Recent Articles
Cameron fails UK Citizenship Test on US chat-show
David Cameron was on the late-night chatshow by David Letterman in New York last night – the first for a sitting British Prime Minister.
But the interview didn’t go exactly according to plan, reports the Guardian’s Nick Watt.
Will PM be allowed back into UK after US trip after failing joke UK citizenship test on David Letterman Show?
— Nicholas Watt (@nicholaswatt) September 26, 2012
A report in the Guardian says Cameron was asked who composed the music for Rule Britannia after the band struck up the music from the Last Night of the Proms.
“Elgar,” he said uneasily. “You are testing me,” he added.
Cameron was also later asked what was English for Magna Carta. Cameron did not know, and Letterman explained it meant Great Charter.
PM to Letterman: You have found me out
— Nicholas Watt (@nicholaswatt) September 26, 2012
PM to Letterman after fluffing test: That is bad. I have ended my career on your show tonight
— Nicholas Watt (@nicholaswatt) September 26, 2012
Time to scrap this silly test perhaps?
Here’s some video
No video of those specific incidents yet unfortunately. If you find or upload them, let us know in the comments.
Over half ATOS found ‘fit for work’ left unemployed
Over half the people ruled ‘fit to work’ by ATOS were left unemployed without any income, according to a new government study.
The department of Work and Pensions have admitted that 55% of people who lost their disability benefits after assessments with the french IT company were unable to find employment. 30% were relying on other forms of benefit and only 15% had found a job.
The DWP was forced to release the figures following a Freedom of Information request.
Public anger continues to grow towards the firm, hired by the DWP to slash the benefits bill, after assessing terminally ill claimants as ‘fit to work’. Citizens Advice Scotland alone have received over 24,000 complaints against them. Their current contract is worth £110 million.
The figures were collected through a survey of 1100 people deemed fit to work. A follow up survey of 590 claimants found 43% were still without any form of income, 28% were on other benefits and 29% had found employment. They were conducted between April and June 2009 and were included in a report for the DWP in 2011.
Earlier this week a former ATOS nurse Joyce Drummond spoke out against the firm, claiming that her role was to ‘trick’ people out of their benefits. She was instructed to assess people as fit to work if they were able to write or attended interviews properly dress- even if her medical experience indicated that they wouldn’t be able to cope with employment.
“If someone came in with a toddler in tow, they were doomed because if they could manage a child, they could surely work.”
She found the role so distressing that she left the company.
Defending their role in the crackdown on benefits, an Atos spokesperson has said “Our doctors, nurses and physiotherapists use their clinical knowledge and apply the Government’s policy and criteria to each assessment.
“We try to make the part of the process we are responsible for as comfortable as possible.”
Fabian Fringe Events at Labour conference
All events are in the Conference room at Manchester Town Hall unless stated
All are welcome to attend Fabian fringe events which are located outside of the secure zone.
Sunday – September 30th
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| Deeper Democracy: can parties reconnect people and politics? |
| Time: 12:45 – 14:00 |
| Featuring: Stella Creasy MP, Peter Kellner (President, YouGov), Caroline MacFarland (Respublica), Kathryn Perera (Chair) (Chief Executive, Movement for Change) |
| In association with: Centre:Forum, Respublica |
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| Five Million Votes presents Winning New Voters: Should Labour Lurch to the left or right? |
| Time: 17:45 – 19:15 |
| Featuring: Rowenna Davis (Councillor, Southwark) (Chair), Lord Stewart Wood (Strategic adviser, Ed Miliband), Steve Hart (Chair, CLASS), Rachel Reeves MP (Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury), and Luciana Berger MP (Shadow Minister for Climate Change). |
| Five Million Votes in association with the Fabian Society |
| Venue: Lord Mayor’s Parlour, Manchester Town Hall |
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| Politics: Is the future Plural? |
| Time: 18:00-19:30 |
| Featuring: John Denham MP, Caroline Flint MP, Katie Ghose (Chief Executive, Electoral Reform Society), Simon Hughes MP (Liberal-Democrats), Dr. John Pugh MP (Liberal Democrats) and Mary Riddell (Daily Telegraph) (Chair) |
| In association with: Centre:Forum and The Electoral Reform Society |
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| Fabian Question Time: Labour’s Alternative |
| Time: 20:00-21:30 |
| Speakers:Andy Burnham MP, Dan Hodges (Daily Telegraph), Owen Jones (The Independent), Polly Toynbee (The Guardian), Chuka Umunna MP and Alison McGovern MP (chair) |
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Monday – October 1st
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| How can Labour solve the Childcare crisis? |
| Time: 12:30-14:00 |
| Featuring: Stephen Twigg MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Education), Seema Malhotra MP (chair), Sam Smethers (Chief Executive, Grandparents Plus), Purnima Tanuku OBE (Chief Executive of National Day Nurseries Association) and Vivian Woodell (Board member of mid-counties Co-Operative, Chief Executive of Phone Co-Op) |
| In association with: Family Planning Institute, Fabian Women’s Network, The Family Room, Co-Op |
| Note Venue: Exchange 2&3 Manchester Central (inside secure zone) |
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| New Forms of Work |
| Time: 13:00-14:00 |
| Featuring: Stephen Timms MP (Shadow Minister for Employment), David Coats (Director of WorkMatters Consulting, Research Fellow, Smith Institute), Doug Henderson (Former Labour MP), Tom Hadley (Director of External Relations REC) and Rowenna Davis (The Guardian) (Chair) |
| In association with: PCG and REC |
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| Growing Pains: How to rebuild the economy and restore trust |
| Time: 18:00-19:30 |
| Featuring: Rachel Reeves MP (Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury), Brendan Cook (Head of Retail Banking and Wealth Management, HSBC), Maurice Glasman (Labour Peer), Richard Lloyd (Executive Director, Which?) and Larry Elliot (Chair) (The Guardian) |
| In association with: HSBC |
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| Crime, Punishment and Reform: Driving forward the Justice agenda |
| Time: 18:00-19:30 |
| Featuring: Lord Beecham (Justice Spokesperson) (invited), Vera Baird QC (Labour Candidate for Police Commissioner, former Solicitor General), Frances Crook (Chief Executive, Howard League for Penal Reform), Tony McNulty (former immigration minister) and Charlotte Rachael Proudman (Chair) (Independent, The Guardian) |
| In association with: Howard League for Penal Reform |
| Note Venue: Lord Mayor’s Parlour, ManchesterTown Hall |
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| Labour’s Policy Review: The Shape of Things to Come |
| Time: 19:45 – 21:30 |
| Featuring: Lord Andrew Adonis, Jon Cruddas MP (Chair, Policy Review), Angela Eagle MP (Chair, National Policy Forum), John Denham MP (editor, The Shape of Things to Come) and Andrew Harrop (Fabian Society) (Chair) |
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Tuesday – October 2nd
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| Spin Alley: Live – Come and debate Ed Miliband’s speech |
| Time: 18:00-19:30 |
| Featuring: Jackie Ashley (The Guardian),Andrew Harrop (Fabian Society), Mehdi Hasan (Huffington Post), Sadiq Khan MP, Tim Montgomerie (editor, ConservativeHome) and Pippa Crerar (Evening Standard) (chair) |
| In association with: Political Quarterly |
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| Two speed Europe: are women being left behind? |
| Time: 19:45-21:15 |
| Featuring: Emma Reynolds MP (Shadow Minister for Europe), Ivana Bartoletti (editor, Fabiana), Linda McAvan MEP, Dr Roberta Guerrina (University of Surrey) and Felicity Slater (chair) |
| In association with: Fabian Women’s Network, Labour Movement for Europe |
| Venue: Lord Mayor’s Parlour, Manchester Town Hall |
All events are in the Conference Room, Manchester Town Hall, Albert Square, Greater Manchester, M2 5DB
How the awful state of bank lending is hurting the economy
Yesterday, the Bank of England’s Paul Fisher gave an interesting speech today ‘Developments in financial markets, monetary and macroprudential policy’.
What I found especially striking was the chart below:
In the speech, Fisher spends quite a bit discussing the Government’s Funding-For-Lending (FLS) scheme in detail.
A few points stand out. First the Bank of England seems very reluctant to suggest that FLS will actually boost net lending, at best it may succeed in stopping net lending from falling.
Second, the overall success of the scheme will basically come to what the big banks choose to do:
The first point I want to make in reply is that banking in the UK is far from a perfectly competitive market. The six biggest lenders account for the vast majority of lending to UK businesses and households – and the seventh largest accounts for less than a third as much as number six. In large part the quantitative success of the scheme will depend on what these larger lenders do.
Third, FLS is something of a scatter approach to supporting lending – not targetted at where credit is especially constrained:
The FLS does not seek to allocate credit to particular parts of the economy directly – the Bank is not taking a view on this matter. But SMEs and first time home buyers in particular are thought to be credit hungry. Banks will collectively need to meet that demand if they are individually to make the most of the FLS. Not necessarily every bank will support every sector. But if the big firms don’t then the smaller banks will. We are relying on the pressures of demand and supply, and competition, to ensure that credit flows to where there is demand.
At least one bank is already using FLS funding to cut the cost of buy-to-let mortgages.
The FLS relies on the big banks, it may not address acute areas of credit shortage and it may not succeed in boosting net lending.
The British Business Bank announced by Vince Cable yesterday will be better able to target areas of credit shortage but is unlikely to be up and running for another 18 months and is of limited size.
The TUC has called for a far more radical appoach to getting banks to support the real economy – with proposals including a ‘proper’ state investment abnk to support SMEs and infrastrucutre, boosting the role of the Green Investment Bank, new regional SME banks, a greater role for mutuals and a shake up of the position of the Too BigTo Fail banks that dominate UK banking.
Implementing such a programme would help get credit following again.
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A longer version of this post is here.
Epic video & pics from Spanish anti-austerity protests
Tens of thousands of protesters from across Spain gathered in Madrid yesterday night against severe austerity measures by the government.
They accused politicians of ‘destroying’ Spain with brutal program cuts and tax hikes.
Madrid riot police clashed with protesters in central Madrid last night, with at least 14 people reported injured and 22 arrested as police used batons and rubber bullets.
Video
This video shows a clash between the police and protesters.
It kicks off around 1:30 and near the end, some police start getting beaten by Spanish people.
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(via @ladyditax)
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Pictures
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Images from Russia Today
Police arrest Mona Eltahawy for defacing racist poster
New York city police arrested the activist and writer Mona Eltahawy last night for defacing racist posters on the New York subway.
The ad campaign is promoted by American blogger Pamela Geller – also behind the campaign to stop a Mosque being built near Ground Zero in NYC – and the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI).
The ad implies that Muslims are savages. It reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.”
Some New Yorkers have taken to plastering ‘racist’ over the ads.
But Mona Eltahawy took matters into her own hand.
She decided to spray-paint one of the posters, with a friend filming her.
A woman decides to protect the poster, and after some weaving by Mona and the woman, a police officer comes to the scene and arrests the activist.
They don’t explain why they are arresting her.
“This is non-violent protest, see this America!” she said as cops cuffed her. “I’m an Egyptian-American and I refuse hate,” reports The New York Post.
Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative also placed similarly racist ads in stations in New York suburbs.
Credit to Mona for taking a stand against the ads.
QC who called UKuncut-ers ‘scum’ for gatecrashing party
Last week, a group of activists affiliated with UKuncut (update: calling themselves ‘The Intruders’) made a friendly appearance at a speech from the retired HMRC boss Dave Hartnett at a conference.
They were there to offer their thanks for saving big companies billions of pounds through tax avoidance schemes.
Hartnett was not pleased. But what’s more interesting is the aggressive response by one of the fellow guests.
He is shown in the video saying: “these people are trespasser and intruders”, and “… you will depart immediately before we set the dogs on you”.
He later adds, “you are trespassing scum,” before one of his colleagues stops him by name. So who is this guy?
Robert who called Hartnett protestors ‘scum’ + threatended dogs on then outed by @adamramsay – He’s Robert Venables QC taxchambers.com/?q=users/rober…
— Ewa Jasiewicz (@ewajasiewicz) September 24, 2012
That aside, the UKuncut action is brilliant. Not only highly innovative and peaceful, but subtly keeps up the pressure on the HMRC.
The new head of the HMRC now knows she too will be targeted with such stunts if she continues in her predecessor’s manner. The UKuncut stunt was covered in the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Financial Times and other outlets.
Poll: Clegg apology failed; ‘has one year left’
Stephen Tell from LibdemVoice writes at the Huffington Post:
No matter what the polls currently say – or even our LibDemVoice members’ survey showing Nick’s ratings are negative for the first time – he has at least another year’s grace to turn things around.
And quite right too. I’m a fan of Nick’s, but even if I weren’t I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy what he’s had to endure these past two years.
I think it is fairly significant that even a hardened Nick Clegg fan admits he has another year to turn things around. However I’ll put my neck out and say there won’t be any leadership coup attempts before 2014.
No potential Libdem leader would want the job while they still have to maintain good relations with the Tories. They’d want it only when getting ready for an election campaign and can say what they want.
Second, related point: I find it staggering that Libdems are so bad at reading the polls.
Leo Barasi pointed out yesterday that most people don’t hate Clegg (outside the Twitterati) but think he is incompetent and is in way over his head. I think that is completely right.
Which is why if you run an ad saying ‘sorry, I shouldn’t have made a pledge‘ – it will backfire because it simply reinforces the narrative that Clegg is clueless and way in over his head.
I suspect Nick Clegg’s apology will do nothing to rescue his dire ratings. If Libdems had any sense he’d be gone by 2014.
UPDATE Polling by Comres confirms what I wrote just hours earlier:
Three quarters (76%) agree that Nick Clegg was right to apologise for breaking the pledge not to raise tuition fees while just one in ten (11%) disagree.
Two thirds (66%) believe that Clegg made this apology for political reasons, rather than being sincerely sorry. One in five (19%) disagree.
Clegg’s apology is widely acknowledged by the public with a minority of one in five (19%) who admit they had not heard about it. However among 18-24 year olds – the most likely to be affected by tuition fees – nearly half (45%) say that they were not aware of his apology.
62% disagree that they have a better opinion of Clegg because of his apology and subsequently, more than half (55%) agree that they have a worse opinion of the Liberal Democrat Party as a result of them breaking their pledge not to raise tuition fees.
As I said, it is staggering that the Libdems don’t even bother trying to understand people’s opinions.
Ten myths about the housing benefit reforms in London
Myth one: housing benefit claimants are all lazy scroungers
Ministers from both the previous and current government have argued for housing benefit caps by saying we shouldn’t help people to live in houses “that working families could never afford”. In fact, 39% of housing benefit claimants in London have jobs, and many others are retired, caring for children, sick or disabled. In the last two years an extra 52,000 working people have started to claim housing benefit in London, probably connected to the fact that private rents have risen far faster than the minimum wage, which has only crept up by 5%.
Myth two: the rising housing benefit bill was caused by greedy tenants
In the lead-up to the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review the papers were full of stories about benefit claimants living out of mansions in expensive parts of London. But even then there were only 139 families in London receiving over £50,000 in rent a year out of over 800,000 benefit claimants. Only 4% received more than £20,000 a year, according to the DWP. There were another 243,000 households estimated to be hit by the cuts who were receiving less than £20,000.
Myth three: the rising housing benefit bill was caused by greedy landlords
Analysis by the Department for Work and Pensions found that 70% of the rise was due to more claimants, while only 13% of the rise could be attributed to landlords increasing rents to get more out of the system. Figures used by the Government to suggest that housing benefit has driven up rents turn out to be extremely shaky, based on unrepresentative samples. Since the caps and cuts to housing benefits were introduced, rents have risen far above inflation in London. The causes are complicated – high demand, low supply, short term rental contracts stoking up a volatile market, and many other factors. But benefits aren’t the primary cause.
Myth four: low paid workers could move to cheaper parts of London
It sounds fair, but there isn’t a single borough in London where a cheaper (lower quartile) shared room in a flat would be affordable for a minimum wage worker. Private rents are simply too high for low wage workers. Even on the London Living Wage of £8.30/hour, renting in a flatshare in most of inner London would take up more than the standard definition of an affordable rent – 35% of take-home pay, leaving the rest for council tax, bills, travel, food and leisure.
Myth five: there are plenty of cheaper homes about
In theory the cheaper 30% of homes in a “broad market rental area” should be available to claimants. But in July the Hackney Citizens Advice Bureau did a snapshot survey of 1,585 properties to let in their borough. They found that there were only 142 homes that fell within the new benefit caps, 9% of the total. To make things worse, most of the landlords they spoke to wouldn’t let their properties to benefit claimants, leaving people chasing only 14 homes in the entire borough, less than 1% of those on the market. Research by the Chartered Institute of Housing published in January predicted a similar situation this year across London as cuts bite. For example, they calculated that 17,000 people would be chasing 10,000 properties in Croydon.
Myth six: this is the only fair way to reduce the benefit bill (part one)
Rather than cutting benefit payments, we could reduce the housing benefit bill by reducing rents. Unfortunately the Mayor has ruled out even looking at private rented regulation of the sort used in most other European countries. Another option is to build more social housing, which the Mayor’s housing advisor has said would “clearly help reduce the housing benefit bill”. If we could move every private tenant on housing benefit across the UK into council housing overnight, the lower rents alone would save the Exchequer £2.7bn in housing benefit payments.
Myth seven: this is the only fair way to reduce the benefit bill (part two)
Another way to reduce the benefit bill would be to help more people find work, and to ensure that they are actually paid enough to cover the rent. Using my interactive London Rents Map, you can see that a worker on the National Minimum Wage of £6.08/hour cannot afford a cheaper (lower quartile) room in a shared flat in any borough in London. But if they were paid the London Living Wage of £8.30/hour then fifteen boroughs would become affordable.
Myth eight: social tenants enjoy expensive subsidies as well
The recently departed housing minister suggested that social housing should be rebranded as “taxpayer subsidised housing”. But in recent years council housing has actually been in surplus, making a net contribution of £113m to the Treasury in 2009/10. The main subsidy is the grant used to cover part of the cost of building the homes, but that is more than made up by rent payments and the reduced benefit bill. If all those social tenants receiving benefits were to rent privately it would cost an extra £5.3bn a year in housing benefit payments.
Myth nine: the cuts are helping
When this Government came to power they vowed to cut the benefit bill by nearly £2bn by 2015. But since announcing their cuts and caps the bill has actually gone up by £2.5bn, largely because of the growing number of working households who need to claim the benefit to keep a roof over their head.
Myth ten: the Government’s housing agenda will save money
Instead of building lots of social housing or raising the minimum wage, the Government has actually cut investment in housing and decided to raise rents. The new London affordable housing budget for 2011-15 represented a 66% cut in the annual grant compared to the 2008-11 funding. But the Mayor still hopes to build a similar number of homes each year as he did with the previous, much larger grant. Rents will rise to square the circle, meaning that more tenants will be dependent on more housing benefit payments to keep up. Even the Prime Minister had to admit that this contradiction could increase the benefit bill.
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This document sets out my individual views as an Assembly member and not the agreed views of the full Assembly.
Fully referenced version, and London Rents Map text
MPs ‘should job-share’ to encourage more diversity
Campaigners are putting forward legislation that would allow MPs to job share, in the hopes of encouraging more disabled people into politics.
The legislation, which has already been backed by MP Caroline Lucas, MP John McDonnell and a number of disability and gender equality groups, would mean a change to the current rule of one representative per constituency.
It is due to be read in early November, and campaigners are gathering support through an online petition.
Long parliamentary hours and the physical demands of the job have been cited as a barrier to entering politics for disabled people. It is hoped that a change in the rules would be a step towards tackling the issue and creating a more diverse and representative political landscape.
Campaigners believe that a change to the system would give disabled people more political influence.
“At the moment we have legislation being made about disabled people without us so it breaks the disability rights rule of ‘nothing about us without us” says Deborah King, a campaigner from Disability Politics UK.
She says if there were more disabled MPs, “I don’t think the [Remploy] closures would be taking place.”
“Where are those disabled people going to find jobs? We’re at the bottom of the pile when it comes to jobs.”
MPs would still only be eligible for one vote per constituency, so those in a job share would be required to agree on which way to do so in advance, but King doesn’t envision this to be a problem. “With voting, the vast majority of votes are taken on the basis of whips or party manifesto commitments. So there would be no difference between job sharing MPs.”
It is also predicted that the changes will help more women enter politics. As they are disproportionately more likely to be the primary caregiver for young children and dependents, the job share scheme would allow them to balance their responsibilities more effectively.
Caroline Lucas voiced her support in an online video earlier in the year, saying that “the current rules have effectively excluded a lot of people from politics whose voices need to be heard.”
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