Jul
19
2007
I have assumed Gordon Brown would be too cautious to go for an early election. The sabre rattling is to try to get the Conservatives to rush out policy too early, and to spend too much money on a phoney war this year.
The case for going early that some of his supporters are urging is based on the “Brown bounce” in the polls and his ability to go to the country on the back of a series of announcements designed to show changes from the Blair regime. If they were serious about this option there would need to be more moves to reassure middle England.
1. The EU constitution is the spectre at the feast. The IGC will meander across the summer. Putting the legislation through Parliament is likely to occupy time until the spring of next year, if they seek to accelerate, or later if not. Going to the country before that is put to bed would be very dangerous. The Conservatives could spend much of the election demanding a referendum and highlighting how the red lines have not been protected. They would be able to remind the public how the promise of the referendum stopped proper debate of the issue in the last election. The only way out for the PM would be to offer a referendum and to explain at the IGC how the present deal is likely to be voted down if they do not improve it. That would make him more popular at home.
2. People are feeling a bit squeezed by high taxes and high mortgage rates. A further increase or two in interest rates, and no relief on Council Tax, Inheritance Tax and the other unpopular taxes is not a good backdrop for a General Election for the governing party. The welcome cuts in Standard rate Income Tax and Corporation Tax do not come in in time for an early election,whilst the abolition of the 10p band will anyway leave some worse off. The government would need to find a way of indicating lower interest rates and /or lower taxes ahead to stimulate a better feeling about economic prospects.
Jul
18
2007
Mr Miliband’s decision to expel four Russian diplomats has taken us back to the bad old days of the 1960s and 1970s. I read today that Russian planes have been testing out the RAF response, just like old times. Why didn’t Mr Milliband spend more time thinking through possible solutions to the problem of how to bring a suspect to justice? What is he going to do once the Russians retaliate to the diplomat expulsion? These kinds of rows are easy to escalate but difficult to bring to the conclusion we want. The best thing this government could do to give us more leverage is to get on with an energy policy which avoided reliance on Russian gas.
I wonder what other features of the
Jul
18
2007
If I want to travel by air I need to arrive long before my flight to go through elaborate security checks. I am not allowed to carry with me various normal bottled fluids, and have to take my shoes off for inspection. I am told this is necessary to keep me safe.
When I travel by tube - equally vulnerable to terrorist attack as we have seen in recent years - I am can carry anything I like with me. There are no security checks of any kind and mercifully I can keep my shoes on. Apparently intrusive security checks would not keep me safe on the tube.
If I travel by air I am told I have to have a seat in case the aircraft hits turbulence. I am not allowed to stand on a plane when travelling.
If I travel by tube I often have to stand. This morning there were so many people standing I could not even use a hanging strap to keep me upright as the train lurched round bends, shook over points, and braked suddenly. The journey was considerably less smooth than most flights.
If I travel by plane I am told I have to fasten my seat belt for take off and landing, and sometimes for the rest of the journey. I have been fortunate in never once experiencing the need for such restraint to protect me.
If I travel by tube there is
Jul
17
2007
What Gord takes away with one hand he gives back with another.
It is good news that the government will abolish the much unloved Regional Assemblies in England. After the vote in the North East rejecting one there, they have been dead in the water.
It is bad news that instead the government proposes to strengthen the regional development agencies, and effectively give them planning powers to override elected Councils and decide on development.
It is interesting to remember that the regions of the UK that have had regional development agencies for longest,with the largest budgets relative to the size of their economies, have fallen further and further behind the other regions. It’s not much of an advert for stronger RDAs elsewhere.
Cromwell would be proud of this governemnt - it’s the rule of the Major Generals all over again through these regional quangos.
Jul
17
2007
First the good news - they wanted to see me,and are clearly trying to improve their service and customer relations. The current timetable left many people in my area frustrated, because there were too few trains, and too few seats on the trains that did run. It was a local illustration of a national problem - insufficient rail capacity. We are promised 6 trains a hour at peaks from Reading to London and back, and 4 trains an hour during peaks from Twyford to Paddington and back, 3 of them fast, for the new timetable late this year.
Now the bad news. They are still planning their railway on the assumption that they will only be able to get 20 trains an hour into Paddington, the eastern terminus of the Great Western railway. They are spending large sums on refurbishing old diesel train sets that are far too heavy, forcing large gaps between trains to allow for slow braking and poor acceleration. The new engines will be a bit more fuel efficient, but the whole package remains wasteful of fuel. The matter was so unimportant to the industry that my guests could neither tell me the horsepower nor the fuel efficiency of the engines they are fitting. The new trains and the refurbished trains still have no restraints to keep luggage safe if the train suddenly brakes or crashes. There will be no seat belts on the new or refurbished express trains.
Jul
17
2007
The Politics Show - Redwood calls for greater transport capacity
Jul
16
2007
Mr Miliband was tongue tied again following his statement to the Commons on Russian extradition.
When asked what level of diplomats he was expelling, he showed he had understood the question but was quite unable to answer it.
In this he is typical of this government - the department advised evicting four diplomats and he said “Yes”. He should first have asked, which ones, what might the Russians do in retaliation, how will it leave our embassy in Moscow etc.
I have
Jul
16
2007
This government loves setting targets. There are targets for everything they control and many things they do not.
There are three big problems with targets. The first is, it is embarrasing when you do not hit them. Many Ministers set them up to gain a headline, do nothing to ensure hitting them, and move on
Jul
16
2007
We learn that the government is not content with doubling the length of time the authorities can hold someone in prison without charge or trial from 14 to 28 days, but hankers after the 90 days they originally wanted before Parliament told them to think again.
We should defend a free society by better intelligence, by refusing entry to suspicious people, by intercepting and eavesdropping on possible terrorists. Defending a free society also means preserving the rule of law, and that most important freedom - we are all innocent until proved guilty, and no-one should be detained without charge or trial for longer than a few days.
It is better to collect the evidence on potential terrorists before alerting them and their network to your work by arresting someone. It is also quite wrong to detain people who cannot be charged with a serious crime on the offchance that they might commit one. If we do that we have lost an important part of the freedom we are trying to protect.
I will continue to vote for 14 days maximum detention without charge or trial. Anything more can wreck the lives of the innocent. I thought the same about Northern Ireland and internment when I was myself on a an IRA death list.
Jul
15
2007
Mr Miliband this morning told us that the US-UK relationship is still central to the UK’s foreign policy. He implied that junior Foreign Office Minister Brown was offside when he told us all the US and the UK are no longer joined at the hip.
It looks as if PM Brown and Foreign Secretary Milliband are out to have it both ways. They themselves tell us nothing has changed in the US/UK relationship, whilst more junior members of the government brief away that their speeches show things have changed. For the home audience the top pair want people to believe the relationship is now cooler, whilst for the foreign audience they want the Bush regime to believe they are great friends still.
It’s a dangerous game to play. The US has good analysts capable of reading the UK press and speeches. Mr Brown may discover there is one world spin machien more powerfful than his own, and that is the spin machine run from the Oval office.
Jul
14
2007
I read today that 13 leading Asian economies including China and India have ammassed another $380 billion so far this year by exporting so many
Jul
14
2007
So it’s no more Mr Nice Guy from the Lib dems. They used to be the honest party that told people they wanted to spend more through the public sector, and therefore would put taxes up. These policies always came out as very popular in the focus groups, and always ensured the Lib dems came third.
Now the Lib Dems have woken up to the fact that most people in private think they themselves pay too much tax, and get rotten value for money for what they have to contribute: hence the new Lib dem headline - tax cuts for the many.
Unfortunately, the small print makes much grimmer reading. The Lib dems still want to give income tax receipts to local government so Councils can spend more with access to a much more buoyant source of revenue. That’s at least 4p in the
Jul
13
2007
Mr Alexander, Overseas Development Secretary, was clearly authorised to speak in Washington about changes to the “special relationship” between the US and the UK. Whilst the language was suitably friendly towards his US hosts, the spin on the speech told us back home that foreign policy is changing post Blair.
The speech itself did not name and criticise the President, but domestic spin told us the
Jul
13
2007
After Hilary Benn denied the Environment Agency had fallen down on the job by not keeping enough water courses, drains and ditches in good condition when I asked him about it, I now hear he is going to have a full enquiry into what went wrong before this summer’s floods.
The Enquiry should ask the Agency why more than half the flood defences were not in a satisfactory or good condition last year. It should ask what action is now being taken to clean, widen and improve ditches and surface water pipes and conduits. It should ask if there can be more agreements with farmers over flooding water meadows and other low lying land rather than flooding homes, with suitable compensation for farmers if there are crops on the fields. It should ask why this government over the last ten years has demanded so many homes be built on the flood plains of the south-east, and whether this will now change given
Jul
13
2007
I had realised Gordon Brown was keen to do the job of PM, Deputy PM, Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, but even I had thought he might let the Queen deliver the Queen’s speech, only to discover he decided to deliver it himself before the Parliamentary recess. Whilst the formal opening of Parliament will remain a great ceremonial event, it will lack the old excitement of not knowing what measures would be in
Jul
11
2007
I went to an interesting off the record lunch with senior reps from the bus and train business.
During the discussion they agreed that Uk trains are far too heavy, requiring large amounts
Jul
11
2007
I am glad Gordon Brown wants to expand home ownership, and backs shared ownership as a ladder to full ownership. That is a cross party aim.
Where he is less convincing is in his explanation of why houses are so dear. He just insists that it is because we are building too few houses. There are two other reasons he does not acknowledge.
The first is we have been living through an era of easy money. In part this has been fuelled in the UK by his decision to switch the target for the Bank fo England from the RPI to the CPI which gave them the green light to keep interest rates too low before the last election, leading to a further boost
Jul
11
2007
Three cheers again this morning for the Information Commissioner, despite his Orwellian title. He has spoken out against the build up of personal data by government and large companies, and the cavalier way they often handle it. It is all part of Labour’s 1984 vision of society, with ever more cameras on street corners and main roads, with ever more lectures on how we should lead our lives from Ministers who have no intention of playing by the same rules, with ever more charges, taxes and fines from government agencies, and endless forms to fill in before you are allowed to go about your daily business. This is a government that wants to make more criminals, by creating endless more offences that people may inadvertently commit because of the complexities and pettifogging triviality of so many of the new dos and dont’s.We now have a Ministry of Justice, and doubtless the government’s massive swollen propoganda department will be known soon as the Ministry of Truth!
Unfortunately, The Commisioner’s complaints will not change this government’s approach. I don’t expect to see
Jul
10
2007
Iain Duncan Smith is right to highlight the breakdown in British society caused by drugs, alcohol, poor educational achievement and the perverse incentives of the tax/benefits nexus.
Important in generating success for this policy for families will be the changes to the benefit and tax credit system. The proposals are to be more generous to married couples, not less generous to unmarrieds. It will require careful recalibration of the system to make marriage more worthwhile. Iain’s report sets out four options in total to put more net income into the hands of maried couples with children. Two of the proposals are targetted on married couples with dependent children. The transferable allowance goes to all married
Jul
09
2007
The west has been friendly with the current regime in Pakistan, as the US and the UK have felt the need for a friend in that troubled part of the world. Opposition figures in
Jul
09
2007
Hilary Been and Hazel Blears have both had a go in the Commons to reassure people that all is for the best in the best possible of worlds, despite the large number of homes that have been flooded in the last few weeks.
Jul
08
2007
Sir Alan West tells us today that the terrorist threat will last for 15 years. This is a useful reduction on terror campaigns lasting for at least a generation which Mr Reid used to warn us about when he was Home Secretary.
Jul
07
2007
Today we hear that Iain Duncan Smith, Chairman of the Conservative’s social policy review, will come out with the suggestion that failing schools be offered to parents, teachers or others who can run them better as private trusts.
Three cheers for that. I am in favour of making all English schools independent of the state, to end for ever the divide betwen the privileged few who go to independent schools, and the rest who go to state schools. If it makes sense to deliver better standards in poor performing schools to let them be run
Jul
07
2007
No wonder 56% of people do not believe the so called consensus about climate change, and think litter and dog mess are more pressing environmental problems that affect their daily lives. Al Gore has made a huge mistake trying to harness the pop industry to his cause in the naive hope it will popularise it. It has instead fuelled much debate about the huge carbon emissions from many of the pop stars who will jet in to perform and jet out again.
The politicians find it difficult to persaude people, because their lifestyles are far from eco friendly. Politicians trying to gain popualirty through association with usually popular pop stars is risible, as in this rspect the pop stars are even worse than the politicians. They both have huge carbon footprints, and have both just put their feet in it again.
Jul
06
2007
Just when the Revenue make a bid for outrageous new powers, a report comes out showing that 1 million of all taxpayers are charged the wrong tax each year! That must be the conclusive argument against any extension of IR powers to grab money from our bank accounts.
All too often now the Revenue makes aggressive claims for more tax from popele. They are forced to spend time arguing the case., They often have to spend money on taking accountancy advice. if accountants agree the Revenue’s interpretation of tax law is unreasonable, they may then need to spend money on lawyers to take the case to court.
It is unfair on most people who do not have the time and the money to do all that. The Revenue are already effectively judge and jury in their own cases. That’s why their new aggression is unreasonable, and should be sorted out by Ministers who are meant to stand up for taxpayers. Unfortunately this lot of Ministers
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
