Move on from the 50p tax debate

I see ConservativeHome and others broken cover and said that Cameron should oppose the 50p rate of income tax.  As usual John Rentoul brings some sanity to this non-debate and concludes:

I have news for the Less Sensible Wing of the Tory party as well as for the Sensible Wing: prioritise away; nobody's going to be reversing tax rises or cutting taxes or doing anything that Tories regard as fun for a generation. The borrowing requirement is 12 per cent of national income. It is vast. We will be paying to close the gap between government spending and revenue - never mind the debt itself - for as far as the eye can see.

Exactly.  Sometimes I do wonder if certain parts of the Conservative party really want to win the election. They seem more than happy to play Brown’s games.  Thankfully Cameron does not and has already moved on..

Did this help Blair win three elections

Because he refused point blank Brown’s demands to raise the top rate of income tax.

As for the Tories.  They should say that they are not going to fall for Brown’s pathetic political trap and move on.

Is the Budget over?

Did our next Prime Minister just wake me up with the rousing end to his speech?

Allow 24 hours to pass before coming to any sensible judgement on anything tactical devious Brown has been involved with.  Remember the 10p tax fiasco.

I will stick my neck out on one small matter.  I bet the borrowing figures will be worse once some bright young thing has studied the red book.

Time for some fresh air.

The quote of the day has already been made

Tony McNulty MP on the reform of expenses:

What we are talking about is looking at reform of the entire system, a system which for whatever reason is now discredited.

Darling will have to move heaven and earth to beat that.

Is a reshuffle in the air?

 

There has been much chatter that Brown’s long awaited Cabinet reshuffle will not happen until after the June elections.  Frankly, I cannot see any logical reason why this should be the case.  From Brown’s tactical and devious point-of-view, would it not be a wonderful idea to launch his General Election losing team as soon as the Budget is out of the way?

On a day of conjuring tricks, smoke and mirrors, half-baked policies, reworked announcements, loose money being thrown around, jaw dropping borrowing figures and the lack of any small print, the idea of a reshuffle soon is something to think about.

All Balls

Looks like young Balls could be in rather deeper water than he already is.  Having been accused of lying last week on Today, it now appears that he may have misled the Commons.  Very embarrassing for the man that wishes to succeed Brown.

With the unemployment figures out this morning and a heavily disguised election rally at lunchtime, Balls latest stumbling-block on the road to nowhere may not get that much coverage.  Lucky feller.

Balls is one of those politicians who is too clever by half.

You've seen nothing yet. Brown will just get worse

Putting aside the video, why are some taken aback with Brown’s tactics on MPs’ expenses?  To sum up, not flash, just Gordon.  This is just the continuation of usual tricks he employs to divert attention from bad news.  As mentioned below, I was backing an announcement on the Royal Mail sell-off.  Brown is not going to change.  He will become his own worst enemy as the election approaches.

David Cameron rightly gave a measured response, rather than react to Brown’s games.  I take issue with all the pompous stuff about parliamentary procedure, highlighted by Iain Martin.  Parliament has done nothing to tackle this issue and it is about time somebody did. Voters want action this day.

Question Brown’s motives, tactics and laugh at his presentational skills, but on MPs expenses he has been right to take the lead.  Nobody else has.

Gordon smiles for the camera

Brown has announced his proposals for reforming MPs’ expenses.  About time.  This should have been done weeks ago.  Tactical Gordon also puts the Tories on the spot with his proposals for MPs who have second jobs.

Clearly he has been on a training course on how to speak direct to a camera.  It hasn't worked.  He smiles without conviction and in all the wrong places.

It will be interesting to see how these proposals go down with MPs.  In the present climate, I doubt they will have little choice but to accept them.

Onwards to June

So we had a rogue ICM poll last night.  MORI’s monthly political monitor is out:

CON 41%(-1), LAB 28%(-5), LDEM 22%(+8)

Anthony Wells comments:

Any polls showing a party moving by 8 points deserves some degree of scepticism, though of course, the broad trend here - a further slump in labour support with people moving over to the Lib Dems is the same as in the Marketing Sciences poll, though obviously not to the same scale.

If the Lib Dems move any closer to Labour, the comrades will really start to panic.  We now have three polls showing that the Tories will have an overall majority.  It should not be forgotten that the opinion polls have consistently tended to understate the level of Tory support at an election.

If there is no Labour bounce once the small print of the budget is analysed, Brown will limp into June with no cards left to play.

Sometimes Brown is glad of the recession

When it suits them Brown and Mandy they will talk of “recovery” and “opportunity”.  At other times they will be glad of the recession when it gets them out of a political hole.  The Indy reports on the Royal Mail sell-off:

New research by the think-tank Compass suggests the amount of money the Treasury would raise from the sale has almost halved since last year. It claims a price of £1bn is realistic in the recession but said a minority stake would have fetched an estimated £1.9bn if it had been sold a year ago.

Place your bets now on this excuse being given as to why the proposed sell-off will be called off, rather than the real reason that Mandy can’t win over Labour MPs. Any chance that this will be announced on Budget Day to cheer the troops up and help bury the bad news?

Careful what you say on your blog!

I found this amusing in light of recent events concerning Dolly Draper;

Park Dae-sung, better known as Minerva, built up a huge online following by making largely negative - and accurate - predictions on the economy.

Prosecutors said his brand of financial journalism was damaging to the public interest - but a Seoul court ruled there was no proof of malicious intent.

The "innocent" verdict is being seen as a victory for freedom of speech.

Taking the Roman goddess of wisdom's name as his nom-de-plume, Minerva served up some uncannily accurate online predictions, including the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

He became a blogging sensation, with intense speculation about his true identity - a learned professor perhaps, or maybe an experienced market trader?

The authorities were less impressed, arguing that much of what he wrote was misleading and beginning to affect the money markets.

When they finally tracked him down in January they found the unemployed 31-year-old picking up his financial know-how by surfing the web and reading mail-order text books.

His indictment under a rarely used law of "spreading false information with the intent of harming the public interest" caused a storm of protest from human rights groups, but he is now free to blog again.

The court found that however misleading his articles, there was no proof of malicious intent.

The only difference is that Draper did have malicious intent.

Ed Balls should be very worried, and so should Brown

Ben Brogan is back with a new blog and doesn't mince his words.  He goes further than Nick Robinson did this morning and call Balls a liar:

To my holiday-addled brain, the most significant development of the week is the outing of Ed Balls and his shadow spin operation. Did he really say of "Mr" Damian McBride: "I haven't been involved in his political work"?  Eh? The opening post of a new blog should set the tone by avoiding sensation. It should be scrupulously fair-minded. At all cost it should avoid unedifying name-calling. So I shall merely say, in the gentlest way possible: "liar liar, pants on fire".

So we now have two senior political commentators rightly accusing Balls of being more than economical with the truth.  If Balls is implicated in “McBridegate”, then the trail will lead straight to Brown.  This scandal is far from over.

The latest poll bucks the trend

ICM’s monthly poll:

CON 40%(-4), LAB 30%(-1), LDEM 19%(+1)

Anthony Well again:

This is actually the lowest Conservative lead in an ICM poll since December, which given the horrendous week Labour have had in the media seems a somewhat unlikely trend.

Tomorrow MORI’s monthly political monitor, which was also carried out over the weekend, should appear tomorrow and perhaps that will clear things up a bit - otherwise we’ll never know for sure the effect of the smear emails on Labour’s public support, since the next round of polls will be subject to whatever positive or negative effect the budget has.

Looking beyond the topline figures, the underlying trends are rather better for the Conservatives. Cameron & Osborne now have a 10 point lead over Brown & Darling as the most trusted team to run the economy, up from 2 points the last time ICM asked the question in January. The Conservatives are also seen as the party most likely to “use power honestly” - backed by 29% to Labour’s 20% and the Lib Dems 13% (implying that 38% of people wouldn’t trust any of them).

Could it be that this poll reflects the fact that Cameron has been almost absent from the media over that last two weeks?  The MORI poll tomorrow will conform whether this is a rogue poll or not, as the field work was carried out at exactly the same time.

How scientifically accurate is this poll?

Politics Home has a tracker poll suggesting that there is waning public interest in “McBridegate”.  The scandal is seen as being the seventh most interesting story of the week.  Is this so?  Why then the sudden jump in the Tory lead in two polls over the weekend?

Have I missed something?  The Tories haven't done anything to change the political weather over the past two weeks!

The Tories should steer well away from this trap

This blog is not going to get bogged down with all the hype, spin and counter-spin ahead of the budget.  I will wait, like any sensible person would where Brown is involved, for the small print to be analysed.  However, I have noticed with some amusement that Brown and Mandy have now turned the “recession” into a “opportunity”.  Just wait for the latest unemployment figures lads!

One matter.  I entirely agree with James Forsyth over at the Coffee House blog about the 45p tax rate relative to the latest IFS report:

I know many people on the right will argue that there is no need to accept Labour’s terms of debate any more and that the party must show that it is on the side of the wealth creators. I understand that argument. But 45p is not the right fight to pick. Vocally opposing the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions would be a far better one. The electorate is far more likely to appreciate that increasing the tax on jobs at a time of rising unemployment is economically foolish than that raising taxes on the super rich would produce less revenue.

The Tories have got Brown on the ropes.  Politically they need to stay united and not expose any internal splits.  To do so would play straight into Brown’s devious tactical hands.

Labour luvies leave the sinking ship

The Conservative party's review of the creative industries is to be headed by the former Labour party donor Greg Dyke.  The panel of 12 will also include Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert.

I doubt that Dyke would have accepted this brief if he thought all was well within the Labour party.  As for the Murdoch’s, they have a track record of switching to the winning side.

Caught my eye

Trevor Kavenagh:

“We’re down to 26 per cent, but there is nothing to stop it going lower,” said an ex-Cabinet minister. “We are in freefall.

“People accused Tony of telling lies but Gordon is the biggest liar in modern politics.

“The question on election day will be: Do you want Brown for another five years? Millions and millions of voters are going to say NO.”

Alastair Campbell:

Jackie Ashley is singing the praises of Peter Mandelson. That really was a surprise.

Peter Oborne:

I am convinced that Blairite hatchetmen (who still rue the day their hero was forced out of Downing Street by Gordon Brown's plotters) leaked the poisonous e-mails between McBride and fellow spin-doctor Derek Draper.

They knew that putting the e-mails into the public domain would profoundly damage the Government.

But they did not care - the greater prize was the elimination of a hated Brownite foot-soldier, McBride.

Over the weekend, intoxicated with the swift success of their ploy, they struck again with the additional and very brutal attack on the Prime Minister's closest ally and chosen successor, Ed Balls. As a result, Balls is very badly wounded.

Today, for the first time since he became Labour leader in July 2007, I am seriously beginning to wonder whether Gordon Brown might not survive until the election.

Gordon Brown to appear on South Park

The Telegraph is reporting that Brown is due feature in an episode of South Park later this year.

I understand that there is some nervousness about progressing with this initiative amongst the producers.  The reason given is that Brown may not be PM by the time this particular edition is broadcast.  It has therefore been decided that two alternatives will be made, one featuring Alan Johnson and the other with David Cameron.

Nick Robinson takes issue with Ed Balls

Although I have my reservations about Nick Robinson, his interview with Jim Naughtie on Today is well worth a listen.  He completely contradicts what Ed Balls said on the same programme last week about his relationship with McBride.

Master Balls is likely to come under increasing pressure over his role in “McBridegate” after the weekend reports.

Guido changes gear

You have to read Fawkes’s latest post very carefully.  Where this leads could well be highly damaging for Brown.  He is saying that according to an on the record source, Labour's General Secretary Ray Collins DID know “in principle about the plan to set-up an anonymous Labour attack blog”, but DIDN’T know “about specifics”.  Guido also says that others at Labour HQ were also in the know.

Collins has said this in response to the earlier NOTW story:

I have had no knowledge whatsoever of any smears and found the stories and reports of the last week absolutely disgusting.

I did attend a meeting at the Unite Head Office on December 1 to discuss online digital campaigning and how we could support and encourage left of centre websites and bloggers.

This meeting was not about scurrilous rumour, personal attacks or smears as I would have been furious that such things could be seen as legitimate tools of political debate.

In this statement Collins DOESN’T rule out that he knew about the Red Rag site.  Therefore we now have a direct link from what McBride and Draper were planning to the heart of the Labour party.

Guido ends his post with the word “developing”  Indeed so.  Hardly “tittle tattle”, as Mandy was suggesting at lunchtime.