Category Archives: George Osborne

Make it pay to go green

Posted on November 30, 2009 | 1 Comment

A survey for BBC Wales reveals that nine in ten (93%) Welsh people believe that the world’s climate is changing and three in four (72%) think that the lead to combat climate change should come from the Government, even if it means using the law to change people’s behaviour.

Of course, using the law to change behaviour can mean carrot as well as stick.  One respondent to the BBC set out his suggestions:

“The Council could do more with your poll tax: if you recycle 50% of your waste, you get 20% discount on your poll tax. Something like that would motivate everyone.”

He is, of course, absolutely right.  Last week, George Osborne unveiled Conservative plans to encourage people to recycle more by actually paying them to do so:

In a speech just over a year ago, I mentioned a company called Recyclebank, which had successfully increased recycling rates by up to 200% in 500 cities and communities across America.

They had achieved this by paying the public to recycle – without the need for any extra government spending.

The reason they could do this is that in America, just as in the UK, local councils have to pay landfill tax for every tonne of waste they fail to recycle.

And what companies like RecycleBank do is say to councils and city administrations: if we reduce your landfill tax bill by pushing up recycling rates, then how about we split the savings?

Recyclebank then use this money to pay households up to £20 a month for their recycling.

And the more they recycle, the more they get paid.

Windsor and Maidenhead council have already trialled a similar scheme and have found that recycling rates have increased by as much as 30 per cent.

As George said, carrots usually work better than sticks.  It is a pity, therefore, that the Welsh Assembly Government has decided to penalise people for using new supermarket carrier bags rather than encouraging them to reuse old ones. 

Companies such as Tesco already offer “green” loyalty points to customers who provide their own carrier bags.  If WAG had a bit more imagination, it could surely come up with a scheme that encourages customers to reuse bags and rewards them for doing so, rather than resorting to the old socialist model of hammering them financially.

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Posted in environment, George Osborne, Welsh Assembly Government

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Tory truth or Labour la-la

Posted on October 8, 2009 | 3 Comments

The Telegraph this morning carries an intelligent article by Benedict Brogan on the issue of political honesty.  I strongly urge you to read it.

This week has been notable for a string of straight-talking speeches by a succession of shadow cabinet members, with George Osborne’s the most notable of all.  If there were any lingering doubts abroad before the week started that the Tories were going to take tough choices that would affect each and every one of us, they must surely have been dispelled by now.

Anyone who cares about the integrity of our political process, whether or not intending to vote Conservative, would, I hope, approve of this.  The present economic outlook is so appallingly bleak that whoever wins in May next year will have to make the toughest taxing and spending decisions for a generation.

There is no doubt that the Conservative approach of levelling with the electorate is not without its risks.  Nobody likes to be told that the next few years will be less comfortable than what we have grown used to.  That is probably why Labour, at its conference last week, funked the issue; and why Gordon Brown, even after abandoning his “Tory cuts v Labour investment” mantra, still felt constrained to reel off a string of uncosted spending pledges that he must surely know can never be fulfilled.

Nevertheless, Cameron and Osborne are undoubtedly right to tell the British people that it’s going to be tougher going for the next few years. 

And, in truth, they are saying nothing that that the British people don’t know already; but they are paying them the respect of treating them as adults.

The interesting, and crucial, question is whether, next May, the electorate will decide it prefers Tory straightforwardness to Labour la-la.  I think it’s grown-up enough to opt for honesty.

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Posted in Conservative Party, David Cameron, general election, George Osborne, Gordon Brown, Labour Party

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Brown: still stuck in the old politics

Posted on September 13, 2009 | 6 Comments

Gordon-BrownIn a particularly intelligent article in today’s Telegraph, Frank Field declares that the forthcoming general election will be wholly different from all other post-war elections, in that the parties will be judged on their proposals to cut the public deficit, and not on how they plan to “bribe voters with their own money”.

Pointing out that the recession has destroyed five per cent of our national wealth, Field observes that, even when the economy is growing again, there will be a monstrous gap of £80 billion between revenue and expenditure by 2013. 

So the rules of the game have changed, says Field:

Here is the basis of the next decade’s politics. Whoever wins the election will have to plan to hand over an increasing share of our national wealth, first to meet interest payments, and then to repay the debt itself. These transfer payments will cut our country’s living standards.

Hence the importance of spelling out the nature of those public expenditure cuts. The sooner they start, the lower the long-term interest rates, and the smaller the amount of our future income that will have to be impounded for debt repayment.

Field’s analysis is correct; furthermore, evidence of growing public support for expenditure cuts appears in today’s Times, which carries details of a YouGov poll’s findings that, by a majority of almost three to one, voters support cuts in public spending, rather than increased taxation, as the preferred means to address the deficit.

Alistair Darling, too, understands  that the rules have changed; in his speech in Cardiff this week, the Chancellor confirmed that his pre-Budget report will contain measures to reduce the deficit and went on to say:

Public spending is not a goal in itself.  What matters is the results, what you get with your money – and how they help people meet their aspirations and ease their concerns.

The first priority has to be to look for areas where we can achieve greater efficiency. Some seem in a hurry to cut services. We are focussing on cutting costs.

So what the electorate will wish to know in the approach to the next election will be: how do the two principal parties propose to cut the deficit and restore budgetary rectitude?  David Cameron and George Osborne know that;  Alistair Darling has shown that he now gets it, too.

Sadly, however, Gordon Brown still doesn’t get it; in his speech to the TUC on Tuesday, the Prime Minister is likely to repeat the familiar fiction that yet further “investment” – his favoured euphemism for borrowing – is the only way to ride out the recession.

In doing so, the Prime Minister will demonstrate beyond doubt that he is still in the old business of seeking to bribe voters with money the country hasn’t got.  But voters, if the YouGov poll is anything to go by, have decisively rejected that approach. 

They, also, understand the new politics; Gordon Brown doesn’t.

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Posted in Alistair Darling, David Cameron, economy, Frank Field, general election, George Osborne, Gordon Brown

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Strategic rethink

Posted on July 23, 2009 | 1 Comment

Norwich North has seen neither hide nor hair of Gordon Brown; indeed, the Labour by-election material makes no reference to him at all, which tends to indicate the extent to which he is considered an electoral asset by his own party.

The Prime Minister was, however, in Cardiff today, holding a cabinet meeting.  Afterwards, the press were apparently briefed that Labour intends to base its “fightback” on “highlighting the Conservatives’ lack of policy”.

In one sense, this is a welcome development, in that it would appear to confirm the abandonment of Labour’s failed strategy of “Tory cuts v. Labour investment”, to which the response of most focus groups seems to have been: “Yes, sure; pull the other one.”

On the other hand, it appears also to overlook the fact that, this week alone, David Cameron, George Osborne and William Hague all made major policy speeches.  So perhaps the strategy needs a little finessing. 

By the way, a little journalistic bird tells me that the announcement of the new strategy was made not by Gordon Brown, but by Peter Mandelson. 

No mistaking who’s in charge, then.

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Posted in David Cameron, George Osborne, Gordon Brown, Labour Party, Peter Mandelson, William Hague

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Labour’s fool’s gold

Posted on June 15, 2009 | 2 Comments

Gordon Brown’s nonsensical argument in yesterday’s Mirror has been comprehensively answered and demolished by George Osborne, writing in today’s Times.

Osborne acknowledges that a Conservative government will indeed make cuts, as will a Labour government, too, should the British electorate feel inclined to return one.

The argument, says Osborne is not between “cuts” and “investment”; it is between honesty and dishonesty:

We should have the confidence to tell the public the truth that Britain faces a debt crisis; that existing plans show that real spending will have to be cut, whoever is elected; and that the bills of rising unemployment and the huge interest costs of a soaring national debt mean that many government departments will face budget cuts. These are statements of fact and to deny them invites ridicule.

Osborne is of course entirely right.  Voters are sick of being treated as children.  They know that, whoever wins, the national belt will have to be tightened.  The Prime Minister deludes himself if he thinks that they will vote for a party that denies them the truth and promises them fool’s gold.

I strongly urge you to read Osborne’s article; it sets out very clearly the real dividing lines between the parties.

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Posted in George Osborne, Gordon Brown, Labour Party

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Piling in

Posted on November 25, 2008 | 5 Comments
George Osborne today secured an emergency debate on the Pre-Budget Report tomorrow by using the procedure prescribed by Standing Order 24.

SO 24 provides that:

On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday a Member rising in his place at the commencement of public business may propose, in an application lasting not more than three minutes, to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration. If the Speaker is satisfied that the matter is proper to be so discussed, the Member shall either obtain the leave of the House, or, if such leave be refused, the assent of not fewer than forty Members who shall thereupon rise in their places to support the motion, or, if fewer than forty Members and not fewer than ten shall thereupon rise in their places, the House shall, on a division, upon question put forthwith, determine whether such motion shall be made.

The chamber was packed with Conservatives Members. Osborne said, quite rightly, that it was a disgrace that the Government had not made time available for a debate on Alistair Darling’s “reckless gamble” with the country’s finances.

The Speaker agreed that the matter was sufficiently serious to call for an emergency debate and sought the leave of the House. Well over forty Tories “rose in their places” and a three-hour debate was accordingly granted for tomorrow.

Nigel Griffiths, the Member for Edinburgh South and former deputy Leader of the House, then raised an extraordinary, bizarre point of order. He asked the Speaker, somewhat irascibly, if it was in order for Conservative Members to ”pile in” to the chamber in support of the motion (subtext: what business have MPs to be in the Commons, anyway?). The Tories, in response, pointed at the rows of empty Labour benches and jeered.

The Speaker smiled, shook his head ruefully, and said that he had seen many important Parliamentary occasions when the place had been virtually empty and he’d wished that more Members had piled in. Cue for more Tory mirth.

A fascinating Commons occasion, an important victory for George Osborne and a comprehensive humiliation for Labour.

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Posted in George Osborne, Mr Speaker

Here come Boom and Bust

Posted on November 24, 2008 | 2 Comments
The Pre-Budget Report today underlined the extent to which Labour are now prepared to go for broke in their anxiety to hold on to power.

Alistair Darling stood at the dispatch box and reeled off figures of mind-boggling magnitude with all the animation of an auctioneer’s clerk reading out the prices realised in the afternoon’s fatstock sale:

“As a result of the combined effect of lower revenues, our commitment to maintain spending and extra support to the economy, borrowing will rise to £78 billion this year and £118 billion next, or 8 per cent. of GDP. But then, from 2010, as I take action to reduce borrowing when the economy begins to recover, borrowing will fall to £105 billion, then £87 billion, then £70 billion and then £54 billion. By 2015–16, we will again be borrowing only to invest.”

Members gasped, but Darling was unfazed. Heck, they were only figures and 2015 was only seven years away.

George Osborne, by contrast, was pretty damn angry, and it showed; it was his best, most passionate performance for some time:

“The Chancellor talked about a 0.5 per cent. adjustment, but Labour Members did not understand what that means. It means that he is giving £20 billion in giveaways and taking back £40 billion in higher taxes, including the major rise in national insurance—a tax on the jobs and incomes of middle Britain. That is confirmation of the time-old truth that in the end all Labour Chancellors run out of money and all Labour Governments bring this country to the verge of bankruptcy.

“Stability has gone out of the window. Prudence is dead. Labour has done it again. Massive borrowing; rising unemployment; tax giveaways for Christmas, paid for by tax rises for life; giving with one hand and taking with another—everything that we have come to expect from this Prime Minister. He says that the recession will end halfway through 2009, but the tax rises will not come in until 2011. I wonder why he chose those dates. This Budget is all about the political cycle and not the economic cycle.”

It was all heavy, serious stuff, with little humour, just real passion on both sides, the Conservative side in particular. Consensus is out of the window; battle lines have been drawn and now, perhaps for the first time in a dozen years, Members know beyond doubt on which side of the ideological divide they stand. These were the opening shots in the next general election campaign and there is every sign that it will last a full eighteen months.

No, there wasn’t much humour this afternoon. A small spark flickered, however, when Brown and Darling entered the chamber together toward the end of DWP Questions, just before the PBR began.

“Here come Boom and Bust,” called a Tory. A brief ripple of laughter rang out, but it was brief indeed, and rather wintry.

Yes, today was the day the next general election started.

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Posted in Alistair Darling, economy, George Osborne, Gordon Brown

Stating the obvious

Posted on November 16, 2008 | 4 Comments
The Labour party accuses George Osborne of “talking down sterling” when he warns of the danger of a run on the pound as a consequence of Government fiscal policy.

Twelve weeks ago, a pound bought two US dollars, as, indeed, it had for most of the early part of 2008. Last Friday, it closed at $1.475. That’s a devaluation of over 26 per cent in three months.

For most of that time, it is Gordon Brown who has been doing most of the talking.

It seems to me that Osborne is merely stating the bleedin’ obvious.

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Posted in economy, George Osborne, Gordon Brown

Sombre return

Posted on October 6, 2008 | 2 Comments
Parliament returned today after the summer recess, in a mood almost tangibly sombre, and on a day when the FTSE recorded its greatest-ever fall.

Alistair Darling made a brief statement to the House this afternoon in which he said little or nothing of detail. His appearance was apparently designed to reassure the markets, but instead they fell two per cent as he spoke. George Osborne, in a quiet but impressive speech, warned him:

“For all the risks to taxpayers involved, there is one thing worse than government action, and that is inaction in the face of this crisis.

“For then the far-greater risk to the taxpayer, and the country, is of a long and lasting recession. Boom has turned to bust. Now bust must not become something worse.”

Darling, however, assured the House that the Government will do all it can to maintain the stability of the financial system. He hopes that an emergency meeting in Luxembourg tomorrow will result in concerted action by all the EU states, but already Spain, Sweden and Denmark have pre-empted the summit by indicating they will guarantee bank deposits even if other nations do not. If ever the ideal of European unity was tested, it is surely now.

Later this evening, I looked in at Sainsbury’s, to restock the flat with the things I had run out of before the recess. The place was astonishingly full, with long queues at the checkouts – no apparent sign of a recession there. A section of the store had been filled, depressingly early, with tinselly Christmas goods: mince pies, puddings and chocolate selection boxes.

Can’t say they made me feel too cheerful, though. I think it’s going to be a pretty hard winter.

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Posted in Alistair Darling, economy, George Osborne