a Stratford Conservative

Defining "efficiency savings"

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:56:00 +0000

To most being told to make efficiency savings means you would look at how things work, can you buy things more cost effectively, if you rearrange a process would it take less time and hence less man hours to do. Not so though it seems for NHS managers who apparently believe that making efficiency savings equates to just cutting the amount of work they do.

As reported in the Telegraph today:

"managers, who are already rationing surgery for cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils, say they must restrict treatment as the NHS is under orders to make £20 billion of efficiency savings by 2015."

Restricting treatment isn't making an efficiency saving, it's just doing less. It's like saying the way we'll save money in a manufacturing business is to make less stuff because then we'll spend less on materials and staff.

However it gets worse, even the most die-hard don't touch our NHS, leave it as it is'er will surely question the idea that NHS management and accountability structures don't need an overhaul when they read the findings of the independent Co-operation and Competition panel report. As described by the Telegraph:

"Executives believe the delays mean some people will remove themselves from lists “either by dying or by paying for their own treatment” claims the report"

Ed's 24 hour u-turn

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 11:18:00 +0000

Yesterday Ed Milliband said:
“I think that BSkyB is a separate issue about the operation of competition law,” (Video below)

Yet at PMQs today he said that the Prime Minister was out of touch with public opinion for saying exactly the same thing. Has public opinion changed so dramatically since yesterday that he had to u-turn? or was it really just for a cheap PMQs hit

Was public debt really lower in 2008 than in 1997?

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:35:00 +0000

Ed Balls keeps banging away that the national debt was smaller before the crisis than they inherited from the Conservatives. The other day Labour List used this graph to illustrate his point.

Damning stuff, except it's two data points, let's look at the whole picture from 1999 to present courtesy of the ONS (It's the graph on the right we're interested in).

So what does this show, it shows that from when they took over and whilst they were following Conservative spending plans, national debt as a percentage of GDP did indeed fall, (aided as well by the sale of 3G mobile phone licences for £22.37bn in 2000, which as Ed Balls said this morning went towards paying off national debt.), but as soon as Labour economic policies kicked in we saw an upward trajectory. By 2008 we were already running a significant structural deficit, then we had the crisis which was an excuse for opening the spending taps even more.

What's important to remember is that this graph excludes interventions in the banking sector, so the debt didn't go up in 2008 because we bailed out the banks, as the language Balls uses always implies. Trust me you don't even want to see that graph, in April 2011 debt including interventions was 148.9% of GDP.

So next time someone tells you that the debt was lower in 2008 than in 1997, ask them if they know what it was in 2002.

The truth about ESA and cancer patients

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:21:00 +0000

At PMQs today Ed Milliband used all of his questions on a technicality of the Welfare reform bill, basically justifying his opposition to welfare reform. He used a press release from earlier this week from Macmillan Cancer care which states that 3,000 (or 7,000 depending on who wrote it up) cancer patients faced the removal of up to £94 a week's Employment Support Allowance.

As far as I can see it the reality is this.

Claimants for ESA are divided into two groups:
1) those undergoing treatment (the support group);
2) Those deemed able to perform "work-related activities"

For those in the support group there is no time limit for their claims for ESA. If you are a cancer patient undergoing treatment for 2 years, 3 years, or 5 years then it appears that you are entitled to ESA.

However if you're in the second group and your treatment has ended and you have been assessed (by a medical test) as being able to perform work related activities, to help you to return to full work, then you face means testing of your work related activities ESA after having received it for 12 months. This means that if you have savings over £16,000 or you have a partners with either works more than 24 hours or earns more than £149 a week that you would lose the entirety of your ESA, otherwise you would lose either a portion of it, or nothing at all.

So will cancer "patients" be worse off by £94 a week? I guess it depends what you call a patient.

Update: I also understand that the government ammended the Bill to ensure that individuals awaiting or between courses of chemotherapy will automatically be placed in the support group and retain their indefinite ESA.

Is it Christmas already?

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:06:00 +0000

Ed Balls latest campaign "Britain's Lost Talent" has been launched on Labour's Campaign Engine Room site. It's a blatant attempt to cash in on the success and media interest of Britain's Got Talent, (something that has failed miserably) and even has a showbiz style logo.

Unfortunately someone in the Labour Party's graphic design department seems to think that snowflakes are the same as stars.

Or is it just so bad there are the moment that they're wishing it was Christmas already?

Exchange of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:59:00 +0000

From last night's NewsNight

Ed Balls: The IMF have consistently backed George Osborne – they still are – but I have to say in the face of the evidence of the last few months.

Jeremy Paxman: So are you saying that 1,200 economists at the IMF are wrong and you, Ed Balls, are right?

Words of Wisdom from Gordon Brown

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:34:00 +0000

I'm doing some research and came across this gem from Gordon Brown's 1999 Pre-budget report

"The economy of 1997 was characterised by rising inflationary pressures; unsustainable consumer spending; a large structural deficit in the public finances with public sector borrowing of 28 billion pounds; indeed, Madam Speaker, Britain was set to repeat the same old cycle of boom and bust."

So in 1999, Gordon Brown claimed he was worried about an economy that was borrowing £28bn pounds a year, even adjusting for inflation since then you'd be talking about roughly £40bn a year. Today we have to borrow that in just over 3 and a half months, yet as he was leaving government he didn't seem at all concerned about it.

Huhne Prediction

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Thu, 26 May 2011 08:58:00 +0000

I've been meaning to write this all week just to get it down so I can say, see told you so. (After not blogging on my solution to reducing fuel duty which then ended up in the budget I don't want to miss out again).

My theory is that if Huhne is going to go of his own free will (which is by no means certain based on his behaviour to date) he will go sometime during recess, my first prediction in fact is that he will go today. Why during recess? Well it means he can lie low for a week or so without having to be in the House for votes or if he's not there getting lots of "he's not serving his constituents" comments coming through. Also there are very few MPs around for the lobby to pounce on and get a scathing "It's disgraceful, always knew he was guilty" comments.

On the negative it's relatively quiet political news wise during recess, but I still think if he's going through his choice it will be before Parliament returns.

Obama's failure to endorse government's economic plan isn't good news for the left

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:18:00 +0000

There is much crowing from the left that Obama has failed to endorse the Coalition's plans to reduce the deficit by saying lines such as "Our different countries will need to take different paths". However perhaps they should consider that he may not be willing to support our plans because they aren't as quick as his, rather than the other way around.

As the Spectator has shown in this graph, the "Obama plan" sees public spending reduced by a larger percentage in 1 year than we're doing over an entire Parliament.

So why has he been saying this different paths line? Well either
1) He wants to ensure that the Republicans can't accuse him of wanting to go back on what he has already agreed (i.e. not cut as quickly) or;
2) The Coalition (who surely had sight of his speeches and remarks beforehand) didn't want to embolden those on the right who are saying we should be going much quicker than we are, or do any damage to the public's view that we want to go quicker.

Either way, his comments certainly don't endorse the Labour Tax and spend approach, if anything it says the opposite.

Update:
I've just seen the transcript of the joint press conference where Obama says:

"And obviously the nature and role of the public sector in the United Kingdom is different than it has been in the United States. The pressures that each country are under from world capital markets are different. The nature of the debt and deficits are different. And as a consequence, the sequencing or pace may end up being different."

The role and nature of the public sector in the US is that it provides much less to it's citizens than ours, therefore they can cut quicker than we can here, is my reading of that.

Interestingly the PM said:

"But each country is different, but when I look across now and see what the U.S. and the UK are currently contemplating for the future, it’s actually relatively similar program in terms of trying to get on top of our deficits and make sure that debt is falling as a share of GDP...."

"...So as he said, we may take slightly different paths but we want to end up in the same place."

So there's that different paths line again, clearly an agreed line between them.

Update 2:
From the transcript of Obama's speech in Westminster:

"Having come through a terrible recession, our challenge today is to meet these obligations while ensuring that we’re not consumed with a level of debt that could sap the strength and vitality from our economies. That will require difficult choices and different paths for both of our countries."

Also notice his focus on debt, which is a major issue in the US, unlike our debate here on the deficit.

Plan A working - Unemployment Falls

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Wed, 18 May 2011 09:29:00 +0000

Unemployment is down by 36,000, it's not a huge amount but it's down none the less. The total number of people in employment rose to 29.24m which isn't bad compared to a pre-recession peak in May 2008 of 29.56m. Youth unemployment is still 20% but that is a fall from last quarter.

Overall Labour will argue that it's too slow and that the increase in jobseekers claimants (up by 12,400) shows that we are spending more money on benefits than would be spent if we just continued increasing public sector employment (That's my prediction for an attack question at PMQs today). However some of those will be people moving off disability benefits after being reassessed and found fit to work and the overall trajectory is positive.

Basically Plan A is working, so Ed Balls couldn't be more wrong with his constant "we need a Plan B" message.

Bootnote:
Picture stolen from Guido, it was just too good.

Why Huhne might resign today

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Tue, 10 May 2011 14:56:00 +0000

Rumours are circulating on Twitter that Chris Huhne is going to announce his resignation at 4:45 today.

There's a few reasons why he might go:

1) No one has yet discovered the smoking gun on the rumours / claims that he got someone else to take speeding points to avoid a driving ban. He can therefore resign now claiming it's over something else (My guess is wicked Tories and their wicked and alleged "rich kids get uni places plan") and get the heat off his back before anyone can find it.

2) His ministerial pension rights apparently kick in today.

3) It's become clear that it won't be easy to get David Laws back into the government, let alone into the Cabinet, so there's little chance Huhne can just be replaced easily with a right winger in the form of David Laws.

Of course at the same time, Huhne is supposed to be at the 2nd reading of the energy bill then (although Guido was claiming that he'll be hiding out at Privy Council instead) and this rumour did start from a journalist on twitter, who has now rolled it back and didn't have that many followers, so was he just aiming to get a few more?

Stratford Election Results

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Fri, 06 May 2011 09:04:00 +0000

Final tally from last night.

Conservatives: Gained 4, lost 2, overall result +2

Independents: Gained 1, overall result +1

Lib Dem: Gained 1, lost 4, overall result -3

A good result for local Conservatives last night. Neville Beamer increased his majority to
Roughly 700 in Stratford itself and Lynda Organ won by over 500 votes also in a Stratford ward, both results showing Conservatives have regained the trust of the town's electorate.

Also a fantastic result for Danny Kendal in Wellesbourne winning by 300 votes to unseat a Lib Dem and a close win for first time Candidate Johnathan Gullis in Shipston, with a margin of just 16 votes, also unseating a Lib Dem councillor.

Why vote no to AV today

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Thu, 05 May 2011 07:29:00 +0000

AV is unfair
With First Past the Post, everybody gets one vote. But under AV, supporters of extreme parties like the BNP would get their vote counted many times, while people who vote for one of the mainstream candidates would only get their vote counted once.

AV doesn't work
Rather than the candidate who receives the most votes winning the election, the person who finishes third could be declared the winner.

AV is expensive
Calculating the results is a long, complicated process, which would cost the taxpayer millions. It can take days to figure out exactly who has won. The estimated cost of AV over £250 million. The cost of AV has been estimated to be £250 million by the NO to AV campaign.

AV is obscure and unpopular
Only three countries in the world use AV for their elections: Fiji, Australia, and Papua New Guinea. And in Australia, 6 out of 10 voters want to get rid of it.

AV would lead to more Hung Parliaments
Hung parliaments could become commonplace with more haggling and horsetrading between politicians. AV makes hung parliaments far more likely. While hung parliaments can bring parties together in the national interest, as it did last May, the expectation of a hung parliament -- if it becomes the norm rather than exception -- would make Party manifestos irrelevant and cause more horsetrading between politicians, both before and after elections

First past the post favours ....

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Sun, 01 May 2011 08:55:00 +0000

As we enter the final week before the AV referendum the campaign is hotting up and the Sunday papers are full of politicians telling us how to vote.

In the Observer Lib Dem Chris Huhne has joined forces with one of the minority Labour supporters of AV, John Denham, to call for an anti-tory alliance to remove first past the post which he claims has favoured Conservatives.

Firstly it appears that the Yes campaign has dropped all pretence of real arguments in favour of Mandelson’s argument of vote Yes to defeat the wicked Tories. The new non tribal politics is clearly winning inside the Yes camp.

But the main thing about this argument is that first past the post favours the Conservatives. His reasoning, only twice in the last 110 years (1900 and 1931) has a Conservative government had an absolute majority of 50%. His argument appears to be that if we added together the Lib Dem and Labour vote then they would have had a 50% majority. His argument is therefore that all Lib Dem voters are anti Tory, which of course isn’t true, and if you follow it through then clearly the solution is that Labour and the Lib Dems should merge and become one party, job done.

Looking at the figures of General Election results also destroys his argument. Since 1900 there have been 13 Conservative governments (including the current coalition), 12 Labour Governments and 4 Liberal governments, so how exactly has it favoured the Conservative Party?

Of course in reality First Past the Post currently favours the Labour Party, mainly due to the current constituency boundaries (which is why they’re being changed). That’s why even though the Conservatives got a large national swing last May they still didn’t win an overall majority. In reality the Labour party (a progressive majority?) won a landslide election in 1997 and then two more majorities before being kicked out (although not in any way by a landslide) last year, and technically they could have stayed in power with the Lib Dems.

So given recent history do you really think that First Past the Post favours the Conservatives? And who do you think AV favours?

Update:
I see everyone’s favourite Vince Cable wrote basically the same thing in the Guardian yesterday. I do feel sorry for Clegg who I believe is more centre right than centre left, and is stuck with a coalition in his own party, the left side of which is abusing the AV referendum to try to enforce their dominance.

Keynes Vs Hayek Round 2

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:08:00 +0000

This is an absolute must watch for anyone confused over top down versus bottom up (or Keynes vs Hayek).

Favourite lines from my side (Mr Hayek):
"Wow, one data point and you're jumping for joy"

"Real growth means production, what people demand, that's entrepreneurship not your central plan"

"The question I ponder is who plans for whome. Do you plan for yourself or leave it to you, I want plans by the many not by the few"

Rebalancing the economy

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:19:00 +0000

Just wanted to quickly share this little tidbit that the Spectator pointed out from CitiBank showing how the government really is managing to rebalance the economy towards exports and private sector investment. Whilst the two Eds (Ball and Milliband), and of course Gordon Brown believe that the only way out of a recession is public sector spending Osborne and Team and proving that it doesn't have to be the case.

Update:

The ONS has just released the Q1 GDP growth figures (0.5% growth), however the underlying figures show that the rebalancing of the economy is working. Manufacturing up 1.1%, Services up 0.9% and production up 0.4%.

AV Sports Day

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:13:00 +0000

It's been a while but with the AV campaign hotting up I expect to be blogging a bit more in the coming 2 weeks or so.

The posts might even be more than just posting a new No to AV ad, like this one:

Quote of the day

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:11:00 +0000

Eric Pickles yesterday when asked if he thought it was bizzare that Ed Milliband had compared his party's struggle to that of apartheid:

"Well, I suppose there comes an occasion, you turn up, there's a lot of people there-and you just start to talk. These things happen, and we should be in a forgiving mood. I mean, anybody can compare themselves to Martin Luther King."

Taking on Whitehall

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 10:26:00 +0000

There have been a number of posts and articles of late claiming that Cameron was wrong to identify the Civil Service as an enemy of Enterprise in his speech to Spring Forum in Cardiff. It seems that no less that the head honcho of the Civil Service, Sir Gus O’Donnell has been tasked with telling No. 10 to “Cool-it”, in their anti civil service rhetoric.

The argument from pretty much every journalist doesn’t seem to have been that the Civil Service isn’t an Enemy of Enterprise but that it’s wrong to pull them up on it. You see you need the Civil Service to support you in putting through your reforms, so you shouldn’t upset them by telling them they’re not doing a good enough job.

Rubbish, this kind of thinking is exactly why they are the enemies of enterprise. No government has ever had the guts to take them on for fear of them holding up everything else, but if we are to fundamentally reform our public services and rebalance our economy then we have to. The media should be cheering the Prime Minister for having the strength to take on a powerful lobby and set of vested interests, or are they too worried about losing the Civil Service’s support and access, to tackle them too.

Update: As I wrote this James Forsyth at the Spectator posted a piece on Coffee House pointing out that even former Labour government insiders and minister agree that the Civil Service get in the way and have power without accountability, mainly because they can’t be sacked. In opposition I believe that Francis Maude had plans to put permanent secretaries on short term contracts to resolve this, but I understand this has met Civil Service resistance (anyone really surprised by that) and been quietly dropped, along with other proposed Civil Service reforms.

Bootnote: I think we can guess that the leaked budget that Balls held up in the Commons yesterday was from a disgruntled Civil Servant who didn't like the idea of being pulled up on his performance by the government.

Our debt interest in perspective

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:38:00 +0000

As regular readers know I love a good visualisation, and CCHQ have just come up with a great one showing just how much we spend as a government every day. Unsurprisingly at present our daily debt interest dwarfs anything else, including schools and defence.

Why Combine Income Tax and NI?

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:11:00 +0000

At the beginning of last week the Office for Tax Simplification (another new body, with an un-sexy name, but an important job), released its interim report into how to simplify the tax system. The coverage at the time was minimal (what with Libya imploding and Japan’s nuclear reactor’s exploding it’s hardly surprising), but since then and with the budget looming the media has suddenly started to pick-up on their most radical proposal, Scrapping National insurance in favour of a tax which combines National Insurance and income tax into one.

Why is this a good idea? Well firstly national insurance is quite complicated and calculating income tax deductions and national insurance deductions and completing the correct returns for the PAYE system is a time consuming process for business (especially smaller ones). In fact I am almost certain that there is research out there somewhere which shows that being responsible for the tax affairs of employees is one of the things that stops sole traders and one man band businesses from expanding into employers.

Secondly National Insurance is a tax that has had its day. It’s designed to act as an insurance payment, you pay in and get access to benefits and the NHS if you need them, if you don’t then your payments are paying for someone else to get them. Except you also get access to benefits and the NHS if you’ve never paid any National Insurance, because as a society we also look after the poorest and those that can’t work.

At present National Insurance raises £98.5bn a year against an annual welfare bill of £180bn and an annual bill for the NHS of £xxbn. In reality taxation from NI isn’t ring-fenced to pay for benefits and the NHS and if it was it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough anyway. It’s all just money for government coffers, and is just another form of tax on income with complicated rules and rates.

Removing National Insurance actually goes hand in hand with the benefit reforms which Ian Duncan Smith is currently pushing through. His suggestion that everyone will be entitled to a flat rate £140 a week pension removes not just the link to NI contributions over time, but also the complicated mechanism for NI top-ups, that make sure that someone isn’t left in poverty in their old age. So combining NI and income tax not only simplifies things on the employee side, but could also help reduce the huge bureaucracy which is required to administer our benefits system.

Finally of course if we do this then it’s more difficult for a future Labour government to put up taxes by stealth by increasing NI, because it’s all in one single payment. In reality at present the 20% tax rate, including NI is actually 32%, and the 40% rate is actually 52%. So not only would it be more difficult to put up taxes when we’re in opposition, but it’s also easier to convince people that they should be reduced when we’re in government.

So really it’s a win-win all round and something of a no brainer. My prediction is that the Chancellor will announce some kind of commitment to set-up a commission or inquiry into how this can be done in the budget, although who knows he may go further.

Bootnote: This was originally written last week and I've only just got around to looking up the tax income figures.

The Ed Balls Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:39:00 +0000

Last week’s opposition day debate was supposed to be on the Police. As Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Office, Yvette Cooper had put her motion to the Speaker, lined up her speakers and was putting the finishing touches to her speech when suddenly her husband Ed Balls popped up and changed everything.

You see “the Balls”, as I’m sure he dreams people called him, appears to be leading on Labour strategy, and as far as he’s concerned it’s “the economy stupid” that matters and nothing else. The Tory-led government are taking risks and cutting too far too fast and that’s affecting the man on the street and it’s the only message the public care about.

That he’s committing Labour to fight the government on the economy almost alone is clear from today’s Treasury OPQ order paper, which shows a clear whipping effort from Balls to get his questions in there.

For those that don’t know the order of who asks a question at OPQs is the result of a ballot. You can enter the ballot by tabling either a topical question (which just gives you the right to ask any current topical question) or tabling a pre-written oral question. These are then put into “the shuffle” which I’m pretty sure is just a computer programme which randomly selects who will get to ask a question.

If you’ve ever looked at an order paper and wondered why so many people are on the same wave length and have asked the same question or almost the same question, then here’s the secret. The Whips send round a set of questions and ask their MPs to pick one that they like and submit it. There’s no formal whipping of it, i.e. no one says you must submit a question, or that you can’t put in your own question (many do), or at least there isn’t normally one.

However for today’s Treasury questions three times as many Labour MPs put in questions as for yesterday’s Education questions, so you have to ask who has been putting the pressure on, and my answer is of course “The Balls”. As a result of this effort the order paper is stuffed with Labour MPs and of course if they all submitted one of “The Balls’ ” questions then you end up with the same question many times (although the MP obviously gets to ask a supplementary as well, although this is supposed to be supplementary to their initial question).

So out of 25 questions the Chancellor will actually only be asked 16, and the country and Parliament is missing out on the chance to get an answer to 9 different questions .

Today’s order paper (questions grouped):
1) What assessment he has made of the effects on the economy of the trade in mortgage-backed securities and collateralised debt obligations. – to be asked by Bill Esterson (Sefton Central)

2) If he will bring forward proposals for a scheme to provide looked-after children with a savings account or trust fund funded by contributions from the Exchequer; and if he will make a statement. – to be asked by Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East)

3) If he will estimate the revenue to the Exchequer attributable to receipts from the increase in the standard rate of value added tax on road fuel. – asked by Albert Owen (Ynys Môn), Vernon Coaker (Gedling), and Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central)

4) What assessment he has made of the effect on levels of employment of the increase in the standard rate of value added tax. – to be asked by Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes), and Mike Gapes (Ilford South)

5) What assessment he has made of the effect on consumer confidence of the increase in the standard rate of value added tax since his recent meeting with representatives of the retail industry. – to be asked by Eric Joyce (Falkirk)

6) What fiscal measures he has taken to support economic growth in the manufacturing sector. – to be asked by Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock), Andrew Stephenson (Pendle), and Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye)

7) If he will review the pace of proposed reductions in public expenditure to take into account gross domestic product figures for the fourth quarter of 2010. – to be asked by Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth), Graeme Morrice (Livingston), Barry Gardiner (Brent North), and Ian Mearns (Gateshead)

8) By what date he expects revenue to the Exchequer to match levels of public expenditure. – to be asked by Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham)

9) If he will (a) prepare and (b) publish an assessment of the relative effect of his forthcoming budget on women, families and ethnic minorities. – to be asked by Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland)

10) What recent representations he has received on measures to reduce the budget deficit. – to be asked by Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North)

11) What recent assessment he has made of the effect on economic growth of the spending reductions set out in the June 2010 Budget. – to be asked by Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham), and Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West):

12) What recent assessment he has made of trends in duty and value added tax on petrol. – to be asked by John Mann (Bassetlaw)

13) What steps he is taking to reduce the rate of inflation. – to be asked by Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton)

14) What assessment he has made of the contribution of HM Revenue and Customs to reducing the budget deficit. – to be asked by Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend)

15) If he will bring forward proposals for a further tax on bank bonuses. – to be asked by Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East)

16) What fiscal measures he has taken to support economic growth in Kent. – to be asked by Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald)

Understatement of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:01:00 +0000

Ed Balls on Labour's handling of the economy:

“Did we spend every pound wisely? Of course we didn’t”

At least he's honest.

Hat-tip to Paul Waugh for spotting that gem.

Exclusive Video: David Cameron talks to West Midlands Party members

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:15:00 +0000

After attending the LEP summit at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, the Prime Minister attended a meet the members event with members from across the West Midlands. I was there and shot the video below of the PM strongly arguing for a no vote in the AV referndum, telling members to be proud of what's been achieved in government and catching someone out on the fact that the AV refendum means there are elections everywhere.

Bootnote:
Shot and edited entirely on an iPhone 4, so sorry the sound is a little low

IPSA spends £4,300 per member of staff on furniture

noreply@blogger.com (SimonSmethMac) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 10:44:00 +0000

Fascinating news today that IPSA has spent £293,000 furnishing it's offices at an average of £4,300 per member of staff. IPSA bosses have apparently defended this by saying:

"IPSA is not part of the Parliamentary estate. Last year we walked into a shell of an office and needed to equip it - there is a cost associated in doing so. We followed the proper procedures - we held a competition through the Office of Government Commerce, where the Government has approved suppliers and rates,”

Now strangely enough our constituency office isn't part of the Parliamentary Estate either, and therefore doesn't get any furniture. It was in fact when we moved in, an empty shell of an office. However was there any budget from IPSA to get furniture or set-up the office? Perhaps something that IPSA would describe in terms of their own expenditure as "...a one off expenditure which we will not be repeating." Short answer, no. MPs are given a roughly £10,000 annual budget for anything they purchase for their offices that isn't rent, utility bills etc, from that as a new MP we had to buy some special software for tracking constituent contacts a one off cost of a few thousand pounds, letterheads and stationary, and have enough left over to pay ongoing running costs (such as toner for the Parliament supplied printers, a complete set of which costs about £500).

In reality our office is furnished with furniture from my own home office, and some items kindly leant to us from the office next door, who probably expected to get them back at some point and are slowly realising they won't. I would love to be able to have spent £465 for a relaxer lounger, or £262 for visitor chairs. I would more realistically love to be able to buy a sofa and stools for visitors to be able to have informal meetings sat on rather than having meetings formally across a desk but it's never going to happen because:
1) It will be published and misrepresented by a newspaper who will think it's appalling we've brought a £100 sofa from Ikea, and should instead be sitting on bare concrete floors;
2) IPSA haven't given us any money to do it.

Yes some MPs milked their personal expenses for profit and gain, but it is as much staff who are suffering now as the MPs, whilst IPSA continues to live in its own world.