Marcus Wood

2008-08-18T11:56:00.004Z

Vacuum at the heart of Government

The Russians invaded Georgia on August 7th.

Since then there has been a flurry of frantic international diplomatic activity to prevent Russia from over running her neighbour completely and to end the fighting while keeping Georgia as a separate sovereign state.

Leading the international charge have been the French, the Germans and the Americans who have all managed to both shore up support for Georgia and still persuade the Russians to accept an international peacekeeping force to enter the region.

From Britain? So far almost nothing except a lame statement from the Foreign Secretary.

Ten days after Georgia was invaded and our Government has still to go there, our even meet the Georgian Ambassador in London.

David Cameron was able to steal a march on the Government by visiting Tblisi over the weekend, he was hardly rushing but he was nonethleless the first major British statesman to visit the country and to pledge support for the Georgians.

Why is this? Does Gordon Brown really support the Russians? Is this a spectacular return to the old Labour days of backing the USSR whatever they do?

No, it is worse than that, far worse. Sources in Whitehall are letting it be known that the real reason HMG have been so inactive and slow to respond is because -wait for it- David Milliband and Gordon Brown are not on speaking terms and cannot agree what 'line to take' over the crisis leaving FO mandarins frustrated and embarrassed.

This is a foretaste of the next twenty months, as the Government implodes with power visibly ebbing away from Gordon Brown each passing day.

The fascinating thing about democracy is how power can transfer even before a vote is cast. Senior civil servants have a duty to the Queen to run the country efficiently and properly and when a Government is in it's dying days you can sense the machinery of Government moving to auto-pilot waiting for a clear direction from a new administration.

Big decisions that civil servants believe a new Government won't want, such as for instance agreeing to a new runway at Heathrow, become frozen and all over the country quangos and departments begin to second guess what a new Government might want to do differently.

This can work well in cases where projects are known to be supported by the new Government. Take the slow machinations of deciding on the Kingskerswell bypass - at regional level the RDA and department of Transport will be well aware of the expressions of support for this road made by David Cameron and at a time when other projects may be mired in doubt we could get a decision quite soon.

2008-08-14T09:51:00.008Z

This made me laugh.

Someone has been very busy creating a very good spoof of my blog and I must admit it has made me laugh (but not too much, mind. Wouldn't want anyone thinking I had a sense of humour or anything).

My wife had a look and said rather wryly 'someones got too much time on their hands'.

Of course this is connected to the previously referred to Westphalia-on-sea blog which has caused such amusement in political circles.

Most of the local political class have decided that the site and it's author(s) are closely connected with the local Lib Dem fraternity and although this is (fairly lamely) denied by them it is clear that even if they aren't responsible directly they must be providing much of the content.

It's good to know that their activity is these days confined to a parallel virtual universe because they sure as hell aren't doing very much in the real world.

2008-08-12T16:58:00.002Z

1991 and all that.

What do Freddie Mercury, The Birmingham Six, Terry Waite and Bob Maxwell have in common? Well it was 1991 that they were the faces in the news; and while they were on our TV screens (Terry Waite and the Birmingham Six were released while Maxwell and Mercury died that year) we were listening to Chesney Hawkes, Bryan Adams and Jason Donovan and watching Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2 and Beauty and the Beast at the cinema; the Gulf war was in full swing and John Major was abolishing the Poll Tax and launching his Citizens Charter.

What is the relevance of remembering the events of seventeen years ago? Why have I dredged up these pointless facts?

Because 1991 is the last time in the UK when inflation stood at 4.4% - but unlike July 2008 in 1991 inflation was falling - fast; you have to go back much further, to the 1980's to find the last time inflation hit 4.4% on it's way up- and this had to be followed with 11% interest rates before the 1991 falls began to happen.

It wasn't enough to head off a massive property slump and economic recession which lasted through until the 'green shoots of recovery' finally arrived in 1994; by which time inflation had all but disappeared.

Today we are in a situation where inflation is rising and hit 4.4% last month when we all know that there is much more pain in the system yet to feed through to the figures; food fuel and water charges are up 20% or more and the headline rate seems destined to breach at least 5% before this run is over.

Gordon Brown has lost control of our economy and claiming that the global credit crunch is to blame won't wash - on the same day as our shocking figures the French announced a slight drop in their inflation rate and trhroughout the rest of the developed world inflation is lower than here; and under control.

There are a generation of business people and decision makers out there who have never had to deal with inflation; never had to cope with their company profits shrinking in real terms even when the figures go up; there are senior civil servants and business leaders who were still in university the last time our economy faced these kinds of stresses. How will they react?

And then there are a whole new generation of puzzled households finding that their living standards are visibly deteriorating even as their earnings rise ; because taxes and prices are rising even faster.

It took nearly 20 hard years to squeeze out the endemic inflation that had plagued the British economy since the 1960's. I honestly believed that policy makers and politicians had learned the mistakes of the past, and having eradicated the desease we could get used to life without it; sadly I hadn't factored in Gordon Brown.

2008-08-07T13:15:00.004Z

Who said this and when?

“I am determined that as a country we never return to the instability, speculation, and negative equity that characterised the housing market in the 1980s and 1990s."

"Volatility is damaging both to the housing market and to the economy as a whole. So stability will be central to our policy to help homeowners. And we must be prepared to take the action necessary to secure it. I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."

"The timing of my measure should help to avoid a return to the conditions of the 1980s where the failure to take early action guaranteed worse problems later on. I believe these measures will help to ensure a more balanced recovery."

"It is essential that consumer spending is underpinned by investment and industrial growth. Britain cannot afford a recurrence of the all too familiar pattern of previous recoveries: accelerating consumer spending and borrowing side by side with skills shortages, capacity constraints, increased imports and rising inflation."

"In similar circumstances some of my predecessors have ignored these signs while others have deluded themselves into believing that growth, however unbalanced, was evidence of their success. I will not ignore the warning signs and I will not repeat past mistakes."

I will give you a clue; it wasn't Ken Clarke, Norman Lamont, John Major, Nigel Lawson, or Geoffrey Howe

2008-08-04T14:16:00.004Z

Why the slump won't stop the Mayor.

There has been some public worrying recently about the likely effects of a serious property recession on the mayoral vision for Torbay.

No doubt the current recession and property crash will damage investment in the short term; businesses like individuals are finding it hard to borrow money for property purchases and the signs are that this situation will get worse in the months ahead. How lucky therefore that so much of the existing development is from large businesses who are more resiliant in a recession; and most of which is nearing completion. Others will not be so lucky and I do expect some high profile victims to surface over the coming months - there are several largeish housing developments completing around town and one wonders how long some of these small property companies can last if no-one is able to buy their expensively completed flats and houses.

Property development is famous for it's slow progress - Docklands redevelopment in London was on the drawing boards for nearly 20 years before a single brick was laid at Canary Wharf. It was long-term political thinking that allowed the time and space for a major redevelopment to occur that is only now reaching maturity - having survived through three major property downturns and the bankruptcy of the original developers.

The whole point about having a mayor in the first place was to give Torbay some long term vision after decades of short-termism had robbed the bay of inward investment. The mayoral vision is not supposed to be about next week, next year or even the next five years but about declaring a destination for Torbay that may come about in a decade or two- in other words long after any current downturn has long gone. And in stating, clearly, where he wants to take Torbay in the future our mayor has given business and their investors the confidence to come forward with ideas and plans of their own - some of which happened quickly like the Balloon and the Beefeater, others which may take longer such as the Carey Arms and Oldway, some which will take much longer such as the development of the Riviera Centre and a few that may never come to fruition at all.

Where a recession may impact more immediately is in the plans by the town hall to release capital by the sale of land assets, at the moment developers are stone cold on buying land to add to their stock and this definitely will impact on the availability of capital receipts to spend on some of the much prized regeneration ideas that have been put about.

In the meantime it is worth sparing a thought for the thousands of mostly self employed craftsmen and tradesmen who have found their work drying up. Lets hope for their sake that this recession is short and shallow.

2008-07-29T12:06:00.002Z

Can Labour really go on like this for another two years?

The weekend saw me in France on a short holiday so I missed the Sunday papers until today when I got home.

The media agenda is dominated by references to the final two years of John Major; when his troubles just mounted and multiplied as the end came of his administration.

I am struck by yet more simularities between Brown and IDS - our party's ill-fated leader during the 2001-2004 darkest hour and the man who was so unceremoniously ousted after little more than two years in the job and replaced with a caretaker leader whose role became avoiding meltdown and stabilising the vote ahead of the looming 2005 general election; a task successfully undertaken by Michael Howard.

The summer lead up to the 2003 Conservative Conference was a vital period of conspiring amongst Tory MP's away from the party Whips in Westminster. Unencumbered by the need to watch who they were seen talking to, MP's freely negotiated the deal from holiday villa's and their gardens over the summer recess all the while briefing journalists that the 2003 conference speech would be IDS' last - as indeed it turned out to be.

The conference itself was surreal; and one I will never forget. I felt I was alone in thinking that changing leader would not make much difference - our poll ratings had actually improved slightly because of IDS' softening tone and focus on caring for the many and not just the few but the party couldn't see past his truly dismal public performances and preferred to retreat to the comfort zone of tough talking on crime and immigration which a change of leader would open the door to.

The entire conference was always going to be about one thing and one thing only, getting rid of IDS as quickly and as peacefully as possible.

I am becoming convinced that Labour will very soon undergo a similar process, not two years after their last leadership coup conference when T Blair was forced into giving a timetable to quit in 2006; I expect the Labour Party conference to be about nothing else - no policies, no plans for the future but instead an orgy of internicine warfare and plotting that could well culminate in him going before Christmas.

This is a change - for ages I have been working on the assumption that because of Labours very Byzantine rules concerning leadership challenges Gordon Brown was unassailable, but the constant drip of stories from MP's and off the record briefings from cabinet ministers - if carried on through the summer silly season- could easily now become too much for Labour MP's to put up with on top of their poll ratings which seem to be going in just one direction.

More importantly it could also become too much for the union bosses who now hold the Labour Party in the palm of their hands and need a reasonable labour movement to survive into the long term, and who also will want to avoid having to cough up the £20m Labour Party overdraft they are reported to be guaranteeing.

2008-07-18T08:53:00.005Z

Well I agree with you, Nick.

£20bn in spending cuts and tax cuts for the lowest paid - a brilliant proposal yesterday from Nick Clegg (or Cameron Lite as he has become rather cruelly known in some circles).
I couldn't agree more, in fact I was standing for election just two years ago on exactly that platform - cut taxes by £20bn through efficiency savings and spend some of the money on raising the income tax threshold to take the lowest paid out of income tax altogether, proposals which Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson David Laws bitterly criticised, describing them as "implausible and undeliverable". He said at the time: "We don't believe these plans are achievable and nor do the majority of the British public."

What a difference 24 months - three leaders and a third off your polling numbers make, eh?

Now the very same people who brought you 4p on your income tax and a 50p top tax rate are new converts to a new world of lower taxes and swingeing £20bn spending cuts - not sure where from, but no doubt their very own financial wizard (er, don't you mean 'magician' - Ed.) Vince Cable will enlighten us eventually.

I think this potential change in strategy is a wise reaction to the London/C&N/Henley results. Clearly the Lib Dems cannot hope to beat the Conservatives in a face off against them and their best bet of maintaining a credible number of MP’s is to look to make gains in the North to compensate for losses in the South.

I do wonder how all those Labour voters who supported the Lib Dems in seats like Torbay will view Nick Cleggs rightwing conversion, but he must have thought that one through and decided he doesn't need them.

2008-07-10T10:49:00.002Z

Car Tax- the controversy grows.

At last the mainstream media have picked up on the tickling time bomb that is the vehicle Excise Duty changes due to filter in during next year.

Nearly half of all drivers will be hit with significant rises in Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), while fewer than one in five will see any benefit from the reforms, according to official data.

The figures directly contradict Gordon Brown's claim in the House of Commons that most drivers will actually gain from the changes.

It’s not the car tax itself but the way in which the bad news has been hidden away until extracted by the media later on.

This is stealth taxing, and while Brown could get away with it in the late ’90s when the economy was booming and general taxes were still relatively low nowadays people can readily see it’s a dishonest way to do business.

If this Government was a consumer company they would be a ‘You and Yours’ and ‘Watchdog’ repeat offender.

2008-06-27T08:35:00.007Z

Living in the Past

In 1993 there was a by-election in the very safe Conservative seat of Newbury following the sudden death of the MP Judith Chaplain.

Newbury had been a safe Tory seat held at every election since 1924. At the general election only the previous year Judith Chaplain had polled 37,000 against the Lib Dems 24,000.

The shock result that night was that the Lib Dem candidate David Rendel won in spectacular style; the Tory vote collapsed to 15,000 and Rendel got in with 37,500 votes - a massive swing of over 28%

The Newbury by election marked the beginning of the end of the Major Government and just as relevant started a domino of by election losses by the Tories in formerly safe seats to the Liberal Democrats, a process that continued right through to the mid 2000's.

Latterly the Lib Dems have found the going much tougher in by elections, indeed the last one or two victories they have had were against Labour in the North. This year their progress has been almost exclusively backwards. In Crewe and Nantwich they came a very poor third but their people at the time were saying 'we didn't think we would do well here anyway, we are targeting Henley...'

Indeed the Lib dem publicity machine has been in overdrive for weeks claiming variously that Henley was "Bromley Mk 2" (Bromley was a by election in 2006 where the Lib Dems came uncomfortably close to winning) and "another Newbury" - indeed as recently as last week our own Lib Dem MP was enlightening his blog readers that Henley would indeed be a repeat of Newbury.

Well it was not to be. Having had a very bad poll published yesterday (Lib dems down to 15% again) the actual result was a bitter blow to the hard working activists who had been led to believe all the hype; the Lib Dem vote went down; and there was a significant swing away from the Lib Dems and to the Conservatives; in an election that saw the Labour vote collapse completely (the came fifth behind BNP and the Greens).

So where does that leave the fabled Lib Dem by election machine? Not 'winning here' anymore thats for sure.

Why did they target a safe Conservative seat when the Conservatives are riding high in the polls? Why go for Conservative votes just at the time when Conservatives are on the up? Why did they target Henley instead of Labour held Crewe and Nantwich?

I have no idea, but as a strategy it makes about as much sense as the Charge of the Light Brigade.

I couldn't put it better than the following contributor to Politicalbetting.com:

'I think it’s pretty clear the Lib Dems have become fixated by their past successes, and believe that all they have to do is repeat the familiar formula to reproduce them. Worse, it appears that some of their activists think that all they have to do is talk about the formula for the ‘magic’ to happen.

There seems to be no understanding that the situation has changed. As Stuart Dickson notes at the top of the thread, the public now want change, and the Lib Dems are not going to be the agent for it - certainly not in their present form anyway.

The voters aren’t interested in kicking the Tories any more, or looking for a ‘Labour-lite’ party, nor are they jaundiced enough about politics in general to want to vote for a ‘b*gger all of them’ party (UKIP’s decline also reflects this).

The Lib Dems rose with Labour and will fall with them too unless they do something to radically differentiate themselves.'

2008-06-23T07:48:00.005Z

Principled stand or ego trip?
Many people have asked me why my colleague and friend David Davis is apparently throwing away his political career as Shadow Home Secretary over the issue of 42 day detention. His battle is not about that, it is about the much wider erosion of our basic civil liberties that has been sneaking up on us for years.
We are already living in a surveillance society: 600 public bodies (including Torbay Council) have authority to bug your phones and intercept your emails and post - they can also carry out surveillance operations and do so- 1000 a month at the last count.

Officials in Poole spied for weeks on a family taking their children to school to check that they lived inside the catchment area, for instance. The State is treating everyone as a suspect, changing the fundimental principle that they are there to serve us into something much more sinister.If you buy something, or withdraw or deposit more than about £5000 in cash your bank or the seller of the goods has to report you to the aurthorities for 'suspicious behaviour.' As solicitors and accountants know all too well the law has changed to oblige them to spy on their clients as never before, if they fail to report you, they can be prosecuted.our child may already have had his or her DNA sampled and held on the largest database in the world, without your permission or knowledge.Thousands of teenagers having been given an 'informal caution' for which they have had no right of a hearing are now finding they have a police record; in fact millions of people are now routinely 'CRB' checked without realising that you can have a record without ever having been convicted of anything - disclosures show not just convictions, but cautions, reprimands and warnings - even completely unfounded suspicions can be recorded and later reported without your having any right of redress. The Government are planning a national ID card system that will be the most intrusive in the world; and which will allow the authorities to gather even more information about you, again without your knowledge and beyond your control. And to cap it all, our government has granted itself powers to lock it's citizens up for six weeks without even knowing why, let alone being charged with anything. As David Davis himself says "None of this has made us any safer. Violent crime has doubled in 10 years, and the Government continually briefs blood-curdling assessments of the terrorist threat. It is a myth to believe that we can defend our security by sacrificing our fundamental freedoms."

Even as I am writing this I am realising just how far the road of 1984 we have gone under this paranoid Government. I thought I lived in a country where the state institutions exist to serve me and not the other way round. I thought I lived in a country where I would be considered innocent until proven guilty; David Davis' stand has made me realise I don't, which is why I will be strongly supporting him at the by election and I urge all of you to do the same.

2008-06-19T09:42:00.002Z

Railways - a throwback.

I have spent fifteen hours in the last two days on an ill-fated business trip to Manchester.

In my work I have to travel a fair bit, in fact I drive about 20,000 miles annually on business - mostly conducting interviews for clients as part of my work as a head-hunter for industry.

Every so often I try and use the trains instead, partly because I keep getting bouts of green conscience and partly because people keep telling me I am 'mad' to drive all the time and that the train is less stressful.

And every time I do I am left with the same feelings of puzzlement. How could anyone think that a trip on Britains railways isn't more stressful than driving - or flying, even? Train times, platforms and routes were changed at will, with no warning and often no annoucements. My return train was delayed, then cancelled without apology or alternative being offered so my trip stretched from 5 hours (already an hour longer than driving) to seven and a half hours.

The entire infrastructure is ancient and out of date. The best any Government has managed to do at a cost of billions is slap paint over a few stations and smarten up the trains - it's like putting lipstick on a pig.

This trip yet again refreshed my long held view that the railways are an outmoded, inefficient, inflexible and pointless form of public transport.

We happily dumped the canals when a cheaper and more efficient form of transport arrived, so why did we maintain the railways when they were in turn superceded by the automobile and the plane?

Why do we insist on maintaining thousands and thousands of miles of ancient, crumbling Victorian infrastructure - the platforms and the rails dictate that in the 21st century we are still using heavy, steel wheeled train sets that are inefficient, expensive to run and terribly inflexible?

Most of the train sets operating today were built in the 1970's - just think how far the car has evolved since then; how much more efficient and economical thay are. Our trains are Austin Allegro's in a Toyota Prius age.

Steel wheels and ancient track signalling means massive gaps between trains for safety so while a motoroway is utilised all the time a rail line spends most of it's life empty, all that precious land wasted for 90% of the time.

Wouldn't it have made sense years ago to rip up the tracks and points, and instead lay tarmac roadways along the routes, and put large bendy-bus style road coaches on there that can overtake each other, turn round, stop quickly and where you could introduce real competition and flexibility?

Yes, we need public transport, perhaps more than ever before. But unless we are prepared to allow the public transport system to evolve properly we are doomed. Instead of letting the train take the strain we will continue to drive and let the earth take the strain instead.

And that would be much worse in the long run.

(The last time I suggested this -at a dinner- the audience went berserk with indignation. I am only partly serious but would love to hear a spirited defence of the train network from someone out there.)

2008-06-15T19:27:00.003Z

Record numbers for Forsyth

After the success of the Norman Tebbit dinner last year I decided to ask his Lordship who he might recommend as a future speaker, and he suggested his friend the novelist Frederick Forsyth.

Now Freddie is famously outspoken on everything from the Royal Family to Europe and I just couldn't wait to ask him along, luckily for us he readily agreed to help on the basis that any friend of Normans was OK by him, I think.

We sold out of the original tickets but very fortunately the Grand have 'stretchable' banqueting suites and nothing else on this Thursday so we have been able to enlarge the room and fit everyone in; so it will be the biggest dinner in Torbay since William Hague came here as leader and hopefully raise lots of money for my growing election fund.

I have a bottle of House of Commons whisky, personally signed by Lady Thatcher only last month, to auction off at the end of the evening along with several signed limited edition copies of Freddies latest book.

I am looking forward to a highly controversial evening, Freddie was also a leading supporter of David Davis' leadership bid and I am busting to find out what he has to say about his unexpected 'stand and fight' decision over civil liberties.

If you haven't already got a ticket you can go on the waiting list by calling the office on 01803 557753 - we have a table of ten (paid for) who have warned us they may have to cancel.

2008-06-13T09:34:00.004Z

Blimey, they say a week is a long time in politics but this week seems like an age.

In a blur of politics it looks likely that by this weekend we will have a new law on it's way that says innocent British citizens can be locked up without charge, without even knowing why, for six weeks.

The Northern Irish will gain several hundred millions of taxpayers money for supporting the above.

Meanwhile the Southern Irish will have had the referendum that we were denied over the EU constitution, sorry, I mean treaty (and probably said 'No' to it).

We may well be all queing for our petrol for the first time since the 1970's

House sales are down by a third since last year.

Another three businesses within walking distance of my house in Torquay have closed.

Oh yes, and the shadow home secretary has resigned his seat to fight an election on the erosion of our civil liberties.

I knew David Davis quite well 'before he was famous' and know him to be an exceptionally principled guy with talent; I didn't support him for the leadership because I preferred David Camerons style and politics.

I think David Davis is doing a rare and valuable service to the country in proving that politicians will take a stand on matters of principle. I agree with him, support him and would like to see him back in the Commons and on the front bench as soon as possible.

2008-06-10T15:59:00.003Z

What could they possibly have in common?

It's really, really hard to think what these two men may have in common with one another.

One of them is an ex Guards officer and traditional Conservative MP, a devout Catholic who is in the history books for being one for the three shortest-serving Tory leaders ever. In fact he is the shortest serving Conservative opposition leader. His poll ratings got so bad that his political colleagues felt obliged to sack him after an unprecedented two years and two months in the job.

The other is the son of Scottish Presbyterian preacher who was first a left-wing student activist, then lifelong Labour MP, deputy to John Smith, architect of the New Labour project, Britains longest serving Chancellor of the Exchequer and now Prime Minister.

Their common link? I'll let the Times explain:

"Gordon Brown’s leadership standing has now fallen below that of Iain Duncan Smith during his short-lived and unhappy period as the Conservative Party leader, according to the latest Populus poll in The Times today.

The poll underlines the seriousness of Mr Brown’s position as he faces a knife-edge vote in the House of Commons tomorrow evening on extending pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects from 28 to 42 days."

According to Peter Riddell "Moreover, Mr Brown no longer enjoys the benefit of the doubt among voters. His leadership rating (on a 0 to 10 scale of very bad to very good) has fallen for the fifth time running, down from a peak of 5.49 last July to 3.9 now. This is lower than any of the other seven leaders of the main parties since the index was introduced five years ago. The previous low of 4.00 was for Mr Duncan Smith in 2003."

"Labour’s rating has fallen by four points since last month to 25 per cent, with the Conservatives up five points to 45 per cent. This is one of Labour’s worst poll ratings and the best Tory one since 1997. The Liberal Democrats are up one point at 20 per cent."

So perhaps in due course they may share another characteristic, as well as being the most unpopular leaders of their respective parties they may also both end up being the shortest-serving.

2008-06-03T09:41:00.003Z

The Economy - Just how bad could things get?

I have become very worried about the state of the UK economy. For all the talk about recession and falling house prices for much of the last fifteen years or so the British economy has been doing well and it seems that a generation of business people have grown up in a world devoid of inflation and awash with cash.

When I was starting out in business in the early 1980's the most difficult thing to find was any money at all.

In 1981 most people could only qualify for a mortgage of a maximum two and a half times earnings, you had to save with your chosen building society for at least two years to be considered for a mortgage at all, and if approved you then had to join a queue and wait for your money to become available, sometimes this could be for several months. Taking out a second mortgage to fund a business was a non-starter in those days.

A business looking for start up funding would be lucky to find a few hundred pounds from a bank or institution, the majority of what you needed you were expected to have saved up yourself or borrowed from friends and family; and unless your business was profitable pretty much from the off you could forget further funding.

I once asked my bank manager to help me grow my loss-making wholesale business bigger so that I could become profitable through economies of scale. He said: "Mr Wood, small businesses losing small amounts of money tend to grow into large businesses losing large amounts of money; we prefer to support small businesses making small profits in the hope that they at least might pay us back one day".

The point is money was limited and investors and banks had only so much to lend or invest, and as such had to be very picky about who they lent it to. That is an economic fact that many people seem to have thought no longer applied in the modern world - aided and abetted by a Chancellor who was boasting that he had banished boom and bust from the economic climate forever.

Sadly, the frustrating yet sage advice of my bank manager in those days is all too absent from modern business; where decisions are made not by local managers with personal knowledge of your business but by computer 'scoring' designed by wizz-kids a million miles away from the front line.

In recent years there has been way too much money in circulation, years of boom (sorry, but that is what it is) mean that banks and building societies have had to take aver larger deposits from companies and individuals and then find people to lend it to (banks have to pay you interest on money you deposit immediately, leaving it sitting there is very expensive) with the result that in the business world all you have had to do is say "please" and desperate banks and investment funds have fallen over themsleves to stick cash in your business, profitable or not.

But the economic climate has radically changed. One recent startup I have been assisting was promised funding of several millions and when we all went to sign up the contract a couple of weeks ago the fund involved had withdrawn their offer - because they didn't have the money any more!

Major corporations like Somerfield and Boots have been bought on borrowed money; instead of being financed by non-repayable shares they are finded entirely on loans that may well not be renewed causing exactly the same crisis as Northern Rock suffered.

Why does this matter? Because there is the potential for hundreds of these businesses to close down, and close down very quickly. There are untold thousands -possibly millions- of people in Britain today whose jobs are dependent on companies that are deeply in debt and whose bankers may no longer have the will or the cash to keep them going.

That could bring a rapid rise in unemployment, which could feed the growing recession causing more job losses and in turn bringing more businesses into trouble and feeding the deepening recession further.

If you abolish bust then what you are left with is a boom - in my view what we have had is an unseasonally long boom that has gone on from 1995 to 2007 and I fear that what we might be faced with is a very big bust as a result.

2008-05-30T09:23:00.006Z

I took all five of these photographs on a short walk from my house in Torquay to the Station the other day.

What struck me is the sheer scale of investment going on at the moment. Whatever your views about the various schemes there is no doubt that some long overdue money is at last being invested in both the private and the public infrastructure of the Bay.

And right across the Bay - the fish quay in Brixham, the business park, the Casino, the new Travelodge, the Carey Arms development and round the seafront there is a feeling -long overdue- that Torbay is not 'in decline' but moving forwards with confidence.

When I first came here the general consensus amongst the political class was that we were in a long-term period of what council officers term 'managed decline' as the market for UK holidays slowed and the traditional family customers dried up.

This defeatest attitude was bad for residents and appalling for the local economy. Even if it's true that seaside bucket-and-spade holidays have gone out of fashion the idea that somehow the record millions of visitors pouring into Devon every year couldn't be attracted to choose Torbay as their resting place was clearly absurd.

And the long term indicators are that in fact UK holidaying is in for a resurgence. A combination of global climate change, fashion, security health and environmental concerns will mean a massive boost for staying in the UK come holiday time.

Torbay has it's best years to come, provided we are willing to make happen the improvements to the facilities locally and regionally to keep us up to date.

2008-05-23T10:43:00.002Z

Getting personal doesn't work.

Labour strategy in the Crewe by election was clearly based on discrediting the Conservative Candidate Edward Timpson. It failed badly and and once again the whole question of personal attacks and negative campaigning is the story as much as the scale of Conservative victory.

Firstly I think there is a clear distinction between negative campaigning and personal attacks; when instead of pointing out the bad points of an opponents policy you are trying to damage your actual opponent by attacking them for who they are or where they are from.

Negative campaigns are common amongst oppositions -it is almost inevetable that some elections become a judgement on the Government of the day and in those cases as an opponent you have little choice but to make the basis of your campaign "Look, the other side have done this wrong or not done something they promised, and therefore you shouldn't vote for them again..." I make no apology for running a negative campaign against the Lib Dems here in Torbay at the last election - pointing up the catastrophic mistakes they had made in running Torbay was ligitimate and relevant to indicating what a Lib dem Government could be like should we ever have one.

In fact the best negative campaign I have ever been involved with was the full page ad we took out in the Herald Express just before polling day in 2007, the advert banner said 'The Lib dems have run this town for 14 of the last 17 years and this is what we have got to show for it: ' and then the whole page was blank.

However there is a fine line between legitimate attacks against another party or it's leaders for what they do; which is OK, and criticising them for who they are, which is wrong. Criticising Mr Timpson for being the son of successful businessman is unfair, criticising him for having had a good education is wrong.

My opponent at the last election got very exercised with us for criticising his party's position on drugs, Europe, law and order - accusing me of being 'negative' in his speech at the count; yet throughout the campaign his people had gone out of their way to always call me 'the man from Windsor' even though by then I had been living in Torbay for two years. It was a blunt attempt to portray me as an unworthy outsider; and like Crewe and Nantwich it failed to impress the voters; Lib dems votes fell to their lowest ever in the current constituency.

At the next election we are going to have to expect more of the same. David Cameron is prepared for a very personal and unpleasant campaign and I have been warned by several people from the 'other' side to expect more of the same here.

But it didn't work last night and it won't work at the next election, whenever it comes.

2008-05-19T17:44:00.007Z

What has happened to the LibDem by election machine?

For as long as I have been active in politics the only game in town at by elections were the Lib Dems. For years and years some of our safest seats fell to them : Eastbourne, Ribble Valley, Newbury, Christchurch, Eastleigh, Littleborough, Saddleworth, Romsey; these by election defeats map out the decline of the Tory party from the heights of Thatcher to the lows of IDS; the Liberals creamed us as our more, (ahem) unpopular policies were exploited ruthlessly.

In the Blair era they made equally spectacular gains from Labour: Brent East and Leicester South, and most recently, Dunfermline; successfully switching from being the 'anyone but the Tories' choice to 'anyone but Labour'.

When they didn't actually win, you could be forgiven for thinking they had; given the fuss they made. In Bromley, for instance, they came a close second to us and claimed it as a massive 'victory'.

But lately they seem to have lost their way, Southall and Sedgefield were unremarkable results for the yellow team after coming nowhere in the London mayoral contest. And the word from Crewe and Nantwich is that they are going to be beaten into a very poor third there.

I am told by a well-placed Lib Dem source that the reason that they aren't doing well in Crewe is because activists are concentrating on the upcoming by election in Henley-On-Thames caused by the election of their MP Boris Johnson to mayor of London.

Lib Dem strategists are briefing journalists that they believe that Henley has the potential to be 'Bromley MK 11' and there is much excitement about the possibility of... coming second.

Faced with the most unpopular Government since John Major at the nadir of his fortunes the Lib dems are targeting... Henley on Thames? - the ex seat of Michael Hestletine, the Blue Blazer capital of Europe, the home of the Royal Regatta?

I used to live in Henley On Thames, in the days when people crossed the road to avoid you if you wore a Blue Rosette Henley remained the one place where you could be sure of a warm welcome as a Conservative; the one place where you could share your Thatcher memories without shame.

Why would anyone choose to deploy resources to a rock-safe Conservative seat, at a time when the Conservatives are riding high in the polls, in preference to giving Labour a good hiding in a seat they are expecting to lose?

If this strategy is real it suggests either that delusional Lib Dems are living like faded Hollywood stars, unaware that the political world has changed; or that their activists -in spite of constant assurances about 'equidistance'- are only really motivated to come out when its Tory-bashing time.

I'll take the latter explanation.

2008-05-16T08:42:00.004Z

MP's will have to disclose their expenses after all.

The Speaker, Michael Martin, has lost his high court battle to stop the exposure of the details of second-home expenses claimed by 14 prominent MPs. The Commons authorities had challenged the Information Tribunal's demand that a detailed breakdown of MPs' additional costs allowances had to be provided under the Freedom of Information Act.

The allowances cover the expenditure incurred when an MP is away from home on parliamentary duties, including the cost of running second homes and general household bills. A total of 14 MPs and former MPs, including former prime minister Tony Blair and his successor, Gordon Brown, Tory leader David Cameron and the former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, will now have to disclose a detailed breakdown of what they claimed. MPs can claim up to £23,000 a year on expenses for costs associated with running a second home; a sum that is also paid tax-free.
This is the most contentious of the various allowances that MP's can claim because it includes mortgage interest on a second home. MP's have to 'claim' a sum each month up to the maximum; they can't just get the cash, so their is a whole list of other claimable costs such as plasma screen TV's and so on that gave rise to the much publicised 'John Lewis List' earlier in the year.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, for instance, has spend £7,000 of taxpayers money renovating a home in his Sheffield constituency - decorating costs, carpets and so on were paid for through his ACA.

I should point out that Mr Clegg is not breaking any rules and is only doing what hundreds of other MP's do. He at least has pre-empted this ruling by voluntarily publishing his expenses last week. But the thing is that when the property that Mr Clegg has so nicely renovated is sold, the profits will remain his.

In my view calling this an 'allowance' is a chirade; it's part of MP's pay and they should be honest enough to admit it; the trouble is if they were to add enough to their salaries to replace this allowance they would need a headline salary of £100,000 - and they don't think the public will wear that much.

As I say in business to candidates all the time, if you can't justify the salary you are asking for; you are asking for too much.

2008-05-15T11:55:00.002Z

Relaunch # 4 in serious trouble already.

Gordon has spent the last few days in another 'relaunch' of his premiership, first with a £2.7bn tax 'borrow-and-giveway' ploy then with yesterdays string of new policy announcements (can you remember any of them? No, neither can I) and today he has been touring the newsrooms trying to repair his decimated public image; and judging by the reactions in the press, he has completely failed.

Brown just cannot help making pledges and promises to ‘fix’ things that, in all honestly, aren’t his problem.

House prices are a good case in point. Having for years promised to ‘do something’ about the level of house prices Brwon as adopted responsibility for an issue that is not in his control. Consequently when house prices became too expensive he took blame for it and now that they are due to nosedive he will get the blame for that, too.

As private homebuilders (over whom Brown has no control) mothball new building sites he will get even more blame for miserably failing to meet ‘his’ 3m new homes target.

I have pointed out before saying you had brought an end to boom and bust in a free economy is about as realistic as saying you have ended summer and winter.

From as soon as he said it a ticking clock to his own doom was started; it’s not a question of if there is a bust it is only a question of when, and the longer the boom, the bigger the bust that must follow.

Banks have been lending recklessly as they always do as a boom reaches maturity and they go chasing market share with their swollen reserves; this time it has been in housing; in 1929 it was in share speculators, in the 1980’s it was South America - whatever the case the outcome is always the same; bad debts and a credit squeeze.

Its banks who cause recessions, not Governments. Governments may make them worse (or mitigate them if they can) but its the desisions made by millions of consumers, thousands of investors or hundreds of bank managers that makes our economy grow or shrink not what Gordon decides.

If he still doesn’t understand that at his age he really isn’t fit to be PM.

2008-05-12T09:08:00.010Z

Browns Troubles continue.

Another weekend of torrid headlines for the Prime Minister as ex ministers and others close to him spill the beans on his temper, his moods, his inability to make decisions and various other supposed chracter flaws that all add to the feeling that he is the wrong guy to be running our country.

This is all getting very like 1995 all over again ....

I don't remember a time since then when there has been such an unstoppable deluge of bad news for a Prime Minister with more and more of it sourced from his own side. In 1995 John Major was forced to issue his own MP's with a 'put up or shut up' challenge and although he was re-elected overwhelmingly that summer the damage was done to his authority and from then on the Tories were a one-way bet for the 1997 election.

Like many commentators I now don't believe there is a viable way out for Gordon Brown - I think he, too, is a one -way bet to lose office; and in his case it could be even worse because he suffers from three distinct disadvantages that Mr Major didn't have in 1995:

1) In 1995 the economy was rapidly coming out of recession, house prices had just started rising and inflation was falling. Today inflaton is rising and we are just entering a likely recession.
2) John Major had been elected as leader of the Conservatives and subsequently elected as Prime Minister in 1992. Gordon Brown has only ever been elected by the good people of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
3) In spite of his troubles John Major was generally liked as a man and trusted by the public; he had come from realtive obscurity to the leadership and had no 'history' of unpopular decisions. Gordon Brown on the other hand has eleven years of history as Chancellor and is neither liked or trusted by the vast majority of people in this country.

... or pehaps even a bit like 1979....

Of course the Labour Government could even fall apart completely before the next election is due in 2010.

The Blairites will get much more aggressive if they think there might be a challenge to the leadership before the election while the young turks will manouvre for advantage after it has been lost. Those marginal seat backbench MP's need to appeal 'across the spectrum' - following a Blairite agenda while the safe seat lot only worry far more about keeping the core vote happy; calling for taxes on the rich and more 'socialism' in their policies.

And now we have the Scottish question coming up, and another bloc of Labour MP's in safe Scottish seats suddenly find the uncomfortable possibility of full devolution (and a P45) hoving into view. The last time Labour fell from office in 1979 Scottish Devolution was the issue; the Government lost a vote on it and then lost the subsequent vote of confidence motion.

It could be the 10p rate, Scottish Devolution, or something else, but this Government has all the ingredients in place for a sudden and terminal collapse.

2008-05-07T07:41:00.003Z

Referendums? - everywhere exept where we want one.

I learned yesterday that Wendy Alexander, Labour leader in Scotland has decided to back calls for a referendum on Scottish Independence. This cynical exercise is a desperate attempt to stave off further losses north of the border to the SNP who have been making life very uncomfortable for the Labour Party there. Labour desperately need their Scottish heartlands to stick with them at the next General Election to stay in the game at all; having lost the overall vote in England to the Tories at the 2005 Election; and the Welsh vote in this years local elections.

Now we learn that influential Labour members are calling on Gordon Brown to launch a referendum to scrap the pound and join the Euro (no surprise that that issue would arise as soon as the UK economy started to look shaky; the last recession was the only time this idea was seriously considered, too.)

Yet we have been denied a voice on what is far and away the most important matter of all of these, the EU constitution.

It seems unbelievable that on the one hand the Labour party readily accepts the need to hold referenda over Scottish independence and the pound/Euro question, but not about whether our basic constituitional rights are controlled from London or Brussels.

If the cabinet and Gordon Brown knew and agree with Ms Alexanders decision their position over the EU referendum looks impossibly inconsistant.

If Labour 'trust' the people over Scottish Independence, then why not over the EU constitution? Could it be that polls suggest that 66% of Scots would vote to STAY in the United Kingdom while suggesting that 70% would REJECT the EU constitution?

Is the lesson here that we can only have a referendum if we give Labour answer they want?

2008-05-04T18:08:00.003Z

.... And the turnout was over 45%, a postwar London election record.

Who says the Mayoral system is bad for local democracy?

The adoption of the directly elected mayoral model for local government has been a running sore with cthe Lib Dems ever since ex party member David Scott started his campaign to have one way back in 2004. A consistent claim by MP Adrian Sanders has been that the mayoral system itself is bad for local democracy and unpopular with the public.

The evidence in London fully supports my alternative view that having a directly elected mayor is the best way to regenerate local politics and re-engage the public in this vital tier of Government. I don't remember any local election with this level of interest; in fact I can't remember any political contest outside of a General Election that has garnered such fascination and detailed analysis from the media and in turn from the public. For several weeks now the London Mayoralty has come second only to Gordon Browns woes in the column inches and media time which is measured daily on Politics Home.com

There have been half a dozen televised debates, passionate arguments about congestion charges, bendy buses and community support officers; as well as a constant analysis of the problems and potential solutions to Londoners complaints and frustrations which would have been unimaginable had these elections been for the old GLC.

Londoners have been given clear, alternative options fronted by clear, alternative personalities to vote for refreshingly free of the kind of petty-minded, "yes he did; no he didn't" squabbling that epitimises most local election contests. And as a direct result the turnout was significantly higher than at any London local elections for decades.

From the democratic standpoint, the Boris has had his policies thoroughly analysed and publicisied so there will be no wriggle room for backtracking later. This is terribly important because one of the alarming side effects of low interest/low turnout local elections has always been that ruling administrations usually win with very few of their electorate having a clue what it is they actually promised to do, making it impossible to hold them accountable for failure.

It is true that the mayor has control of the main levers of power and yes, the Mayor doesn’t have to engage in the kind of committee compromise and smoke-filled room bargaining that went on under the old system - but surely that is one of the main benefits? Clear, accountable and above all open leadership is infinitely preferable to unaccountable fudge and compromise behind closed doors.

By endlessly complaining that the mayoral system is no good, by determining to abolish it and return Torbay to the cosy cartel that existed pre 2005 (when anonymous and unaccountable councillors felt free to increase their pay by 65% while slashing services and piling on taxes with impunity) the Liberal Democrats are playing with fire. They have put themselves in the same impossible situation that we Tories did in Scotland; having rubbished Scottish devolution for so long the Tories completely lacked credibility there - and when devolved elections eventually happened, they were virtually obliterated.

In short the evidence shows that the public engage more with a mayoral election, they understand more clearly what a Mayoral candidate wants to do with the power he is asking for, and once elected voters can judge him on his performance more easily.

And at the end of his or her term, if they are not happy, they can chuck him out and elect someone else.I think that is surely good for democracy and good for local Government.

2008-04-29T12:57:00.003Z

What will the story be this Thursday?

In the 2007 local elections my party beat all predictions to the number of gains we would make, breaking records and sealing our gains in 2006.

Local elections are a crucial real-world test of public opinion and at a time when polls have been showing a sharp jump inTory support and a falling back of interest in the other two parties it is very useful to be able to back up the pollsters with actual voting results.

Since the mid 1990's Labour have lost nearly half their local councillors, from a high of over 10,000 to around 5,500 today.

Needless to say speculation is running high that thursday will be a bloodbath for Labour, with talk of vote shares in the low '20s and results matching their worst ever in 1968 but my view is that things might not be that bloody for Labour on the night.

Partly this is because in many of the places we are in with a shout of winning we have hardly any serious campaigning power; in some northern city suberbs we have barely a skeleton network of grass roots activists, and local Government is not inspiring a new generation of activists either, they will work for 'Dave' at the next GE but leafletting over council bin collections is not what they want to do these days.

Then there is the fact that I think the Liberal Democrats have at last recognised that their best chance of survival lies not in continually tying up resources attemptiong to unseat Tory councillors in the South but in picking low hanging fruit in the North - and accordingly I do expect them to have something to celebrate on Friday morning (although as my previous post alludes to, not in the London Mayoral contest where I think they are in for a drubbing).

How well will we actually do? I hope three figure gains - 100 would be enough for me; but not as well as the papers want. I am expecting 'Tories disappointed' headlines on Friday and over the weekend presaging a let-up of the negative pressure on Brwon for the time being.

Fun to speculate, not long to wait.

2008-04-29T08:26:00.009Z

Who is this man?

Answers on a postcard: