Instead of coming up with their own ideas, are the Tories so clueless that they are just trying to second-guess the Government?

A rather odd scenario seems to be playing itself out at the moment. As more and more people wonder what the hell exactly would the Tories do if they were in government now, or what they would have done differently over the last eleven years, the Tories have made various comments trying to deflect criticism.

They’ve said they don’t back nationalisation but instead believed that Northern Rock should be sold to a private buyer. When it became clear that a) That’s exactly what the government had wanted to do and b) No one wanted to buy Northern Rock, they simply attacked the government for nationalising the bank and hoped that no one would notice their own vacuous policy.

Then, months afterwards the problem rears again, and this time they say that banks should be put into a Bank of England-led administration. The problem with this is that it means guaranteed job losses and the loss of savers deposits over £50k. No one thought it was a good enough idea to pay attention to so they had to come up with something else, as more people were backing the governments approach of nationalisation where necessary to try protect the bank, jobs and money and criticism of them was mounting.

Now, David Cameron is saying that it may be necessary for the government to take a temporary stake in banks, essentially part-nationalise the lot of them, for the stability of the system. It’s a complete volte-face since the events over Northern Rock where they blindly attacked the government over the ‘N’ word, gleefully hoping people would associate this government with the Labour governments of the 1970s and not notice their own position (or lack thereof).

He denied this was a U-turn instead stressing the need for political parties to work together, which isn’t really a proper answer but then what do you expect from such a vacuous man as David Cameron?

A list of errors from Cameron’s speech.

1. ‘(In Afghanistan, while troop numbers have doubled) the number of helicopters has stayed the same’

FALSE. MoD estimates that helicopter numbers have risen by about 60%.

2. Royal Bank of Scotland paid £4 billion in tax. And now it will pay none.

FALSE. RBS paid £2 billion in tax.

3. ‘David Miliband said that “unless government is on your side you end up on your own.” “On your own” - without the government. I thought it was one of the most arrogant things I’ve heard a politician say’

FALSE. Cameron couldn’t have possibly ‘heard’ Miliband say this, because Miliband didn’t say it. At this stage in his speech he departed from his script and said ‘If government is not on your side then it’s a world of sink or swim.’

4.  He quoted the President of the Spelling Society saying that people should be able to spell however they want and used it as an example of education standards being ‘dumbed down’ under Labour.

FALSE. John Well’s, the man in question, explains in his blog (For 2nd October) that Cameron took his quote out of context and he was actually referring specifically to words like ‘thru’ instead of ‘through’ and ‘lite’ instead of light. He was speaking about changing the rules of spelling rather than ignoring them.

5. Claimed a constituent’s wife died of MRSA and read out a ‘bureaucratic’ and ‘formal’ response from Health Minister, Alan Johnson listing ways to complain, using it to claim she died without dignity.

FALSE. Alan Johnson sent a two-page, handwritten reply to David Cameron saying how sorry he was before listing the options the consitituent could take if he wished to complain. Alan Johnson’s office confirmed that the woman did not die of MRSA, nor was it a contributory factor in her death (She sadly died of breast cancer). In fact the constituents letter specifically said the death certificate ruled out MRSA being involved in the death. Furthermore she was moved to a private room after contracting the disease.

6. Claimed teachers can’t put a plaster on a child’s knee without calling a first aid officer.

FALSE. Simply not true. Unless Philip Collins is lying. Andrew Sparrow from the Guardian also felt it was a bit too overboard to be true and Cameron was playing a dangerous game making comments like that.

The Tories plans for the economy - a list.

Martin Kettle has written a slightly pandering piece on the Tories and their plans for the economy.

He lists the things they’re planning on doing, many of which he admits they’ve already announced (funny how much they criticise Gordon Brown for re-announcing things when they so obviously do it themselves, far more often), but offers no critique of them.

So in the spirit of fairness I’ll take a shot myself:

Tory votes falls 50% in Farnley and Wortley (Leeds) by-election

The Tories have hit the magic 50% this week nationally, but in Leeds they’ve hit it for all the wrong reasons.

In the Farnley and Wortley by-election last night their vote halved, falling from the 800s to the 400s.

The Green vote also halved although they held on and took the seat. Labour’s vote did fall but marginally compared to the other two parties. The major gains were made by the Lib Dems, possibly because of their conference being in the news and people not wanting to vote Labour but also not wanting to vote Tory or Green.

Always nice to see places still doing anything to avoid voting Tory though, even if it means voting Lib Dem!

The Tories are clueless on the economy.

You can always tell when Labour have done something right, because generally you don’t hear anything from the Tories. Scrolling through PoliticsHome I found a comment from Chris Grayling on the HBOS takeover, why he was speaking and not George Osbourne I don’t know - perhaps because Osbourne and Cameron are totally clueless.

Whats funny, apart from the grudging acceptance, is that they are still harping on about the US tax cuts, which have allegedly ‘energised’ the economy.

How many banks have the US government had to nationalise again? Is it 3 of the top 5? Or is it two with another one allowed to collapse? I’m losing track to be honest with you. Are house prices still plummeting in the US? Thought so. How’s the US dollar doing? Oh dear. Unemployment…ah.

The only speck of hope for the US economy has been that last quarter it had something like 0.8% growth over the quarter. Why the Tories think that people are so stupid they won’t actually know what’s going on in America in one of the biggest economic crises arguably since World War 2, I don’t know.

The other reason the Tories are missing the mark so much on the economy is that Labour already gave a big tax rebate, £2.7 billion worth. We’ve just received our first £60 rebate this month, with another £10 a month to come for the next six months. Obviously any effects on the economy have yet to be felt, but you’d expect it would only slightly help consumer spending.

In the weeks leading up to the tax rebate, the Tories had been calling for one like the US. Then when we announced one, they turned round and said it was careless borrowing. More than a few people noted this turnaround and have subsequently ignored nearly everything they’ve had to say about the economy, preferring someone who knows his arse from his elbow like Vince Cable of the Lib Dems. Thus when you read reports about the HBOS takeover on BBC news, you mainly see quotes from Alex Salmond of the SNP, and Vince Cable, with nothing from George Osbourne and David Cameron.

We’ve also seen the only action from George Osbourne this week, which is an open letter to Alistair Darling offering ‘cross-party support’ for extending the amount of protection for investors up to £50k, up from the current total of £35k. Osbourne made this suggestion around the time of Northern Rock, the fact that in all the time since thats the best he can do is testament to his uitt

In ordinary times a combination of having your opinions ignored and not respected with you not having anything of note to say on the economy would be political poison. But with the right-wing press so anti-Labour and the Tories so far ahead in the polls, they’re getting away with it.

 

Update: Ha! Vindication from any quarter is welcome. Even someone from the Telegraph has noticed how silent and pathetic the Tories have been while everyone else comes to terms with the biggest banking shocks since the 1920s. I have to admit I was surprised to read that Cameron had been calling on people to ‘defend capitalism’ in case the left wrecks the global economy in reaction to the current crisis. Maybe he has been spending too much time in one of the various ivory towers he has in his multi-million pound property portfolio, but if he hasn’t noticed, the global economy is to many people already wrecked. Idiot.

 

The Tories give a giant tax cut…to themselves

One of the most annoying aspects in the run up to the election that wasn’t, was the cack-handed manner that Labour handled the Tory announcement on Inheritance Tax.

George Osbourne announced that a Tory government would raise the threshold on IHT to £1million, so ‘only millionaires pay inheritance tax’. It proved quite popular and Labour panicked, as they were not-so-secretly planning an election.

So at the pre-budget report, the Chancellor Alistair Darling announced a rise in the threshold of IHT to roughly £700k for married couples and civil partners.

Tory Climate Change deniers

Believe it or not, in this green hued Conservative world they do exist.

Very late on getting round to posting about it but five Conservative MPs voted against the Climate Change Bill when it received it’s second reading a while back.

It’s no more than a minor embarrassment to David Cameron and if anything he probably won’t reminding the country the battle he faces to modernise the Conservative Party.

The five climate change ‘deniers’ are Christopher Chope, MP for Christchurch, Philip Davies, MP for Shipley, Peter Lilley, MP for Hitchin & Harpenden, Andrew Tyrie, MP for Chichester and Ann Widdecombe, MP for Maidstone & The Weald, the most famous of whom is the latter.

Any people in these constituencies who hope to see action taken to mitigate the causes of climate change have cause for worry as to how well they’ll be represented in Parliament though, even if their MPs follow their parliamentary duties and pass on concerns to the relevant ministers, in terms of pushing for environmental action, anyone with an interest in this area would be better off voting elsewhere despite what David Cameron says.

Aren’t the Tories being a wee bit hypocritical over Downing St’s ‘viral’ video?

Oh dear. The ‘right’ have got themselves frothing at their naughty bits over a video from the Downing Street Youtube page that responds to the famous petition to make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister.

The Tories are claiming it’s a waste of taxpayers money and an insult to families who are struggling to pay the bills at the moment.

All of which begs the question - do the Tories even know how easy it is to knock something like that up? It was probably some in-house joke knocked up over a lunch hour, which they decided to put online as a laugh. I’d be stunned if it cost me, a taxpayer, anything at all. Of course, the Tories know this but don’t care because they like presenting the government as out of touch with reality, even though it’s doubtful Gordon Brown had anything to do with it, control freak though he may be.

What’s kinda sad is the way the right-wing bloggers have responded, not that anyone in the mainstream world really cares what they think*, but you’d think they’d be more up on this sort of thing that the mainstream press and political parties who feel obliged to take offence at it. But instead they too claim it is a waste of resources and taxpayers money. Yawn.

I’ll tell you what though, I bet the Tories would never do anything like this, and I bet they wouldn’t go even further and have it feature cartoon violence and genital innuendo. Oh…

The Conservatives are now the party of the angry, arts loving, anti-poverty campaigning progressive Guardian readers

Haven’t you heard? They’re shouting it from the rooftops…of the Guardian newspaper HQ. Tories are lining up to proclaim what they are now the party of, which is funny in so much as it being a tacit acceptance that what they used to be the ‘party of’ has been roundly rejected by the country and as such they are struggling to stand for anything. Except of course they still stand for the same things they always have, they just realised - after three straight election defeats - that they have to pretend otherwise.

They are the party of the arts, the party of the progressives, the party that has reclaimed ‘anger’ from the preserve of the ‘left’ and they are now also the defenders of the poor.

Vote Tory and get a free trip to the magical land of ‘Down South’!

Awesome report from David Cameron’s supposed favourite Think Tank, Policy Exchange, a think tank set up by his current Childrens Secretary Michael Gove and which provides advisers for London Mayor/Buffoon Boris Johnson.

It said that cities like Liverpool, Bradford, Hull and Sunderland had failed as cities, and that we should all accept that these cities can never be regenerated and what we should do instead is pay people to go work down south, with those left behind getting tax cuts to make up for the fact that they live in a worthless shit hole.

Of course the Tories have come out and distanced themselves from it but given the intimacy between the two groups, you have to worry about this sort of thinking infecting any potential Tory government.

What I find most offensive about it though, if anything does offend more than anything else (so much to choose from!) is the idea that these cities automatically ‘need’ regenerating.

People use the term regeneration constantly, giving the image of our cities and homes as rotting dystopias in desperate need of a new block of offices and expensive supermarkets which will magically make the cities a wonderful place to live.

To the people living in these cities, they may not be perfect (the way Boris Johnson told it before he became Mayor, London was a dump. Now he’s Mayor it’s the best place in the world, obviously) but they’re our homes and John Prescott is spot on when he says that people don’t want to move away to get a job, they want a job where they live and have their family.

The odd thing about the report is it’s seeming lack of references to other factors, such as immigration. If we’re going to encourage residents to move to Oxford, London and Cambridge, are we going to send immigrants to the North or make them go to these places too?

What happens to those left behind? We get tax cuts and then what? Rot in half-empty towns and cities?

The irony is many of these areas are now controlled by the Tories. Bradford Council is run by the Tories so I’m sure they appreciate that the think tank set up by the Shadow Childrens Secretary thinks all their work is pointless and they’d be better off hiring some buses to send us yokels down to the big city down south.

Expect to see this plastered all over Labour leaflets for the next two years. It’s been a while but it feels good to see someone else score a spectacular own goal.