Will Tory drug policy be worse?
If you want to see what a future Tory government’s approach to drug policy might be, you could do worse than having a peek at a new report that’s just been published by The Centre for Policy Studies. Entitled ‘The Phoney War on Drugs’, author Kathy Gyngell essentially argues that the reason Labour’s attempts to curb drug use have failed is because they’re just not trying hard enough.
continue reading… »
Time to offer political parties a new deal – ‘reselect.org’
Both Labour and the Conservatives have moved to take away the whip – and effectively deselect – MPs that have offended public morality with their expense claims.
But is this really enough? Are we simply to be satisfied that a few examples are made of the most egregious cases of an abuse of parliamentary expenses and leave it at that? Or is there a wider crisis the the quality of representation that needs addressing?
I think that this provides us with a fantastic opportunity to renew the entire political class in the UK. It is time for us to think about how we can reinvigorate widespread participation in political parties – old and new. For this reason, I’d like to propose that we – the voters – offer the political parties a new deal. It runs like this:
“We will double the membership of the local party that we support – but only if they will let us re-select our candidate.”
continue reading… »
Nadine Dorries: an enemy of science?
Recently, Nadine Dorries is emerging as a prominent figure in Tory politics, and since Conservatives are almost certain to be in power by this time next year that’s bad for people who support evidence-based policy, because her relationship with science and rational thinking has been rather fraught.
Dorries’ influence in the party was demonstrated in Prime Minister’s Questions on April 22nd, when dozens of other Conservative MPs sacrificed their opportunity to ask a question in order to allow Dorries to demand a personal apology from Gordon Brown over smeargate. This backfired so badly that Dorries achieved what no amount of Labour spin has been able to in recent months – she made Gordon Brown look good as he brushed her aside.
continue reading… »
Exclusive: More should be asked over Nadine Dorries’ expenses
This is by David Reeves, Labour PPC for Mid Bedfordshire
In May 2008 I referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner, Mr John Lyon, the question of whether the type and combination of expense claims made by Nadine Dorries MP (Con, Mid Beds) were within the rules (letter below).
This followed the concern of a constituent as to why Mrs Dorries claimed more in annual train and car expenses in 2006/07 (£12,005) than fellow Bedfordshire MPs Patrick Hall (£1,198) and Alistair Burt (£7,017).
In 2006/07 Mrs Dorries claimed £6,431 under section 5a car, and £5,574 under section 5c rail. The constituent was concerned that to have claimed so much for car expenses, under the rules Mrs Dorries would have needed to travel some 16,444 miles in the year, the equivalent of driving a 45 mile journey every day to all 4 corners of the large rural constituency, which would take at best 1hr 24 minutes (source: Google maps), in addition to her Westminster duties.
continue reading… »
Nadine Dorries under investigation
From the Daily Telegraph
Nadine Dorries tells the Commons authorities that her second home is a rented house in her constituency where she has claimed more than £18,000 in rent.
…
This suggests her constituency base is in fact her main or only home, which would mean she cannot pay for it using the £24,222 Additional Costs Allowance meant to cover the cost of running a second property.Her files are now being investigated by an internal review body set up the Conservative leader, David Cameron, in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal triggered by this newspaper’s disclosures, and could force her to repay thousands of pounds if it finds her claims were “unacceptable”.
…
When asked by this newspaper to clarify where her main home is, she would not comment directly but instead posted a long statement on her blog in which she appears to concede that her constituency home is where she spends most of her time.
The Broken Party?
A shadow cabinet full of scammers
Expense claims from the shadow cabinet
• Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary and a member of Cameron’s inner circle, spent more than £7,000 furnishing a London property in 2006 before “flipping” the second home designation to a new one in his Surrey Heath constituency.
• Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, spent thousands of pounds renovating a thatched Tudor country cottage before selling it. He then moved the second designation to a London flat.
• Alan Duncan, the shadow leader of the Commons who chairs the Commons audit committee which oversees MPs’ expenses, had a claim for £3,194 gardening expenses declined in March 2007. He says this hapened after he raised the matter with the Commons authorities.
• Francis Maude, the shadow cabinet office minister who is leading the Tories’ preparations for government, tried to claim mortgage interest on his family home in Sussex. This was declined by the Commons fees office.
• Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary and another member of the Cameron circle, claimed for the renovation of a London flat which is 17 miles from his family home.
• Cheryl Gillan, the shadow Welsh secretary, claimed for dog food. She has agreed to repay the claim.
• Oliver Letwin, who is in charge of the Tories’ general election manifesto, charged £2,000 to replace a leaking pipe under a tennis court. The pipe was not related to the court and Letwin was obliged to mend the pipe after an order from the local water authority.
• David Willetts, the shadow universities secretary, claimed more than £100 for workmen to replace 25 lightbulbs at his home.
First Tory caught duping taxpayers
Greg Barker has became the first Tory MP shamed in the expenses scandal, using the controversial second homes allowance for personal gain.
continue reading… »
The hidden costs of Thatcherism
In a piece arguing why Labour should hold firm to its criticisms of the Thatcher era, Anthony Painter makes an extremely important point:
The argument that Thatcherism was economically good but socially bad doesn’t really hold any more. A more accurate description would be that it was economically more likely to produce growth but contained hidden risks and had enormous social cost.
Exactly right, and those social costs created a financial burden on the state which the Conservatives were supposed to reduce.
continue reading… »
The Next General Election
Unless Brown calls a snap election in the next month or so, we’ll have a General Election by June of next year whether we like it or not.
Personally, I couldn’t care less. Like the famous South Park episode, this election will offer the tempting choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.
Now I know the usual Labour commenters will hurl a volley of abuse at me. About how the Tories are so much evil’r – and of course, they are. But seriously, having been a Labour-leaning voter and blogger for many years, I have become to view this relationship as an abusive one. Labour kicked the stuffing out of me, and I just put up with it.
Tories and economic incompetence
A historical fact occurred to me yesterday: over the past half century, every time a Conservative government has come to power, it has introduced disastrous economic policies which have plunged the economy into far greater crisis and made their government desperately unpopular.
The last time that a newly elected Conservative government managed even minimal competence was when they were led by Winston Churchill in 1951. The last time they managed this feat with a leader who had no previous experience of being Prime Minister was in the 1920s.
Of course, history is not always a good guide to how a party will govern. But since the current Conservative economic policy is ‘ask us after the election’, their candidates for parliament are mostly unembarrassed Thatcherites, and many of their highly regarded thinkers spent the past few years urging that Britain should be more like Ireland or Iceland, the signs are that they aren’t likely to break their 58 year run of messing things up if they do win the election.
Which makes it all the more important that if Labour is defeated, the party could work out quickly how it needs to change and what the lessons of the past twelve years are, in time to fix the problems that the Tories will cause.
Osborne isn’t as thrifty as he claims
George Osborne announced an “age of austerity” at this week’s Conservative spring conference: “We need a government of thrift,” he said, adding: “David Cameron and I have earned the right to be heard on this.”
Has George Osborne earned this right? His personal record on expenses seems if not frugal, then certainly not extravagant. Last year George’s office – minus any housing and personal claims – cost the tax payer roughly £110,000. The bulk of this – £79,000 – went on staff costs. Sounds like value for money for a busy shadow chancellor.
Except that in the same year, George also accepted donations, earmarked by donors for staffing his office, of nearly half a million pounds. Suddenly George looks a bit of a spend-thrift.
continue reading… »
Tories contradict their own economic policy
George Osborne has announced a new Tory policy which I don’t understand: they want to give every household a new entitlement to £6,500 of energy saving technologies. They provide government guarantees to enable companies to borrow the money to install this energy saving equipment in homes across the country.
This money would be repaid through savings on energy bills resulting from the improved energy efficiency. So homeowners would be given the opportunity to have energy saving equipment fitted to their homes without any upfront costs. They claim this will unleash £20 billion of private investment if half of all households take this up.
continue reading… »
Tories have terrible housing ideas
I’ve just read the Conservative Party’s Green Paper on Housing. Housing policy is a vitally important issue, affecting the lives of millions of people. It is arguably nearly as important an issue as one politician sending an e-mail to another politician with gossip about some other politicians. The Paper is also quite stunningly awful.
The green paper says that we need to build more houses. It then lists a range of policies designed to reduce the number of houses which will be built. Councils will no longer be required to build a certain number of houses (because this is central targets and is bad), it will be easier for councils to prevent developments (e.g. by designating land as green belt or stopping eco-towns), and opponents of housing developments will have more opportunities to try to stop housing developments in their backyard.
continue reading… »
Nadine Dorries MP ignores her parliamentary obligations
Oh dear. It seems Tory MP Nadine Dorries skipped the sermon in which the congregation were told that telling lies to people doesn’t go down well with Jesus. (As ever, the permalinks don’t work properly at Dorries’ ‘blog’, so you’ll need to scroll down a bit to find the post.)
Sam Coates of The Times called this morning, regarding my non attendance of the Innovation and Skills Select Committee. I am actually a member of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee; however, the old Science and Technology Committee did become Innovation and Skills, following the publication of the abortion report. I have never sat on the Innovation and Skills Select Committee.
Unfortunately, Hansard says otherwise…
continue reading… »
Make Dan Hannan Tory spokesman!
I’m pleased to see Daniel Hannan, Tory MEP, has become a regular feature on Faux News’ nuttier shows. The Conservatives should make him their spokesperson so he can tell the entire country the NHS is a 60 year mistake. (via LabourHome)
Update: He keeps digging; Sunder exposes his poor grasp of facts.
Eric Pickles wasn’t doing April Fools
Created by Beau Bo D’Or
The Trouble With Boris
In 1990, Boris Johnson received an infamous phone call from his friend from Eton and Oxford, Darius Guppy. Dispatches has acquired a recording of the conversation, which until now has never been broadcast. It is a recording that suggests Boris was not only willing to break the rules – but even to break the law.
continue reading… »
Eric Pickles in car-crash TV
His infamous performance on Question Time this week hits YouTube, (via Libdemvoice)
Curiously, Tory blogger Iain Dale avoids any mention at all.
Update: But one Tory says: ‘put him under house arrest’!
Daniel Hannan – the new Tory saviour!
It’s amusing to watch right-wingers get into such a tizzy over Daniel Hannan MEP’s speech at the EU criticising Gordon Brown. Iain Dale is unhappy our media isn’t playing this repeatedly (I expect the BBC will soon, since they give in to rightwingers easily).
Newsflash: Tory MEP disagrees with Labour policies! Stop press! Even Mr Hannan himself breathlessly claims that: “I have been making similar speeches every week and posting them on YouTube for the past seven months.” — Oh. Well, surely it’s still news that the stalwarts of American rightwing-nuttery: the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh and Faux-News are hailing him as the new messiah? Well can we have a look at Mr Hannan’s record first?
continue reading… »
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» How bad is the feline obesity crisis?
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civic cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
|
66 Comments 20 Comments 13 Comments 10 Comments 18 Comments 4 Comments 25 Comments 49 Comments 31 Comments 16 Comments |
|
LATEST COMMENTS » damon posted on Complete tits » Sunny Hundal posted on Complete tits » Lee Griffin posted on The Labour leadership's token contender.. and it's not Diane Abbott » dan posted on Defend the urban fox! » Richard W posted on Boris rise for Living Wage left of Labour » Julian Swainson posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » sally posted on Complete tits » Joanne Dunn posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » Lovely Lynnette Peck posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » Nick posted on Why don't MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours? » Bob B posted on Complete tits » Nick posted on Complete tits » Mike Killingworth posted on Complete tits » Mr S. Pill posted on Complete tits » Nick Cohen is a Tory posted on Complete tits |
