Yet more bad press today as it is revealed that the 'most senior whitehall official', Sir Gus o'Donnel, the cabinet secretary, had to have words with Brown regarding his bullying of his staff. Whether or not its true we may never know, unless one of them comes out to confirm it. But this is merely the latest in an enormous string of stories (throwing things at people, calling peoples 'cunts', shoving people etc) suggesting that Brown isn't fit for office.
These stories don't always get the front pages of the newspapers (though the first one mentioned above can be found on a few front pages today), and they often seem to do little to harm his reputation. Certainly, the polls always seem unaffected by the revelations (though of course, one always has to be careful when looking at polls - just this weekend we have two different polls, one suggesting a Tory voteshare of just a 6 point lead, the other giving them a ten point lead - the difference between a Hung parliament and a healthy majority).
That said, one thing is for sure is that the regularity of Tory margins in the double digits has come down in recent months. Its not that their votes are going down - they arent - but rather that Labours are going up. The economy really isn't doing too well - a tiny bit of growth at below-inflation levels during a time when the government pumped hundreds of billions into the economy means the chances of a double dip are far from unlikely, especially with terrible budget deficits for January (unheard of). Also, JSA claiments are going up (whilst officially unemployment figures are going down - this usually means more people are working less hours, as you can claim JSA if you work less than 17 hours a week, but then are technically not unemployed. it means no more work is being done, and no more money is being pumped into the economy (in fact, the JSA stats suggest the opposite) yet unemployment figures improve).
So it can't be the economy. Given about four people watched the Piers Morgan interview, it can't be that either - plus its too short term. They've cut funding for universities, so its unlikely to be students.
Where are these extra voters coming from? Or is it just a fluke of the polls? Comments with suggestions actively welcomed!
The same place election-winning votes always come from- middle england. It's just a brown vs. cameron race. Cameron could be seen as just another model of Blair and Brown is the boring but serious and reliable guy. It's ironic that at the time the tories decide to run a personality race, the public seem to be tired of personalities in politics.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you say about the economy, the labour tactic seems to have paid off (admittedly we can't see the long term) and many economists publicly support labour's economic policies.
Regarding the Brown bullying- sure if all is true then something should be done. But look closer, at what papers don't report (you'll have to check the economist or an opinion piece to find out), the woman in charge of the charity at the center of the allegations seems to have a very murky past involving money changing hands in dodgy circumstances. There is no actual evidence for this other than Rawnsley's book. These books, based purely on hearsay are usually quite liberal with the facts- the decade old story about the "power deal" was entirely wrong except for the fact that there was a power deal. Wrong date, wrong place, wrong details. These books are given unwarranted respect because they file under 'politics' in the book store when in reality they're a simple compilation of tabloid-grade rumours and speculation.
The charity really isn't at the center of the scandal - she (and I admit she is a total fraud) came out *after* the allegations to confirm them. And there is further evidence - there have been 3 big expose books now, of which Rawnsley's is only the latest. All of them demostrate the bizarre culture of bullying that takes place in Downing Street. They could all be lying, of course, so it's not proof, but this can't just be put down to the ramblings of one pissed off ex-employee.
ReplyDelete(The other two recent notable books by ex-staff are Inside Out by Peter Watt (ex-General Sectretary of the Labour party) and ... uh, I can't remember the other one now, but it's there.)
And I really don't see how you can say Brown's handling of the economy (and remember, he was chancellor for a decade before all this) has been vindicated. We came out later and slower than everyone else. We have a mountain of debt (much of which isn't in the official figures - and that's not a wild claim, I mean really, public sector pensions don't count as national debt because they are up to the individual departments, but since we pay for them too, it's our problem. There is no pension pot, yet we have literally millions of people on the government pay roll, who continue to get a pretty handsom pension when they retire which is no way nearly covered by their pensions contributions. This is literally in the hundreds of billions of not trillions, and none of it is counting in the Office of National Statistics nor Treasury stats for our national debt). Not only that, but one of the reasons why we're in the trouble with debt is that we went INTO the catastrophe with so much debt. I'm certainly not saying that the crisis is Browns fault (though we were poised to be harmed by it far more than other nations due to our significant role in international finance, something which Brown did everything he could to increase), but he did a lot of things whilst chancellor that made our recovery a lot harder, and he's doing things now that are making it much harder. Why is he raising national insurance payments from businesses, when it just makes it more expensive to employ people? Why is he increasing corporation tax and import taxes?
Basically, why is he putting the tax burden on businesses, when they are the *only* thing that can actually get us out of the recession and back into growth, as opposed to the government just printing money and giving it out (which is, even at best, a very short term solution that doesn't help the long term goals of the economy).
Also, the Tory education policy is fantastic, as is Ian Duncan Smith's proposals for a radical shake up of the benefits system. If you haven't yet, take a look at them - I think you'll be pretty surprised by it.
I don't think you can compare Britain's recession performance to other countries. It's the central hub of the world economy. Look at the US' performance- 10% unemployment and rising.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to education policy, it's not hard to beat labour's performance the past 13 years. They've shat all over education and higher education. Far and away the worst labour policies are in education.