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Will Mr Brown pledge to real-terms increases in the NHS? I’ve done it. So will he?
Will Mr Brown pledge to real-terms increases in the NHS? I’ve done it. So will he? David Cameron April 2010
Cameron to take on Labour over NHS - October 2006
Will opposites attract?
I am posting this following a recent tweet this afternoon. Incidentally, my article got a very hostile reception the first time around, Sundeep and Neil!
Lawyers in training often become bewildered as to how parts of their course ultimately gel together. This possibly contributes to their uncertainty in choosing which part of the law to specialise in. For example, how on earth does constitutional law, including the rule of law and human rights, relate to the different specialisms of law, such as immigration or housing? And what have they got to do with the big powerhouse corporate law firms, if anything?
A surprising fusion of these ingredients could hold the key to solving a different problem that has been vexing English and Welsh law for several decades, at least. That is, the issue of what to do about the provision of legal aid.
A community law centre, where the lawyer might examine a sensitive landlord-tenant dispute, may seem ‘worlds-apart’ from the work of a corporate lawyer, who may be advising on a multi-billion-pound, headline-grabbing deal. However, it is possible that these circles might mix more in future, due to the current circumstances.
Access to the law: back to the basic constitutional law
One of the very first things that law students focus on in their constitutional law courses is the ‘rule of law’. Indeed, the rule of law underpins the work of both ‘divisions’ of lawyers: the barristers and the solicitors.
In 1977, the influential political theorist Joseph Raz identified several principles that may be associated with the ‘rule of law’ in some (but not all) societies. Some of Raz’s principles include the fact that the courts should be accessible, i.e. no man should be denied justice, and that the principles of natural justice should be observed, particularly those concerning the right to a fair hearing.
And what of the actual reality of today, in England and Wales?
“The Government strongly believes that access to justice is a hallmark of a civilised society. The proposals set out in this consultation paper [on the reform of legal aid] represent a radical, wide-ranging and ambitious programme of reform which aims to ensure that legal aid is targeted to those who need it most, for the most serious cases in which legal advice or representation is justified.”
‘A brief history of legal aid’
Legal aid in England and Wales was originally established by the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949, with the aim of providing equality of access and the right to representation before the law. The scope of legal matters covered in 1949 was very tightly drawn.
However, today legal aid in England and Wales costs the taxpayer £2bn a year – a higher per capita spend than anywhere else in the world. It is argued that the current scheme is available for a too wide a range of issues, including some which should not require any legal expertise to resolve. The provision of legal aid is now governed by the Access to Justice Act 1999 and supplementary legislation.
The possible effect of the proposed legal aid reforms
Many civil cases will no longer be eligible for legal aid, and fees paid in civil and family cases will be cut by 10% across the board, according to Ministry of Justice plans set out in the consultation paper, “Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales”, released in November 2010.
The UK government has estimated that, under the plans, £350m will be saved from the Ministry of Justice’s budget by 2014/15, if its proposals are implemented in full.
Ken Clarke QC MP, the Secretary for State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, has said in an interview that,
‘I believe that the taxpayer should continue to provide legal aid to those who need it most and for serious issues. But the current system can encourage lengthy, acrimonious and sometimes unnecessary court proceedings, at taxpayers’ expense, which may not always ensure the best result for those involved. The proposals I have outlined suggest clear tough choices to ensure access to public funding in those cases that really require it, the protection of the most vulnerable in society and the efficient performance of the justice system.’
Reaction from the solicitors
The cut in legal aid may offend the rule of law. For example, the Law Society Chief Executive, Desmond Hudson, has warned that:
‘If the government persists with these proposals, it would represent a sharp break from the long-standing bipartisan consensus that effective access to justice is essential to underpin the rule of law. Legal aid clients are some of the most vulnerable in society and good legal representation where required is essential if they are to obtain justice. The Society will now consider the green paper in detail.’
The effect on the high street – the community law centres
‘Law Centres’ employ solicitors and case-workers who specialise in debt, discrimination, housing, employment, welfare benefit, community care, mental health law, and immigration and asylum law. Their initiatives are truly inspirational.
In an open letter dated October 2010, Julie Bishop, Director of the Law Centres Federation, provides a very interesting description of the impact that the financial recession – a possible driver in the need to cut costs in legal aid services – has had on the high street legal services:
“We serve 120,000 clients every year. The recession is hitting our clients hard. Already, the Employment Tribunals Service has recorded an increase from 10,800 to 19,000 in the number of cases related to unfair dismissal over the past year [October 2009-10]. ACAS has recorded a 13% increase in enquiries for conciliation services. Law Centres have experienced a 30% increase in clients assisted with employment and discrimination cases.”
An example of where the Law Centres have made a substantial impact is in Brent. Brent Community Law Centre stated that the cuts to legal aid will leave two options for those in poverty on Jobseeker’s Allowance: “a move from poverty to extreme poverty, or possession or eviction if they do not pay their rent.”
They cite that a single person living in a one-bed flat paying £180 per week will have to contribute £18 to the rent out of a weekly income of £65.45, leaving £47.45 for all other expenses including fuel. A separate (but linked issue) which compounds vulnerability is the proposed capping of housing benefit. It is estimated that this will cost claimants in Brent an average of £8,817,844 per year. This loss is to be shared among 1,988 claimants. If their rents are not reduced, they will have to pay £4,436 per household out of their own income. Currently, the Brent Law Centre is able to advise on this issue.
Brent Law Centre argues there will inevitably be far more possession cases in the county court because landlords, whether council or private, will bring court action for rent arrears. In addition, they believe that the impact on costs for other departments, such as social services and child protection need to be assessed.
Brent Law Centre, only through the goodwill of an army of unpaid volunteers, is currently able to provide legal advice and assistance for residents of Brent on a range of legal issues including education, employment, housing, immigration, mental health, public law and welfare benefits.
An unlikely solution?
It has not gone unnoticed that one of the effects of losing £350m from the existing £2.1bn budget may be to put corporate law firms under greater pressure to contribute to the provision of legal aid.
High profile pro-bono interventions by the household names in corporate law can become tied to big international events – such as helping out at the Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal (Weil Gotshal & Manges), or representing wounded soldiers in compensation cases against the Ministry of Defence (Hogan Lovells).
Nonetheless, doing pro bono has become attractive to graduates in an increasingly competitive job market, where law firms are keen to attract the best graduates, and graduates are keen to demonstrate their social awareness.
However, it is true that many newly-qualified graduates do contribute much time for free to the local community, often in very deprived areas, but find the work immensely fulfilling. This is despite the fact that their Managing Associates and Partners will not tolerate any compromises in their professional ‘day job’.
Who knows where this is heading?
The ideal outcome might be for a restructuring of legal aid services, such that the public and lawyers have a clear idea where the money is going to, and which enables fair access to legal services for the public. The crunch question inevitably becomes: “where this money is coming from, if it’s not the taxpayer?”
Brent Law Centre is just a single example of where professional lawyers give their skills free-of-charge for the benefit of the community, but it would be tragic to see a situation where lawyers cannot even do this because of the ‘system’.
It might be, even, that the corporate lawyers have a crucial part to play for the benefit of society, in contributing towards the maintenance of legal aid in the high street law.
The budget
I have a terrific regard for the University of Oxford and the PPE course (Politics, Philosophy and Economics).
As an educationalist, I think it is a very clever combination of three subjects taught to a hugh standard by three separate examination schools. However, as a neuroscientist, I think the subject is ahead of its time. For me, it represents whether the markets operate with free will or deterministically, and whether its expedient for governments to make decisions around such findings, inter alia. And the list of PPE graduates is a wonder to behold: Andreas Whittam-Smith, Guto Harri, Mary Ann Sieghart, Nick Cohen, Nick Robinson; and of course, Stephanie Flanders, Hugh Pym and Ed Balls. I was disappointed, but not particularly surprised, to see George Osborne not on this list.
With the ritualistic nature of the Budget, it is easy to forget that the budget for any business entity represents the pivotal focus of budgeting (as the name would imply) and forecasting. This is interesting in the context of the overall business strategy, and provides an important exercise for seeing the progress of the organisation with its economic goals. In summary, we saw inflation go up to 4.4% yesterday, GDP is going down (although hopefully it is likely we will avoid a ‘double dip’ of two quarters of negative growth seeing us back into recession), unemployment rising particularly youth unemployment, and interest rates probably about to go up. The danger with the cuts strategy, of cutting quite so much fast so fast, was that we would risk slow growth, with people being laid off in the public sector with the private sector not picking up the slack, as the Tory-led government had hoped. This would mean there would be less spending power, more unemployment benefit being paid, less tax revenue, and the deficit actually not being cut as fast as desirable. It is also incredibly depressing for morale. Many of us have felt that even if the deficit is paid off fast the wreckage that would be produced socially would be difficult to recover from. Hence, we at Cambridge, have a somewhat different emphasis. We don’t call it “Politics, Philosophy and Economics”, but “Social and Political Sciences”. You’ll see this perhaps this Saturday…
Cameron's Big Society is nearly dead.
Laura Kuenssberg tried to trip Ed Miliband with her pathetic little trick of saying that Labour had no plans about deficit reduction. Her message is simply a disgusting lie. Labour said it would not have cut the deficit as fast or as deep. Ed’s answer below couldn’t possibly be clearer. And on Laura Kuenssberg’s head be it when growth grinds to a total halt, unemployment shoots up and we still have no growth strategy (and the people in collusion with her such as George Osborne and David Cameron). The reason the public aren’t impressed because Nat Wei has left the Big Society as its Big Architect – maybe this fits in better with his work schedules with McKinsey’s, if he’s still working there, assuming of course any companies he works for do not have ongoing contracts with the Big Society. And it is a sham – as legal professionals may not be able to volunteer for community legal centres because of an annual cut to legal aid of the order of £2bn a year, in schools because of the illegal scrapping of BSF, or in SureStart centres because they’re being scrapped. A disaster – a contemptible one at that.
There is a better way: Nick Clegg and his last Christmas
There is an economic crisis – it is a crisis of high unemployment and stagnant growth; it is not, as the ConDems insist, a crisis of the public finances. The ConDems have systematically distorted and exaggerated problems with the public finances. The UK was never in danger of becoming the next Greece. The rising deficit reflected the collapse in tax revenues and rising cost of unemployment benefits during the recession. It was not caused by out of control public spending.
History does not support the ConDem assertion that cuts will be good for growth and jobs. But history does support the STUC’s belief that deep and premature cuts will lead to persistently high unemployment.
There is a Better Way!
Compass: Education is for people not profit. PLEASE SIGN!!
Up and down the country innovative campaigns have sprung up to oppose the government’s education reforms. Last night’s vote to increase fees for university students up to £9000 will turn Higher Education into a market. It reflects the wider commercialisation of our education system must be strongly opposed at every opportunity. Instead we need to see education and other public services democratise. So today we have a letter published in The Guardian aimed at uniting all groups of campaigners.
The widespread anger over higher education fees is the first step in what inevitably starts as a defensive campaign. First we fight to protect what we have. But soon, through the process of struggle, wider fissures opened up. For the sudden eruption of protests and anger on campuses and city streets has been reaching boiling point for some time. Because this isn’t just about fees, but about the final transformation of our education system from a public into a private good.
What we are witnessing is just the latest and sharpest manifestation of the remorseless process of commercialization of our lives that creates insecurity, anxiety and sheer exhaustion because it piles all the pressure of coping on us as individuals. And that burden is just too much, even for those families who used to see themselves as quite ‘well off’. Hope is systematically being taken away. The anger and frustration is real, widespread and well founded.
The key word in the higher education debate is not so much fees but variability. It is the ability to compete on price, whether it’s at the bargain basement or luxury end of the university market that signals the ultimate victory of the economy over society; of profit over people. The flow towards university privatisation will become inexorable. However, when it comes to fees, Scotland and Wales are showing that something different is not just desirable but feasible.
Today we are all conditioned to think of education as a positional good – how do we or our children benefit disproportionately compared to others? It is a rat race in which the winners are just the fastest rats. Since the 1980s universities and schools have been steadily and remorselessly marketised and pupils and students commodified. Success, as the new common sense would have it, could only be achieved through competition, between institutions for the best scholars and students and between students themselves. The pressure becomes almost unbearable – the right nursery begets the right primary, which paves the way for the right secondary and then the right university – leading ultimately to the right, that is, best paid job. Along the way those who can’t stand the pace are weeded out and those who can are tutored, coaxed and coached by parents who are only doing their duty as they help burn out those who they love the most. Mental illness amongst our young people reaches inexorable heights.
This instrumentalism is such a narrow view of what it means to be human and to be educated. That is why the students’ struggle resonates across our country. The students themselves are showing maturity beyond their years. They know this is not just about them and they cannot win any lone concessions on fees without the wider support and consensus. And why would they want to ‘win’ if it means others lose out still further? They understand what solidarity means. That is why campaigns like UK Uncut, which links corporate tax avoidance to the rebalancing of our depleted public finances, is critical both morally and practically. If one company, Arcadia, paid its tax return in full then Higher Education could be securely funded. But they are allowed to escape their responsibility to society while the rest of pay in full. The students know that Educational Maintenance Allowance is critical for hundreds thousands of young people from low income families who now attend Further Education colleges and that cleaners on their campuses should be paid a living wage. Students don’t have to be told that we are all in it together. They know it.
The political class may choose to forget but we don’t; that it was the greed of the banks and the free market regime handed to them by our politicians that tipped the nations finances into crisis.
But the cuts in education and elsewhere cannot be successfully opposed with just a No. Progress demands a vision and then the practical steps towards a better of way of being.
We start from the belief that education cannot just be a debt trap on a learn-to-earn treadmill that we never get off as the retirement age is extended. There is so much more to life than this and we want it for all – not just for some. Education in our good society is a universal public good which all must explore to reach their fullest potential. It is centered on an inter-generational transfer of wealth, in the spirit of Edmund Burke, in which everyone matters.
We recoil at the horror of passing on a world to the next generation that is worse than the one handed to us. This has gone on long enough. What is happening is wrong and we must say so in every legal and peaceful way we can – in parliament, in the media, in the all sites of education and on the streets.
We want to help create an educational sphere where it is the value of learning that matters not its price. It is about the protection and extension of a precious public realm where we know each other not as consumers and competitors but as citizens and cooperators. The driving force of education should be creating the capacity for self-organisation. It is the democratisation of schools and universities in which staff, pupils and communities share with managers the joys and responsibility of reform. We want society to enjoy the annual harvest of enquiring, critical and free minds – not the production of hard, cold and self-interested calculating machines.
Education is ultimately about how we learn to live together – not why we fall apart.
Neal Lawson Chair of Compass
Brendan Barber* General secretary of TUC
Aaron Porter President of NUS
Sally Hunt* General secretary of UCU
Christine Blower General secretary of NUT
Len McCluskey Unite general secretary designate
Tony Woodley Joint general secretary of Unite
Dave Prentis General secretary of Unison
SOAS Occupation
King’s College Occupation
Tremough Occupation
Save EMA Campaign
Caroline Lucas Green party MP for Brighton Pavilion
Jon Cruddas Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham
Councillor Sam Tarry Chair of Young Labour
Professor Richard Grayson Goldsmiths, University of London, and former Liberal Democrat candidate
Gavin Hayes General secretary, Compass
Joe Cox Campaigns organiser, Compass
Cat Smith Chair of Compass Youth
Lisa Nandy Labour MP for Wigan
Eric Illsley Labour MP for Barnsley Central
Bill Esterson Labour MP for Sefton Central
Katy Clark Labour MP for North Ayrshire and Arran
Cllr Rupert Read Green party
Cllr Willie Sullivan Labour party
Sian Berry Former Green candidate for London mayor
Adam Ramsay No Shock Doctrine for Britain
Zita Holbourne Joint chair, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts
Lee Jasper Joint chair, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts
Richard Murphy Tax Research LLP
Clifford Singer False Economy
Sunny Hundal Editor, Liberal Conspiracy:
Howard Reed Director, Landman Economics
Martin Dore General secretary, Socialist Educational Association
Anthony Barnett Founder, openDemocracy
Dr Alan Finlayson Swansea University
Jonathan Glennie Research fellow, Overseas Development Institute
Dr Jeremy Gilbert UEL
Prof Ruth Lister Loughborough University
Prof Stefano Harney QMUL
Prof Martin Parker Warwick Business School
Prof Malcolm Sawyer University of Leeds
Prof Prem Sikka University of Essex
Prof Peter Case UWE
Prof Gregor Gall University of Hertfordshire
Prof Christine Cooper University of Strathclyde
Svetlana Cicmil UWE
Fabian Frenzel UWE
Dr Steffen Boehm University of Essex
Dr Paul Warde UEA
Dr Lee Marsden UEA
Prof Howard Stevenson University of Lincoln
Prof Michael Fielding Institute of Education
Dr David Toke University of Birmingham
Yiannis Gabriel University of Bath
Prof George Irvin SOAS
Armin Beverungen UWE
Dr David Cunningham University of Westminster
Stevphen Shukaitis University of Essex
Kevin Brehony Royal Holloway
Gabrielle Ivinson Cardiff University
Dr Michael Collins UCL
Pat Devine University of Manchester
Dr Joe Street Northumbria University
Judith Suissa Institute of Education
Jonathan Perraton University of Sheffield
Jo Brewis University of Leicester
Stephen Dunne University of Leicester
Jo Grady University of Leicester
Dr Marie Lall Institute of Education
Anoop Bhogal University of Leicester
Stuart White Jesus College, Oxford
Dr Chris Grocott University of Birmingham
Mark Perryman University of Brighton
Prof David Parker University of Leeds
Prof Ken Spours Institute of Education
Chris Edwards UEA
Nicola Pratt University of Warwick
Dr David Harvie University of Leicester
Dr Priyamvada Gopal University of Cambridge
Michael Edwards UCL
Dr Ben Little Middlesex University
Hugh Willmott Cardiff Business School
Dr Gareth Stockey University of Nottingham
Prof William Outhwaite University of Newcastle
Matthew McGregor Student officer, Sheffield University 2001-02
Prof Simon Lilley University of Leicester
Katherine Corbett Middlesex University SU arts and education chair
Dr A Kemp-Welch UEA
Graham Lane Former chair of LGA education committee
Prof Robert Hampson
Prof Sally Tomlinson
David Ritter
Laurie Penny
Anne Coddington
Rebecca Hickman
Martin Yarnit
Byron Taylor
Nick Dearden
Victor Anderson
Rosemary Bechler
Dan Taubman
* Indicates that this person signed the short version of the letter that appears in today’s Guardian only
LibDem party members – stop *** whingeing! you're delivering your promises
Nick Clegg has in fact been very principled, but it pains his activists to say so.
He has had a Coalition agreement indorsed by his own Party to the Conservative Party.
The Liberal Democrat party, on behalf of the voters who voted for them, have agreed on this position regarding the cuts, and this was made clear months’ ago. Other bloggers don’t seem to understand to understand this concept. The Liberal Democrat activists, if they wish to do anything at this late stage, have to work out how they reached this agreement on such an emotive issue, and decide that this may be the cost of being so unprincipled in their thirst of power in the first place. There’s absolutely no point the Liberal Democrats saying they were unable to implement their manifesto; stop whingeing, as you could have asked for a General election, which is a huge improvement on the mess we’re currently in.
If the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote.
The Coalition Agreement : Our Programme for Government
Link here
@wesstreeting classic tweet
wesstreeting Wes Streeting
Time for the BBC to give up on the pretence of responsible journalism
Today, I loved reading the Times on my iPad. Indeed, parts of the British media are world-class, and worthy of our reputation abroad. The Times and Financial Times are probably my most favourite media publications of all.
Unfortunately, in the run-up to the General Election, the BBC were without shadow of a doubt gunning for Gordon Brown – to lose. Many of my friends were appalled about the highly personal comments made towards him in both style and manner, and this includes so-called respectable people in respectable institutions (for example, Nick Clegg’s conduct in the Lower House in Prime Minister’s Questions). For the BBC and people like Adam Boulton, ‘Bigotgate’ was possibly a gift.
Some have said that senior presenters of the BBC, Laura Kuenssberg and Nick Robinson, put the most unbelievable gloss on the Tory Party, that a large number of my 2400 friends on Facebook were talking about not renewing their TV licence as class action protest. Maybe, taken as a whole, the BBC does not suffer from lack of impartiality, and indeed some of the output of the BBC is first-rate (for example, the Today programme). Some items on BBC online news would be more fitting for a tabloid on a bad day.
Right-wingers tend to claim the BBC has enormous left-wing bias, therefore providing evidence that it produces balanced coverage. My parents, who have lived in this country since 1961, used to have enormous respect for the BBC, and indeed the brand of the BBC used to be superb internationally, but now that they have zero respect for it. Whilst there used to be goodwill for ‘Beeb’, the illusion has nearly become shattered to an irreparable state. Now that its standards have declined so much, it is vital that an external entity should look at the functioning of the BBC as a professional media operation. The BBC investigates complaints internally mainly, leaving little recourse for complaints, because OFCOM’s terms-of-reference are so narrow.
The journalists are supposed to obey the Editorial guidelines of the BBC which are widely publicized, but within a single day it is ‘dead easy’ to find examples of problems in accuracy, balance and impartiality. However, one has to wonder whether journalists should declare a ‘conflict of interest’ in the same way that directors of companies in England have to declare a financial interest under the Companies Act (2006)? Does it matter that a highly influential person within the BBC News machine, Nick Robinson, was a prominent Tory at University? His argument will be that his professional manner can be divorced from his political views, in that a doctor with severe depression can be a psychiatrist, but might it be worth the while of the BBC to publish once-and-for-all some statistics on the volume of complaints for a definable and measurable period, such as the 2010 General Election? Throughout the election campaign, the coverage towards David Cameron and Nick Clegg was much more lenient than towards Gordon Brown.
The BBC has for some time been producing inaccurate coverage of news stories, some of which are clearly not in the overall public interest but constitute a ‘witch-hunt’ at best. The BBC regularly contravenes rules of responsible journalism as explained in Reynolds v Times Newspaper case from the House of Lords. The recent debacle has been that Question Time has been accused of demonstrating left-wing bias, when David Dimbleby was virtually shouting down answers given by Hillary Benn. Even when it comes to defamation, it is not a problem as they have a well-funded legal team, paid for by millions of tax-payers. Protecting the identity of ‘Stig’ in the public interest did not come particularly cheap, ‘reliable sources claim’.
Apparently, a Conservative source said:
Now, more than ever, is the time for the BBC to be careful and frame the debate responsibly so that the facts are properly heard. The spending review is a serious topic for all of us, it needs to be treated as such.’
Surely 150 days is a bit early for right-wing political paranoia to start setting in?
Today, we have a main news item concerning Wikileaks suggesting that all we see in the media may not be what is happening in real life.
How transparent is the BBC machinery? Sure, they can publish the salaries of Directors who are earning £500,000 a year, or more, but is this what is really ‘getting the goat’ of ordinary licence payers? Was it correct that the BBC refused to play the DEC humanitarian appeal? The Glasgow Media Group repeatedly has shown the BBC is more right wing in coverage; a genuine public interest point is that, with the BBC attacking pensions of BBC workers and now to make 16% cuts, we can expect even more right wing bias.
Take specifically what happened last Wednesday. An individual has written to me the following:
“My part of my union (Revenue & Customs, PCS) had a small demonstration outside our HQ @ 100 Parliament Street (opposite the HOP). I was offered a spot on the Radio 5 Question Time being held on the Green after the cuts were made. There was some confusion and I was advised that the BBC didn’t want any trade union representatives on air!!! However, a few of us hung around whilst the political heavyweights were being interviewed. No one from any UK news outlet paid us (or any other protesters) any notice at all.
However, my colleague was filmed by Al Jazeera – who seemed more interested in what the protesters were saying than the politicians. She also did a longish interview for a Danish TV station and an interview for the Portuguese press. I was intervied by Helsinki Sanomat in some depth. The European press were interested in the lack of action by the TUC. I was asked if I would rather be French. The day before we were followed by Japanese TV for a documentary there and today we were interviewed in London by the French TV.”
On the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is mooted that BBC still broadcasts much more pro-war views, even when 76% think troops should be returned. The most sinister development in their editorial policy is that they appear parrot ‘we have got to cut the deficit’ views without even providing the evidence from the Nobel Laureate, Paul Krugman, and David Blanchflower CBE, that the cuts will be a disaster. The BBC then creates editorial imbalance by not presenting half of the argument, thus making the entire argument grossly inaccurate. It is then easy for the BBC’s Director General Mark Thompson to satisfy the Conservative PR machine to present the coalition’s cuts in a favourable light, and for George Osborne to claim that Labour has no alternative.
The spin that has been propagated on this is truly mortifying. No mention is made by the BBC that the Conservatives supported the Labour borrowing plan between 2001-2007, the UK had the lowest debt of G20 countries on entering the recession, the recession was truly worldwide (as they might be forced to admit when we go into a double-dip), and that the reason Labour does not wish to specific which would it cut first is (a) because Labour with the Fawcett Society think the budget contravenes the Equality Act (b) Labour does not agree with the macroeconomic policy in the first place. Labour has made it perfectly clear in the public record for a long time that it does not support the rate or depth of cuts. It is especially nauseating that the Coalition does not command any authority on narrowing the ‘tax gap’.
The BBC could do a lot for public confidence in its reputation by reporting on tax avoidance by millionaires, or reporting on the alternative funding of the public sector services, rather than what it seems to spend most of its time in: gutter, trashy witch-hunts to grab headlines, so-called “breaking news”.
The real reason that people appear to hate the cuts is actually – shock horror – because real people (not millionaires) hate the cuts. The Coalition will be hard pushed to find a city sympathetic to their cause – maybe Middlesborough was a bad choice, but I look forward to Question Time from the BBC, in my home city of Glasgow next Thursday.
It’s all getting a bit serious isn’t it?
Here’s a video of Adam Boulton ‘losing it’ with Alastair Campbell
and Nick Robinson potentially contravening the Criminal Damage Act (1971)
Your journalism is safe in their hands? I’m saying nothing..
Dr Shibley Rahman is a research physician and research lawyer by training.
Queen’s Scholar, BA (1st.), MA, MB, BChir, PhD, MRCP(UK), LLB(Hons.), FRSA
Director of Law and Medicine Limited
Member of the Fabian Society and Associate of the Institute of Directors
