Well I suppose it’s one way to try and compete with the Far East!

I like his honesty at least… “If I push this, what happens?”

Well, I like the idea of abolishing jobcenters. It’s not like actually going to the bloody places on a two-weekly basis actually accomplishes something. It could easily be replaced with filling in an activity log (online or phone), and less frequent visits with an actual job *advisor*, who might be able to do something other than call up a list of jobs!

He could do with raising his saddle by an inch or so.

“A top advisor to Cameron has advocated abandon worker and consumer rights in a desperate attempt to kick-start economic growth.”

In other words more conservative economic terrorism to be inflicted on the poorest.

Do conservative “solutions” ever involve something that wont make life worse for the average person?

6. Supply Side economics is in essence just a pathalogical fear of spending money.

Thats why we get these immense policy contortions which make no sense at all to ordinary people who have to live in the real world.

Vote Tory, get Tory. Forget the smiling faces and the ‘we are all in this together mantra’, the real face of the Tory is coming out. This deficit is the perfect excuse to tear away the gains made by decent people over the last sixty years or so.

As long as they preface any with ‘In order to cut the deficit’, or ‘To create growth’ they can literally get away with anything. Look at that face and in particular those eyes.

God, someone tell me there is a soul in that shell of an evil man.

Robert @ 6

Do conservative “solutions” ever involve something that wont make life worse for the average person?

You have to ask yourself what kind of Party would employ someone that thinks babies are the enemy and thinks consumer rights are bad things. Then again we know what kind of Party would do that; the Party of millionaires, that’s who. Cameron has defended the hiring of Coulson so defending this asswipe will present no problems

Still, best keep quiet though Robert, lest we are identified as ‘cultural marxists’ by the the Tories.

Maybe Cameron could use that in his next speech.

Have your child, back to work.

Family values from these vermin? Don’t kid ourselves.

jeebus.

what is the point of economic growth (i.e. being a wealthy nation) if not to afford things like maternity leave?

the other thing we may be worried about, if not the level of national GDP, is unemployment. many of these ideas appear to involve making more people redundant

(I’m all for sensible supply side policies – which these aren’t – and getting rid of unecessary / inefficient regulations / public services – which these ideas don’t – as a long-term policy, but even if done sensbily, the middle of a recession is the wrong time to do it).

We seem to have let a bunch of three year olds run our Government. “Why does the PM have to obey the law” and “let abolish consumer rights law to see what happens”….

While I am reluctant to defend Steve Hilton, surely you have to ask the stupid questions about why things are done the way they are if you are to be creative and innovative.

He is the Government’s Susan Ma

Apparently they’re just an example of Hilton’s ‘Blue Sky thinking’* and have no chance of being introduced. Which leads me to ask, what’s the point of Steve Hilton?

*urgh

Sevillista @ 12

surely you have to ask the stupid questions about why things are done the way they are if you are to be creative and innovative.

Stupid questions? How ‘stupid’ do you have to be to advocating abolishing materntity leave as a way of creating growth?

Are we really saying that making parents go back to work the day after having a child is the way to stimulate an economy? That has no implications for society? A pure zeo sum game?

Nope, he is an evil little man with evil ideas and right at home with the rest of the Tory vermin.

Is he trying to find new and interesting ways to trigger a brain-drain?

I used to think the stupidity of this government was down to centuries of inbreeding and overprivilege but I now suspect there is a dimensional portal somewhere leaking predatory brainless toffs. The only other explanation is that Cameron has appointed a court jester

While I am reluctant to defend Steve Hilton, surely you have to ask the stupid questions about why things are done the way they are if you are to be creative and innovative.

Suggesting obviously impractical ideas is actually not a bad way of sparking a creative debate about what could be done. Lets say the question is about relatively low levels of female employment. What should we do?

First you have to look at what the causes are. Undisputably, statutory maternity leave makes a 20-30 something woman a relatively less attractive employment prospect than an otherwise identical man. So, it’s one cause. Can we just get rid of maternity leave then? Would that help? To which the answer would be: it might help with that specific problem, but only at the expense of causing other, greater problems elsewhere. But that question might lead to another – OK, we can’t get rid of maternity leave, but is there any way we can alleviate the burden it puts on small firms in particular?

Has anyone here actually been in a strategy meeting, commercial or political?

I used to think the stupidity of this government was down to centuries of inbreeding and overprivilege but I now suspect there is a dimensional portal somewhere leaking predatory brainless toffs.

You don’t know who Steve Hilton is, do you? Bless.

Actually criticising the guy’s policies would have been best, but I guess we’ll have to settle for you just labelling them with the Beanoesque term “wacky”.

What are those barmy Tories gonna do next, eh? Probably implement some right-wing policies, the loonies!

@Jim

But surely it leads onto questions about what maternity leave is for, how well it is achieving its objectives and whether there are better ways of doing it.

I would rather that Government was continually challenging the way things are
done and not cowed from asking “stupid questions”.

Not asking the stupid questions just leads to small-c conservatism and stagnation through not challenging the way things are done. Hilton plays an important role, while I would disagree vehemently with his ideological standpoint

@ 10 Luis

“what is the point of economic growth (i.e. being a wealthy nation) if not to afford things like maternity leave?”

Exactly. I like the idea of “suspend[ing] all consumer rights legislation for nine months to see what would happen” too – what would happen would be nine months of callous exploitation by the most greedy firms, and at the very least a slipping of standards by other companies that are not massively dependent on PR. Depending on exactly what he means by “consumer rights”, that’s a nine-month window to sign people into grasping contracts, sell people bullshit by lying in adverts, sell gone-off food, create an effective “sold as seen” policy even for new products…

In other words, the general consumer being shafted in the name of supporting the very kinds of business that we don’t want to succeed.

Don’t disregard the notion that the scum are setting up a ‘blunkett compromise’ behind this – some far right loony says something bizarre and a compromise is reached which is still sickening but looks reasonable by comparison to the original proposal.

The idea of sacking all the press officers and running a series of blogs seems a pretty good idea to me.

@18 yes I do. I was referring to a prime minister who hires someone like this (and Coulson) to do his thinking for him in the absence of a brain of his own

“The idea of sacking all the press officers ”

Quite, one good idea out of four beats the normal political ratios.

BTW, the maternity leave thing. The suggestion was to do away with statutory maternity leave. Not to make it illegal to offer it, just to make it legal to not have to.

Surprisingly, most companies would continue to offer it. As they do in the US where there is no legal right to paid maternity leave.

24 – I’d tend to go with Vernon Bogdanor’s appraisal of Cameron’s intellect over yours. No offence.

@26: “24 – I’d tend to go with Vernon Bogdanor’s appraisal of Cameron’s intellect over yours. ”

yup – Cameron was awarded first class honours in his Oxford PPE degree.

But this degree structure, after reforms before Cameron read for the degree, is very flexible and undergrads can almost entirely focus on P (politics), P (philosophy) or E (economics) if they so wish. I’ve a suspicion that Cameron opted out of economics and concentrated on politics and political theory.

Surprisingly, most companies would continue to offer it. As they do in the US where there is no legal right to paid maternity leave.

http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/html/ParentalReport.htm

7 percent of the employers surveyed offered paid paternity leave to their employees. In addition, fewer than 1 percent of the respondents reported that their organizations were planning to offer paid maternity or paternity benefits in the future.”

http://www.hrw.org/node/96430/section/5

In both California and New Jersey, the paid family leave insurance programs faced fierce opposition when proposed, especially from business lobby groups. But a few years into their implementation, the opposition has largely disappeared. New research on the California paid family leave program, involving a survey of 500 workers and 253 establishments, found that businesses reported largely positive or neutral effects. The vast majority of establishments responded that the program had minimal impacts on their business operations.[48] They said that the program had a “positive” or “no noticeable” effect on productivity (88.5 percent), profitability and performance (91 percent), turnover (92.8 percent), and employee morale (98.6 percent).[49] Smaller establishments were less likely to report negative effects than large ones.[50] Most (86.9 percent) said that the program had not resulted in any cost increases.[51]

Other countries that don’t require it by law – Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea.

27 – Not simply that he got a first, it was the opinion of his tutor, who has beena fellow of Brasenose for a good old while now.

An outstanding undergraduate, he avoided politics, concentrating instead on his studies and on getting to know his fellow students, among whom he was extraordinarily popular. He has not, in essence, changed.

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/03/conservative-party-cameron

undergrads can almost entirely focus on P (politics), P (philosophy) or E (economics) if they so wish.

Two of the three I believe. At least that’s certainly how it was done back when I was an undergraduate – although that’s a decade after Cameron was there. And the idea that economics is the trickiest one of the three would be contested by virtually every PPEist I knew. Most agreed that philosophy was the hardest paper to excel in.

@29: “Two of the three I believe. At least that’s certainly how it was done back when I was an undergraduate – although that’s a decade after Cameron was there”

Past work colleagues who read PPE were mostly of an age when they were obliged in final exams to sit at least 2 papers in P, P and E with a further two special topic papers spread in any combination over the three subjects, which made the degree a very “general” degree but one that was widely respected.

Under the new, flexible structure, a student can take 7 papers in P, P or E and one on another subject. This was to allow students to effectively specialise in economics and thereby compete with the extent of specialisation attained by economics grads from most other universities – the extra paper could be in Logic and Scientific Method, which is closely related to research methods in economics. My son read PPE having got to Oxford from a state grammar school on the strength of the college entrance exam and A-level grades. He dropped politics at the earliest opportunity.

Notice that the unstinting praise of Cameron comes from his politics tutor and the issue in public debate is about how much Cameron – as well as Osborne, a history graduate from Oxford – understand economics. Candidly, proficiency in political theory and institutions is not of much help in dealing with economics issues.

Why I regard Cameron as none too bright:

Cameron said: “There is such a thing as society. It’s just not the same thing as the state.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4504722.stm

But how many “societies” are there in Britain and how can I tell?

As the late Professor Sprott put it:

‘What is a society?’ is that it is a figment of the imagination. . . The fact is that in physics and chemistry you start with lumps of matter; you then analyse things into their chemical elements, into different combinations of entities, protons and the like. Far from being directly acquainted with the elements, it is not unknown for philosophers to question the existence of them. Equally nonsensical is it to say that we have a direct acquaintance with society. We do not. We have direct acquaintance only with people interacting, ie the elements of society, in so far as as it exists at all, is constituted. So I say that society is in some sense a figment of imagination.
[Source: "Society: what is it and how does it change?" from The Educational Implications of Social and Economic Change (HMSO 1967), reprinted in: DF Swift (ed): Basic Readings in the Sociology of Education (Routledge, 1970)]

Another instance:

“‘The government’s attempts to boost the economy by temporarily cutting VAT have been an ‘unbelievable and expensive failure’, David Cameron has said.” [2 January 2009]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7808634.stm

“The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) says that the cut, which took effect on 1 December 2008, has led to £2.1bn of extra sales.” [12 April 2009]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7995850.stm

If Cameron had sense, he would have appreciated that the necessary data weren’t available on the 2 January 2009 to assess whether Alistair Darling’s policy of cutting VAT to boost consumer spending, announced in late November 2008 in his Pre-Budget Report, was working.

@8 – What are they justifying on growth these days?

Thanks, Bob B, your explanation @27 sheds valuable light on what has been something of a mystery to me.
Cameron’s lack of understanding of economics is all too obvious, as is his failure to cope with detailed information or understand the pertinence of statistics.
I admit I’ve wondered how he got through the economics component of his PPE exams at university.

Tim @ 17

Suggesting obviously impractical ideas is actually not a bad way of sparking a creative debate about what could be done.

Yes, okay, let us do that then. Let us start of with something ‘out of he box’ and then steadly dial it down notches until we get it right:

First you have to look at what the causes are. Undisputably, statutory maternity leave makes a 20-30 something woman a relatively less attractive employment prospect than an otherwise identical man. So, it’s one cause.

Lets see if I can get the ball rolling.

Blatantly obvious starting point here. Why not simply extend maternity to both parents, thus eliminating at a stroke the alleged disadvantage than fertile woman are under in the workplace. Women are only fertile because men are equally fertile surely it is only fair that the burden should be equally shared? In fact, given that men are fertile for longer than women that would mean that women would actually have a distinct advantage in the labour market.

That is a reasonable starting point to start a debate, but one that the Tory, family values, Party are NOT willing to discuss.

How come Tim? Is it possible that that the Tory Party are more interested in destroying rights than creating more? Is it possible that this hard eyed bastard is about kicking the guts out of women than anything else?

That is a reasonable starting point to start a debate, but one that the Tory, family values, Party are NOT willing to discuss.

Did you miss the large expansion in rights to statutory paternity leave that happened in April Jim?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12949382

How come Tim? Is it possible that that the Tory Party are more interested in destroying rights than creating more? Is it possible that this hard eyed bastard is about kicking the guts out of women than anything else?

Is it possible that you haven’t got the faintest idea of what you’re talking about?

“Suggesting obviously impractical ideas is actually not a bad way of sparking a creative debate about what could be done”

Not advocating it you understand but just to spark a creative debate on solutions to climate change….how about we force all self identified conservatives to peddle bikes all day to provide us with electricity to help combat climate change and flog them mercilessly when they don’t peddle fast enough. Just throwing the idea out there.

Tim J 35

Did you miss the large expansion in rights to statutory paternity leave that happened in April Jim?

Large expansion? A bit of a tweak at best, a matter of opinion either way, but the real question is are those ‘rights’ opposed by the majority of Tories or not?