LLOYD GEORGE KNEW MY FATHER

Away from matters local to the national picture and Polly Toynbee has a piece in today's Guardian calling for a "Peoples Budget." Hmmm...... I await with interest what tomorrow will bring as I'm going to be in London but leaked news of £15billion in public spending does not augur well for the Keynesian pledges ......let's see what happens and I'll leave it to the experts to do the analysis tomorrow

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/21/peoples-budget-darling-2009
Update: 10.20 The PCS union is already commenting on this....
http://leap-lrc.blogspot.com/

DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE

Am I unrepresentative of the public mood on Jacqui Smith and her expenses claim? It would seem not.........

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/31/jacqui-smith-mps-expenses-media

WE ARE NOT THE STUPID PARTY......

Former New Labour acolyte Polly Toynbee makes many sensible remarks in today's Guardian -but still manages to draw the wrong conclusions. Quite rightly, she argues that voters are punishing Labour because a Labour Government punished the poor.
Labour, she says, is now the "stupid Party". Which shows just how disengaged this Guardianista is from the realities of life outside the media elite. Yes, the Government is almost unbelievably stupid. The Prime Minister more so. It almost beggars belief that in less than 12 months the country has swerved from goodwill and support for Blair's long-awaited replacement to poll showings lower than any in my lifetime. So what are they to do? Do the obvious progressive thing and bridge the widening gap between rich and poor, tax the rich, build more council houses, stop privatisng and outsourcing everything, stand up for civil liberties and internationalism. No, they are heading to the Right and ignoring every bit of sound advice from backbench MPs and activists. The phrase "lions led by donkeys" springs to mind.
Despite Polly's ire, she is also unable to grasp the obvious nettle and veer away from the predictable conclusions of someone who spends their spare time on the Fabian dinner party circuit - with warm words for right-wing hope James Purnell who is yet another New Labour clone and no solution whatsoever to the problems which we face.
To use Tony Benn's old phrase, it is the POLICIES not the PERSONALITIES at fault here. Though God knows I can't imagine enjoying a pint with any of the Brown coterie.
Polly, the Party on the ground is far from stupid. The grassroots know the game is up unless the Government reverts back to Labour - not New Labour - policies. Frankly, they know more than the politicos, wonks, apparatchiks and overpaid journalists who have solidly backed this reactionary Government - and Gordon Brown. Last year, the Party wanted a leadership contest and was denied it by MPs , plus the influential, omniscient likes of Toynbee, Martin Kettle, and COMPASS guru Neal Lawson who all joined forces and held hands in support of a man who is the biggest disaster as Leader we have ever had. In retrospect, how stupid was that.
We are where we are, which is looking into the abyss. But don't blame the Party. Apologies for ranting but I get SO angry reading commentators who haven't got a bloody clue how much the ordinary Labour Party members are sick of being preached at and lumbered with awful policies which will lead us even further into the mire. However much we protest......

TOYNBEE TELLS IT LIKE IT IS......

From today's Guardian - well said Polly!

What a week. Most of this bad news has been the government's own fault. The opposition could only stand and gape in open-mouthed astonishment at such political vacuity and ineptitude.
These are the images that the ghost of the election yet to come would summon up for Ebeneezer Scrooge Brown. Is it too late, Brown might ask the ghost. No, of course not. It's never too late for redemption - or "change" as Brown calls it without changing anything. For despite all this, the Tories are still only a few points ahead, nowhere near where they should be. That's some comfort, but frankly it's hard to believe enough people would turn out to vote for four more years of this. A pusillanimous cabinet bungles its safety-first policies, failing to appease unappeasable enemies while losing most of its friends. But imagine if Labour now reversed all this week's cornucopia of bad decisions. Look into the future - and avoid it.

PENNY DROPS FOR POLLY

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and today Polly Toynbee sticks the boot into Gordon Brown good and proper. This, remember, is the woman who gets paid shedloads to bang on about how great New Labour is . The one who (rightly) told us to hold our noses and elect a labour Government in 2005. It's only a matter of months since she was extolling the virtues of GB week after mind-numbingly boring week .Well, now, the penny has finally dropped. We've been sold a right-wing pup.
Polly's chagrin was echoed this week by Mr Compass Neal Lawson, who seems similarly dismayed that his man has not turned out to be the closet social democrat he thought he was. I didn't see This Week, but I understand Dianne Abbott, another erstwhile flag-waver for Brown ( despite her membership of the Campaign Group) , was being similarly lukewarm.
What was there not to get ? Brown made it quite clear BEFORE he became prime Minister where he stood on the economy, as an "evangelist for globalisation" believer in "flexible" workforces, no time for the "old politics" . In short, New Labour to the very core of his Presbyterian soul. Yet now, like spurned lovers, these apparently expert political pundits stand back in horror and realise they got it wrong. As Toynbee says:
"We now have a centrist government in Europe's most unequal country. Our government stands somewhat to the right of Angela Merkel's coalition in Germany, to the right of economic policy in France, where Nicolas Sarkozy has absorbed social democrats. Fusion politics, like fusion music and food, is one description of this strange death of the centre-left. At least in Europe there are leftwing parties still to make the public arguments: in England, due to our malfunctioning electoral system, a political generation has barely heard the case for social justice. " Too late, Polly, too late.....

POLLY SPART?

Would anyone accuse Polly Toynbee of being a "Dave Spart" demagogue? Probably not. Yet her very interesting piece in today's Guardian would no doubt be picked on by some as way too leftie for their tastes. Well done Polly. Agree with every word.....( she's talking about the Lib Dem policy proposals) I hope Alistair Darling is reading this over his breakfast

"Hammer the rich, shut loopholes for tax exiles and cut the basic rate of income tax for all by 4p sounds good. So does cutting the huge pension tax reliefs for the rich, long overdue, yielding as much as £7.5bn. Dead right to axe the inexplicable relief on capital gains for private equity, which would bring in another £6bn. All these the chancellor of the exchequer should steal wholesale for his next budget: think what he could do with £13.5bn in a very tight spending round. He won't, of course, do anything as brave - people who work private equity are rattling his cage with threats that touching their perks will lead to "meltdown".