no meaningful effect and the Miliband vs. Cameron battle will have been a score draw.
Don't expect Heseltine or anyone else in the tory party to apologise for those kind of remarks or even tone them down when the leader of the tory party is fine with what he himself said. A consequence which was pointed out at the time and many times since. You could also have brought in Howard and his broadside against UKIP because Cameron is not alone in the tory party in viewing UKIP in such a manner any more than Heseltine is.
AIUI, what Osborne was saying was that he wanted surpluses to be the norm in good economic times, to pay for deficits in bad economic times. As we could have had if Brown had not gone ever so slightly mad ...
The BBC's take: note they only say it 'could' mean extra austerity and less tax cuts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24339347
However, I agree with you that the left are far happier claiming victimisation (especially ironic given McBride's book) than defending the state grabbing land and fixing prices.
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/paul-dacre-work-daily-mail-editor-after-turning-65-new-contract-agreed
:friendly-advice:
Nice cartoon, Marf! Though I wish to reassure my fellow PB Comrades it's not modelled on me and my mum
Any way, I am gutted for two reasons:
Firstly, the great Tom Clancy has died today, he who made famous the story of "The Hunt for Ed, sorry, Red October". RIP, Comrade Tom!
Secondly, I fully expected Comrade Dave in his speech today to state "I'm not a Socialist in spite of being a Conservative. I'm a Socialist because I AM a Conservative!", but was sorely disappointed!
However in playing the victim, young Ed has missed the chance to rake the government over the coals this week. Which I understood is what he is there to do,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule_(fiscal_policy)
It's far from clear that George Osborne is proposing anything more than Gordon Brown proposed in 1997. He's described his policy as an insurance against a rainy day. That sounds very like the Golden Rule.
Yeah, that's right. Ed Miliband's had a terrible few weeks. What's that saying that appears here a lot "Always wrong about everything and they never ever learn" or something like that ?
You are talking twaddle about both the existence of a Tory 'surplus' policy and the potential impact of any such policy if adopted.
If you disagree, show us some illustrative figures.
Do you know anybody, anybody at all, that defended McBride and what he did?
Fwiw, I thought the guy was a complete and utter gobshite, and he's none the better for having written a book about it. I held that view long before he published and nothing will change it.
If it helps, I will repeat my view at regular intervals on here but I don't see why that should be necessary since I don't know anybody who has posted here in defence of him, unless I missed it.
It is nonsense to imply that McBride is indicative of the Labour Party as a whole, just as it would be nonsense to imply that Geoffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitkin were symptomatic of the Conservatives. It would not be nonsense to argue that McBride's legacy lingers and there is an awful lot of clearing out that still needs doing, but that's just stating the obvious.
I don't think you will find many defending him, publicly or otherwise.
What's being proposed is nothing more than sound (and standard) public policy and was part of Gordon Brown's "Golden Rules" until he trashed them. It is simply being prudent.
I'm sure McBride and his ways are not indicative of Labour as a whole, but it was most definitely indicative of the Brown premiership, and the current Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Chancellor were both part of the Brown inner circle.
However, whichever way you look at it, getting to surplus by 2020 means further big cuts. 2020, of course, is a completely arbitrary year. It could be done by, say, 2023 with less pain.
Agree with you about Brown, and Balls.
Not so sure about the Milibands. DM, definitely not, I would say. Ed M, probably not, but you may know more than me.
Anyway, answer the question! Who on here defends McBride, or ever did?
If we can't fix the deficit into even a small surplus by then, how are we supposed to cope with the next crisis? We could be in the next recession by 2023 ... this is the problem with people who only want to deal with the last problem and never plan. Or do you think we've now ended boom and bust?