The Progressive

Under the Tories Britain could become a marginal player in the EU

In an interview with LBC radio in 2006 David Cameron described the UK Independence party as "fruitcakes", "loonies" and "closet racists". Eric Pickles, the then deputy chairman of the Conservative party, backed Mr Cameron at the time, saying he had a "legitimate point" and UKIP had had "too easy a deal". Yet when compared to some of the Tories new allies in the European Parliament, UKIP looks positively mainstream and normal.

Mr Cameron and his shadow Foreign Secretary (William Hague) have decided to partner themselves with some rather awful characters on Europe's far right. How, one might legitimately ask, would the Mr Cameron of 2006 have described the 'For Fatherland and Freedom' party in Latvia that has participated in an annual event commemorating the Latvian Waffen SS, the Lettish legion. How might the 2006 Cameron have defended any alliance with Mr Kaminski, a member of the far-right Polish Law and Justice Party, who was and is openly opposed to the apology by his countrymen in 2001 for the massacre of hundreds of Jews in Jedwabne in July 1941. So according to the Tories of 2009 UKIP are still a bunch of "fruitcakes" but those that argue that global warming is a lie, that homosexuality is a "pathology" and that Europe is becoming a "neo-totalitarian" regime are respected partners who will help them shape the Europe of the twenty-first century. Is this really what compassionate Conservatism is all about? As David Miliband has recently pointed out, the Conservatives refuse to disown people that in Britain they would almost certainly not want to be associated with.

David Cameron's avowed aim since being elected Tory leader has been to take his party back to the centre in every policy area with one major exception: Europe. In his four years as Conservative leader, Cameron has never attended a summit of national leaders of the old EPP, the biggest grouping in the parliament, which routinely brought together around half the heads of government in the EU - including Merkel and Sarkozy. Cameron claims that in establishing a new alliance in Europe he is defending UK sovereignty. In practice he is jeopardising any British influence on matters of international importance like climate change and financial regulation. Under the Tories Britain could well become a marginal player in the EU where irrelevance as a major player will almost certainly lead to irrelevance elsewhere in the world - particularly with the US, India and China.
 
I am confused David and William: just exactly who are the “fruitcakes", "loonies" and "closet racists" now?

The Tories see the welfare bill as a piggy bank to be raided for tax cuts or deficit reduction

David Cameron has kicked off the Tory conference with a call to Get Britain Working. He’ll be happy with today’s headlines, which give the sense that the Conservatives have determination and fresh ideas to tackle unemployment. But welfare policy is notoriously complex and opaque, so it can be hard to work out what’s actually different from Labour’s plans – and if any of it is any good.

The first thing that stands out is the irony of Cameron’s claim that the Conservatives are the party of jobs. They oppose Labour’s fiscal stimulus that is funding £5bn of extra back to work support for the higher numbers unemployed now and which is also maintaining demand in the economy during the downturn to contain job losses. So this is jam tomorrow when people need help today – while the Tories repeat their mistakes from previous recessions.

Looking at the substance, there is a heck of a lot that the government is already doing. Labour is implementing the Gregg Review that set out plans for almost everyone on benefits to be on a journey back towards work. As part of this there is already an ambitious plan to reassess everyone claiming Incapacity Benefit over the next three years. Are the Tories saying they could do this at a quicker rate than 10,000 a week?

Similarly, the so-called AME-DEL (or ‘invest to save’) funding model is being trialed from next year at a rate that David Freud himself said was “happening quite fast” and was “going to take five to six years”. I’d be interested to know why David now thinks this could all be done quicker, especially when the financial markets are now much less favourable to the kind of long term financing that providers will need to make this work than when he wrote his report for government.

Less than a year out from the election, the Tories are keen to suggest that their plans are fully funded. The £600m upfront costs they say is needed apparently comes from assuming that half a million current IB claimants will fail the medical assessment and go onto the (lower rate) Jobseekers Allowance. Maybe, maybe not. The worry is that this process could be driven by the need to make savings, rather than giving people the support and challenge that is appropriate for them.

They also claim that earlier back to work support, from six months unemployed, will be funded through the ‘AME-DEL’ model. But the reason this works for the long term unemployed is that, without support, they are likely to remain out of work for a long period and so impose a financial cost on the state in benefits paid out and taxes not paid in (around £8,000 a year).

But this simply doesn’t hold when you consider that 60% of people who have been unemployed for six months get a job during the following six months (even in a recession) with relatively low cost support from Jobcentre Plus. So either outcome payments for providers would have to be significantly lower (potentially to the point of being unsustainable) or the state would have to pay over the odds. 

The truth is that helping people back to work costs money – for instance a single employment programme for everyone out of work is a natural extension of the government’s plans – but the Tories can’t find the cash that’s needed because they are putting debt reduction ahead of every other objective. It also requires positive action to ensure the chance of work is real. That’s the principle behind Labour’s pledge to guarantee a job or training to every young person at risk of long-term unemployment.

It’s also why the government is doubling the budget of Access to Work, which pays for workplace adjustments that enable disabled people to take jobs. And it’s the driving force behind the minimum wage and the Working Tax Credit, which tops up the wages of the low paid. Cameron doesn’t seem to have anything to saying about any of this.

The Tories have picked the right issue to focus on at their conference, but their spending straightjacket means they can’t come up with a positive solution. Labour should welcome the Conservative’s endorsement of its policy but articulate the clear difference in philosophy. Where the Tories see the welfare bill as a piggy bank to be raided for tax cuts or deficit reduction, Labour sees the welfare state as a valued institution that transforms lives and embodies our mutual obligations and interdependence.

In the run up to the election, Labour should set out radical next steps for welfare reform. At the centre of this should be extending the job guarantee to all ages, to prevent long term unemployment, and fundamental reform of the tax credits and benefits system to increase trust and transparency for those moving into work and to reduce the high rates of marginal tax faced by the lowest paid.

Graeme Cooke is head of the Open Left project

Same old Tories

It is currently the Conservative party conference, the last before the general election. Cameron and his allies are continuing to report that both he and his party have changed. He is now embarrassed about his Bullingdon years just as the party is now accepting embarrassment over previous opposition to legislation like the removal of section 28 by holding it’s own pride rally.

However what concerns me is what are the crop of prospective MPs are like? Are they future looking? Modern? Compassionate? Are they willing to accept that writing children off at eleven years of age with the eleven plus is cruel and wrong? According to a publication being handed out at conference, this is not the case. The conference edition of the Thatcherite Conservative Way Forward magazine carries an article by Andrea Leadsom, Prospective Conservative MP for South Northamptonshire. The article can be found on pages 20 and 21 here.

In the article Leadsom states, “It is also now believed that you can predict two thirds of future chronic criminals by behaviour seen at the age of two.” The headline above the article reads, “You can predict two thirds of future chronic criminals by behaviour seen at the age of two.” I don’t want to get hung up on whether Cameron has changed or not? Is he the real deal? A party is more than one person, it is it’s grassroots members, it is it’s supporters, it’s Councillors, it’s MPs and for direction it’s candidates. Writing children off at two years of age as potential criminals seems incredibly illiberal and sinister to me. It sounds more like Tory paternalism; preaching those from less fortunate backgrounds are the problems of tomorrow. I believe this is one small example of how the Tory party has not changed.

According to Conservativehome’s recent survery, 99% of party members expect David Cameron to be Prime Minister after the next general election, one of the most popular Tory politicians is Liam Fox, they want William Hague back as leader, they want public service cuts, they want George Osbourne to tell the public as little as possible regarding his plans, only 16% of say ratification of Lisbon should be accepted and 68% of want a fundamental change in Britain's relationship with the EU. Sounds like same old Tories to me.

I think Mandelson was right. This is not change, this is concealment and it is up to us to expose this.

James Alexander is Labour PPC for York Outer

Cameron's 'new' policy on jobs has a whiff of the 1980s about it

David Cameron now claims that the Tories are the party of jobs and opportunity. For anybody who remembers the record of the Thatcher/Major governments, this is either a fine example of bare faced cheek or the worst kind of political amnesia. Dave argues that the government has failed to tackle the rise in incapacity benefit claims when it was his predecessors who, as a matter of deliberate policy, shunted the unemployed onto IB to get the jobless total down. And he now seems to believe that the best way to get people back to work is to cut their benefits. This is all of a piece with the Tory view that the poor are lazy, feckless and immoral. For Dave a stiffening of the moral backbone is the best route to sustainable employment.
 
No doubt this line of thinking plays well with conservative newspapers, but it is inconsistent with the evidence and potentially damaging. The welfare systems with the best outcomes - getting people back to work and keeping them there - are those that invest most in the development of individual capabilities and offer high benefits. The Danish system in particular is configured along these lines - high benefits, high levels of spending on back to work programmes like the New Deal in the UK and tight benefit conditions.
 
Once again we have a Tory policy more designed to appeal to the prejudices of the affluent than to address the problems of the workless. Some of the ideas have been stolen from current government policy (the medical assessments for all IB recipients, the involvement of private and third sector providers) and others look merely coercive (the benefit cuts). Most of the government's employment initiatives have proved effective, largely because they have been subjected to rigorous evaluation and revision. David Cameron's 'new' policy has a whiff of the 1980s about it. Retro may work in the fashion world, but it is a poor guide for public policy.

David Coats is a member of Hackney South and Shoreditch CLP

How not to handle a reshuffle

There has been much speculation on the blogs about the motives behind David Cameron’s decision yesterday to anoint William Hague his deputy; thereby slighting his old chum George Osborne. Was it as Ben Brogan muses a prelude to bringing back Ken Clarke? A sop to Hague ahead of a crack down on front bench outside interests? Or payback for Osborne’s former indiscretion over his yachting holiday last summer?

The return of many of Labour’s big beasts to the government in recent months is no doubt one reason for the Tory leader’s decision to shake up his shadow team. But while Gordon Brown’s handling of his front-bench manoeuvres has proved remarkably deft – including his masterstroke of bringing Peter Mandelson back over from the EU last October – the speculation surrounding Cameron’s own shadow cabinet reshuffle appears in danger of getting out of hand.

As Tim Montgomerie reports on ConservativeHome yesterday speculation surrounding the reshuffle is  “undermining the morale of some frontbenchers who already feel excluded from the small circle around David Cameron”. And while the Tory leader can probably count on his old ally the shadow chancellor to bite his lip in spite of his apparent demotion, the same cannot be said of the rest of the front bench team, whose affection for Cameron is unlikely to have been strengthened by reports of his concerns over their lack of media nous. Perhaps most damagingly of all, by allowing rumours about the return of Clarke to run away Cameron risks setting a firecracker under the Tory right that could reopen the festering wound of the party’s relations with Europe.

So while Labour gets on with the job of government and fixing the economy, the Tories end up squabbling amongst themselves. More grist to the mill of Labour’s characterisation of the Conservatives as the ‘do nothing’ party ….

Something old and blue... and completely wrong

It would appear that I am not alone in opposing David Cameron's plans to give tax breaks to married couples. I think it is particularly deceitful and wrong that he is proposing this as a family-friendly policy.

I believe in the institution of marriage. I think it plays an important and relevant role in many people's lives, and that it is the clearest expression of a couple's love for and commitment to each other. I have no difficulty with politicians promoting marriage as a good thing, and I think it is wrong to dismiss the fact that many people believe in marriage as an important precursor to having children, and also believe that it is the best environment in which to raise a family. That is a personal choice that people should be able to make, and it is one that I believe is right for me.

But I am the first to acknowledge that there are many, many families who do not conform to this orthodoxy and that they too provide loving, caring and stable homes for children. Single parents, unmarried couples, same-sex partners and all sorts of other types of family units exist and are entitled to help and support too. But David Cameron wants to discriminate against them by an ill thought-out policy that is reminiscent of John Major's 'Back to Basics' campaign.

I think Dr Katherine Rake of the Fawcett Society sums it up best when she says of Cameron's policy:

"If your aim is to help parents provide a stable, loving home for children, policy needs to be aimed at supporting parents - not simply people who are married. Otherwise it penalises all those children living with unmarried parents or with one parent - and 90% of lone parents are women.

"This tax break would give better treatment to a man [or woman - my addition] who has had an affair, left their partner and remarried... It would privilege a childless couple who have been married a week over an unmarried couple of 20 years standing with three kids, and would be an unfair and counterproductive tax break."

Further to this the tax break would only apply if one partner does not work or earns less than the tax-free allowance all earners receive of around £5,200 a year. This partner could then transfer any unused tax allowance to their working partner. So the scheme would therefore encourage married couples to specialise caring and earning roles, rather than sharing them equally. So whilst the Labour government extends paid maternity and paternity leave, and develops schemes to help single parents return to work (not to mention Surestart), the Tories want women to stay at home and mind the weans while the men go out and earn a crust. Oh, and if they are married, sure the women will get a few extra quid towards the housekeeping.

Conway affair shows that Cameron is weak, weak, weak!

Derek Conway is surely guilty of behaviour that is incompatible with being an MP. Despite this David Cameron took just a few hours to decide what to do with Mr Conway - nothing.

Weak, weak, weak.

A future Tory government would take us forward to the past

The survey of Tory candidates carried out by Conservative Home makes very interesting reading however the questions asked are probably more interesting than the answers. For example not a single question on housing, education or health - apparently the public is more interested in whether Tory candidates support the right of Catholics or other religious adoption charities to decline to place children with same sex couples. Candidates are asked about Iran but not about Iraq, about nuclear power but not about renewables.

What have we discovered? Mainly that Tory candidates are largely Eurosceptic, pretty much pro-nuclear and believe that England does not get a fair deal in terms of the distribution of the nation's finances. So all in all, nothing new.