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Why Tories are winning the pink vote

July 7th, 2009 | No Comments

Labour can’t bear the idea that gay people, too, are repelled by them, and are turning to a changed Tory party

The culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw, asserts that “a deep strain of homophobia still exists on the Conservative benches”. The Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant goes further and warns that “if gays vote Tory they will rue the day very soon”. It’s not hard to detect the desperation in these shrill outbursts – and with good reason. A reputable new poll has found that 38% of gay men intend to vote Conservative at the next election – more than any other party, and a swing away from Labour of 14.2%.

It is this seeming ingratitude that Labour is unable to bear. It cannot comprehend that gay people might be as repelled by the government as everyone else. So now it resorts to pitiful efforts to scare them. “Don’t trust the Tories,” it says, while preposterously claiming that we’ll reverse all the progress towards gay equality that’s been made.

It’s quite hard to make the argument of homophobia stack up when the visible evidence is that the Conservatives have changed. Two shadow cabinet ministers (I’m one of them) are openly gay. As Alan Duncan (the other one) pointed out, more of Michael Howard’s shadow cabinet voted for civil partnerships than the cabinet. We have a number of talented openly gay candidates in winnable seats across the country – selected by the grassroots, not imposed by the party’s high command.

When David Cameron used his first conference speech as party leader to talk about the importance of marriage, he added that the commitment was as important for gay couples as for those who are straight. The conference audience applauded. From that moment, any doubt that the Conservative party was changing its attitude towards gay people should have been dispelled.

This is all immensely inconvenient for Labour politicians, who are determined to maintain clear pink water between the parties because they believe it’s in their electoral interest. Both Bryant and junior Labour minister Angela Eagle have claimed that the Conservatives opposed the new offence of inciting gay hatred. But this is simply not true. We supported the measure – I know, because I led for the opposition and I said so in the Commons. So did David Cameron. We also said that temperate comment had to be protected – a view widely shared in the media, including by leading gay commentators such as Peter Tatchell, who actually opposed the new offence.

That Labour should fall back on an outright lie to justify their charge against the Conservatives says more about them than it does us. Last week, at a Conservative event in support of Gay Pride (a gathering that would have been unthinkable in the old Conservative party), David Cameron apologised for the party’s introduction two decades ago of the infamous section 28, which banned local authorities from portraying homosexuality in a positive light. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We got it wrong … I hope you can forgive us.” Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall, described the apology as “a remarkably positive step forward”. In telling contrast, Harriet Harman could not bring herself to welcome it. Don’t be fooled, she said, and anyway it’s all too late.

But it’s never too late to say sorry. Just as Gordon Brown has not understood that voters are rejecting his false dividing line between “investment” and “cuts”, Harman, Bradshaw and Bryant have not understood the lessons of Damian McBride and “smeargate”. When Cameron says he made judgments on gay issues he now believes to be wrong, people respond to his candour as surely as they reject Brown’s dissembling.

There is more for us all to do. We still need to tackle gay bullying in schools and homophobia in sport. We still have bishops telling gays to “change and repent”. Intolerance and persecution of gays in other countries is a real cause of concern. But there is no need for a party divide on such issues. To believe gay people vote only on issues related to their sexuality is patronising and wrong. They care about the same things as anybody else. They want a better future for their country, and a better politics, too.

The truth is the major parties are reaching a consensus on gay equality. So the real dividing line will be between the parties that are honest with the public and those that are not; between those who can mount a broad appeal and those who fall back on a narrow tribal base. Even as their once natural supporters abandon them, New Labour still has not learned that the public is rejecting old politics, and that people – gays included – are crying out for change.

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England set for council house revival

July 6th, 2009 | No Comments

• Cash infusion may reverse historic decline
• Government move has economic and political motives

Council house building is to restart in earnest for the first time in almost 20 years in England with local authorities set to construct 139,000 homes over the next decade. Town halls have predicted that rule changes announced by ministers last week allowing them to retain rent from council housing and receipts from right-to-buy purchasers, rather than the money going to the Treasury, mean that building is set to return to levels not seen since 1990.

It will reverse a dramatic decline in council house building that began in the 1950s when local authorities built as many as 245,000 units a year and reshaped the nation’s skyline with tower blocks and cottage-style brick terraces. In the 21st century as few as 130 council houses have been built each year.

“We could be on the verge of the biggest programme of council house building in a generation,” said Matt Nicholls, housing spokesman for the Local Government Association, which represents English local authorities. “Councils haven’t had the financial freedom to build new homes. They have not been able to keep the rent or money from the sale of homes and have not been able to borrow against their assets to build houses in the same way housing associations have.”

Councils across England of all political colours are filing applications for £350m in direct funding that is being provided by Whitehall.

“There is demand everywhere, rural and urban,” said Sir Bob Kerslake, chief executive of the government’s Homes and Communities Agency, which will distribute the funds. “Before this extra money came through, Birmingham city council, which is Conservative-controlled, said they could spend all of the £100m we had for the whole country.”

Birmingham is planning to build 500 council houses a year within three years and become the biggest council housebuilder in England.

The new houses are much needed. Five million people will be on the waiting list for social housing by 2012 and the credit crunch has dramatically reduced housebuilding. But they will not be enough to fully meet demand and government officials conceded that the policy, which includes spending £350m directly on new homes, is partly political.

“Some of this is about Gordon Brown keeping the parliamentary Labour party happy,” said a senior government housing official. “Some is about trying to do something quickly at a time when the market is struggling to deliver as a result of the problems with development finance. There is also a feeling that they might as well spend, spend, spend because they will probably be out of office soon.”

The HCA estimates that just 90,000 homes of all types will be built this financial year, less than half the government’s target of 240,000 completions a year. The scale of the problem is illustrated in the north London borough of Islington where the council will complete 10 new council houses this summer, but has a waiting list of 15,000 for social housing.

“Housebuilding is unprecedentedly low,” said Kerslake. “Over the last 20 years completions fluctuated, averaging around 120,000. But even at the peak of the buoyant market we didn’t hit the target.”

This time, instead of building large estates the government wants small clusters of 30 to 40 homes built on infill sites and will insist that they are indistinguishable from private housing.

“Nobody wants to go back to big, sprawling estates occupied only by council tenants,” said Kerslake. “Instead, you won’t be able to see the difference between council housing and private housing.”

Family houses rather than two-bedroom flats will be prioritised and councils will be encouraged to use redundant land, such as sites of disused garages, instead of building on green belt.

But with so few councils building homes in the last 20 years, there are doubts over the quality of the design they will produce. A survey published in April by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment revealed that 83% of affordable housing schemes were judged of average or poor design quality, worse than market housing.

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Is there pensions apartheid?

July 4th, 2009 | No Comments

False Tory outrage at fat-cat pubic sector benefits is a crude sleight of hand to divert voters’ attention from the real wealth gap

Indignation at “gold-plated” public sector pensions is the latest wave in the Conservative campaign to create a groundswell of support for spending cuts and shrinking the size of the state. Rightwing thinktanks, encouraged by David Cameron and even by the sainted Vince Cable in the Mail on Sunday, have just produced a series of reports attacking public-sector pensions. It is a deft diversion from the real fat-cat pensions of Fred Goodwin (now reduced to £342,500 a year) and his ilk on to the rather more modest pensions of nurses, teachers and care workers: the average public employee pension is £7,000.

It’s a well-timed assault, as private-sector employees still lucky enough to have an occupational pension open their statements and reel at seeing how very much less than expected they will get, with anything from a third to a half knocked off by the crash. Who should they blame? The bankers who bust the economy? Boardrooms who help themselves to vast pay, bonuses and pensions while closing company schemes for everyone else? No, the Tory hue and cry is turning them against public sector workers. If ever there were a deliberate creation of the politics of envy, this is it.

Rightwing thinktank reports have produced shock-horror numbers. Best was the British-North American Committee, which hit last week’s news with this: “UK public sector pension liabilities now 85% of GDP.” Good grief! Does that leave the rest of us just 15% to live on while the fat-cat retired dinner ladies, ward clerks and binmen live the life of Riley? It is, of course, a nonsense number, a statistical prestidigitation done by adding all public sector pension liabilities for those now retired to a life-time obligation to every existing state employee. Roll up all the money and describe it as a debt owed in one year and you get silly numbers. It’s like taking all your mortgage and all the interest you will pay over its course, and comparing that total debt with one year’s income. It will look wildly unaffordable.

The true figure is quite high, but rather less alarming. Public pensions cost 1.4% of GDP; and that will rise to 2% in 2027 and fall back below 2% thereafter. There is no inexorable upward trajectory. It may need adjustment, such as raising the pension age. As Adair Turner suggested this week, this needs to be done faster for everyone: we need to work longer. But dragging down public sector pensions won’t do anything to help those who have no private pension, or a much reduced one. Cutting public sector pensions would not save the state much either: many are low earners so what they lost on pension they would claim through pension credit.

The real problem is the devastation of private pensions. Company pensions have faced rising costs as people have lived longer: each year of life costs pension funds 3% more. Share values have not risen as fast as expected, while funding requirements were tightened by the Conservatives after the Robert Maxwell scandal. In the 1960s, 8 million private employees had occupational pensions; now it’s only 2 million.

What contributed to their mass closure was a culture change in the City as companies chased share price values to the exclusion of all else. A decent scheme used to be the norm for any respectable firm: many managers had not realised they could be ditched. But after the Big Bang, to have a good pension scheme was seen by City analysts as a sign of weak management, risking predatory takeover. So it happened that a country growing 30% richer every decade suddenly decided it could not or would not afford company pensions any longer. Last week’s Telegraph leader repeated the refrain that the “primary reason” for the closure of private pensions was Gordon Brown’s “raid” on pension dividends, but compared with the above factors and the stockmarket’s collapse, that £5bn a year was a bit-player.

The Turner commission has led to a new compulsory scheme where all employers will have to contribute 3% of pay into a pension while employees pay 4%. It’s a good start, but needs ratcheting up. In remaining private schemes employers pay an average of 10%, while public sector employers contribute 20% for better pensions.

Is that 20% too much, or is the private sector paying too little? A handful of headline-grabbing fat-cat public pensions for MPs, judges and a few others could be trimmed: as Michael Martin’s £1.4m pension hit the news, MPs wisely voted to freeze their own pensions last week. But the great majority of the cost of public pensions goes to the modestly paid, more of them women, which is why the average is just £7,000 a year. Any meaningful cut would push many back into pensioner poverty. Yet a cut is what David Cameron rashly proposed last year. “We’ve got to end the apartheid in pensions,” he told businessmen. The next day Conservative headquarters panicked and backtracked, fearing for public sector votes. But public employees have been warned.

The real pensions apartheid is not between public and private, but between the wealthy and the rest. Every taxpayer contributes heftily to the pensions of the rich, and half of tax relief goes to the top 10% of earners. A quarter goes to the less than 1% who earn more than £150,000. At last, along with the 50% tax band, incomes of more than £150,000 will from next year only get tax relief at 20%, not 40%. It was greeted with vociferous rage and the usual threats to leave the country, along with protests by the the very same wealthy people at the cost of modest public sector pensions. Tax relief still needs rebalancing to make sure most state encouragement to save goes to those with least.

Labour has a goodish pensions record – though you might not know it, as yet another report this week from the OECD put the UK bottom when comparing basic state pensions. Our basic was worth 26% of average earnings in 1979, but when the Conservatives decoupled it from earnings, it fell to 16%. But that’s misleading: nearly half of pensioners are eligible for Labour’s pension credit. Add in winter fuel allowance, housing and council tax benefit and free buses, and UK pensioners shoot up the league.

The state pension is due to be relinked to earnings in 2012 – though if the Conservatives are in power, will they do it? Labour’s new compulsory pensions for all employers will be a long-lasting legacy, and not appreciated for years. The Conservatives seem to be heading in the opposite direction.

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Politics Weekly: Building Britain’s Future

July 3rd, 2009 | No Comments

From compulsory ID cards to rail renationalisation, it has been a week of screeching U-turns. But the government insists that it still has a plan, and we kick off today’s turn in the pod by evaluating its grandly named scheme to Build Britian’s Future.

Jonathan Freedland reckons that the new public service guarantees that Labour is promising are exactly the kind of thing we would all have thought were wonderful in the government’s early days; now, however, the mood is jaded and no one is listening any more. Likewise, he says, in other circumstances the ditching of compulsory ID cards and mail privatisation would have raised Labour spirits, but today they are painted as humiliations, not least because Gordon Brown has been forced into them so reluctantly.

In the week when the parties accuse each other of telling porkie pies, Michael White gives us his take on the way politicians have discussed fibbing over the years. Allegra and Tom venture that avoiding the L-word introduces a gulf between the governing and the governed. Polly Toynbee, however, thinks it is important to maintain a little politeness in public life, to avoid things descending to the debased and abusive level of parts of the blogosphere.


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Swine flu ‘can no longer be contained’

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

More than 100,000 people could be diagnosed with swine flu every day by the end of August, the government said, announcing that the disease can no longer be contained in the UK.

A Commons statement by the health secretary, Andy Burnham, marks a watershed in the spread of the flu. No more schools will be closed, unless forced to by the lack of staff or if the pupils are especially vulnerable. Families and people in contact with those with flu will not be given preventative antiviral drugs.

The new policy of treatment for those with diagnosed illness, rather than containment, has already begun in the hotspots – chiefly London, Birmingham and Scotland.

The change of tactic is the predicted response to the swelling number of people infected. There are now 7,447 diagnosed cases in the UK, but the number is doubling every week. If they continue in this way, said Burnham in his statement, “we could see over 100,000 cases per day by the end of August”. He later stressed that the figure “is a projection. It is not a fact. This is how the disease could develop and we don’t know.”

Those sorts of numbers would put a heavy burden on the NHS, which is already feeling the strain in some areas. The new strategy will help keep those with possible symptoms out of GP surgeries.

People who think they may have flu are now being advised to go online and check their symptoms on the NHS website or call the swine flu information line, on 0800 1 513 513. Anyone still concerned after that should phone their GP, who can provide a diagnosis over the phone. If swine flu is confirmed, they will be issued with an authorisation voucher, which a “flu friend” can take to an antiviral drug collection point, which may be a pharmacy or a health centre.

But health officials in Scotland doubt the virus will spread dramatically across the UK, as it seems to have peaked in Scotland, which saw the first big outbreaks, and the first two deaths in Europe.

The rapid spread of the virus has slowed down in Paisley, which suffered the second largest outbreak, and it has disappeared in Dunoon, where a coachload of football fans were infected. In Glasgow, until recently the worst affected area of the UK, infection rates have stabilised. After infection rates peaked at 111 confirmed cases on 25 June, the rate in Scotland has remained steady at an average of about 60 new cases a day over the last week. There is no evidence that infection rates in Scotland, where the virus first arrived in late April, were doubling.

Dr Harry Burns, Scotland’s chief medical officer, said he was “now optimistic that sometime over the next few weeks, the rate of transmission will begin to slow down” [in Scotland].

It was entirely possible, he added, that the outbreaks elsewhere in the UK would also slow down in a matter of weeks.

The fatality rate also appears to be low. In the UK, only three people – all with significant underlying health problems – have died out of 7,447 confirmed cases. Health experts believe more people have caught swine flu but shown no symptoms.

In the United States, the official figures show 27,725 Americans have contracted H1N1, with 127 deaths. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, estimates that a million Americans may have caught swine flu but not been to a doctor, suggesting that fatality rates are as low as 0.012%, Burns said.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported on Thursday that of 69,177 cases which had been detected worldwide, only 328 people had died – a fatality rate of 0.47%.

However, Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, said that it was not yet possible to work out the death rate from the virus, “given the unreliability of the data”, but that it would become clearer in the coming months.

The first batches of vaccine will arrive in August.

Although the UK has ordered enough for the entire population, it will arrive in batches. At-risk groups would get it first, said Donaldson: those especially vulnerable because of diseases which have compromised their immune systems or affect their breathing, such as asthma.

New flu strains cannot be eradicated. They simply become part of the seasonal flu mix. Donaldson said that swine flu could continue to cause extra deaths for five years. “We will need the vaccine in years to come,” he said.

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Swine flu ‘can no longer be contained’

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

More than 100,000 people could be diagnosed with swine flu every day by the end of August, the government said, announcing that the disease can no longer be contained in the UK.

A Commons statement by the health secretary, Andy Burnham, marks a watershed in the spread of the flu. No more schools will be closed, unless forced to by the lack of staff or if the pupils are especially vulnerable. Families and people in contact with those with flu will not be given preventative antiviral drugs.

The new policy of treatment for those with diagnosed illness, rather than containment, has already begun in the hotspots – chiefly London, Birmingham and Scotland.

The change of tactic is the predicted response to the swelling number of people infected. There are now 7,447 diagnosed cases in the UK, but the number is doubling every week. If they continue in this way, said Burnham in his statement, “we could see over 100,000 cases per day by the end of August”. He later stressed that the figure “is a projection. It is not a fact. This is how the disease could develop and we don’t know.”

Those sorts of numbers would put a heavy burden on the NHS, which is already feeling the strain in some areas. The new strategy will help keep those with possible symptoms out of GP surgeries.

People who think they may have flu are now being advised to go online and check their symptoms on the NHS website or call the swine flu information line, on 0800 1 513 513. Anyone still concerned after that should phone their GP, who can provide a diagnosis over the phone. If swine flu is confirmed, they will be issued with an authorisation voucher, which a “flu friend” can take to an antiviral drug collection point, which may be a pharmacy or a health centre.

But health officials in Scotland doubt the virus will spread dramatically across the UK, as it seems to have peaked in Scotland, which saw the first big outbreaks, and the first two deaths in Europe.

The rapid spread of the virus has slowed down in Paisley, which suffered the second largest outbreak, and it has disappeared in Dunoon, where a coachload of football fans were infected. In Glasgow, until recently the worst affected area of the UK, infection rates have stabilised. After infection rates peaked at 111 confirmed cases on 25 June, the rate in Scotland has remained steady at an average of about 60 new cases a day over the last week. There is no evidence that infection rates in Scotland, where the virus first arrived in late April, were doubling.

Dr Harry Burns, Scotland’s chief medical officer, said he was “now optimistic that sometime over the next few weeks, the rate of transmission will begin to slow down” [in Scotland].

It was entirely possible, he added, that the outbreaks elsewhere in the UK would also slow down in a matter of weeks.

The fatality rate also appears to be low. In the UK, only three people – all with significant underlying health problems – have died out of 7,447 confirmed cases. Health experts believe more people have caught swine flu but shown no symptoms.

In the United States, the official figures show 27,725 Americans have contracted H1N1, with 127 deaths. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, estimates that a million Americans may have caught swine flu but not been to a doctor, suggesting that fatality rates are as low as 0.012%, Burns said.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported on Thursday that of 69,177 cases which had been detected worldwide, only 328 people had died – a fatality rate of 0.47%.

However, Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, said that it was not yet possible to work out the death rate from the virus, “given the unreliability of the data”, but that it would become clearer in the coming months.

The first batches of vaccine will arrive in August.

Although the UK has ordered enough for the entire population, it will arrive in batches. At-risk groups would get it first, said Donaldson: those especially vulnerable because of diseases which have compromised their immune systems or affect their breathing, such as asthma.

New flu strains cannot be eradicated. They simply become part of the seasonal flu mix. Donaldson said that swine flu could continue to cause extra deaths for five years. “We will need the vaccine in years to come,” he said.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds


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Politics Weekly: Building Britain’s Future

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

From compulsory ID cards to rail renationalisation, it has been a week of screeching U-turns. But the government insists that it still has a plan, and we kick off today’s turn in the pod by evaluating its grandly named scheme to Build Britian’s Future.

Jonathan Freedland reckons that the new public service guarantees that Labour is promising are exactly the kind of thing we would all have thought were wonderful in the government’s early days; now, however, the mood is jaded and no one is listening any more. Likewise, he says, in other circumstances the ditching of compulsory ID cards and mail privatisation would have raised Labour spirits, but today they are painted as humiliations, not least because Gordon Brown has been forced into them so reluctantly.

In the week when the parties accuse each other of telling porkie pies, Michael White gives us his take on the way politicians have discussed fibbing over the years. Allegra and Tom venture that avoiding the L-word introduces a gulf between the governing and the governed. Polly Toynbee, however, thinks it is important to maintain a little politeness in public life, to avoid things descending to the debased and abusive level of parts of the blogosphere.


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The anti-aid agenda

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

If Berlusconi sets the tone at next week’s G8, it will be a disaster for a cherished Labour goal

The G8 is less than a week away but already the Italian presidency is seen as having a disastrous impact on aid. Uninterested, disorganised and short is likely to be the summary of the summit by the end of next week: the G8 leaders, according to the latest plans, will have only three hours sitting down together.

While the developing world reels from the economic downturn, Italy has shown no ambition for the aid agenda. It is falling dramatically behind on its own commitments made in 2005 at Gleneagles and is instituting draconian cuts of 56% in its aid budget this year. Italy will end up with the lowest rate of aid – less than 0.1% of GDP – in the G8, despite its reiterations of commitment to the European agreement to reach 0.51% by 2010.

Italy’s lamentable performance is prompting a crisis of identity for the G8. Accusations of summit ceremony with no substance have always dogged the event, but given that it no longer represents all the biggest economies (China is not a member), or the biggest populations (such as China or India), its one last claim to world leadership has been as the world’s biggest aid donor. But even that claim now looks fragile in Italy’s hands. Spain has overtaken Italy in GDP per capita and now has one of the highest aid rates in the EU, handsomely ahead of Italy. The question of whether Silvio Berlusconi has forfeited his right to a place at the top table is likely to hover over events next week.

But the failures of Rome are only one aspect of how to ensure the survival of one of Labour’s most cherished achievements over the last 12 years: pushing increased aid up both the international and domestic agenda. By 2010 Britain is on track to have increased its aid budget to 0.62% of GDP, one of the highest in the EU and not far short of the totemic 0.7% set by the UN in 1970. While many departments are braced for cuts, aid is to increase – and the Tories have promised to abide by the increases. Labour has established a new political consensus on aid domestically, and an international profile on the issue which is widely admired. But can it hold?

That is part of the impetus behind the white paper expected next week from Department of International Development (DfiD). It indicates a growing unease across many parts of government that now is the time to lash the legacy down, to make it as difficult as possible for the Tories to unpick. The aim is to make aid analogous with the NHS or the BBC, a significant part of British identity. That means that a lot more people need to know what DfiD does, and this is what lies behind proposals to rebrand with a logo of UKaid.

It’s all laudable stuff, but difficult. At heart, aid is a moral argument about interconnectedness in a small world, and Labour has doggedly championed that message under the likes of Clare Short, Hilary Benn and, now, Douglas Alexander. The Tories have bought into that, because as one observer put it: “It’s a cheap way to detoxify the brand, aid represents only 1% of government spending.” But the concern is that the Tories might dilute the primacy of poverty reduction – diverting money into Foreign Office objectives, perhaps dismantling Dfid, as John Major and Douglas Hurd suggested recently. So the new white paper will try to buttress the moral argument with an awareness of self-interest: African economies, if strong enough, offer huge potential markets.

With energy draining away at an international level and a critique of aid gathering strength with the likes of economist Dambisa Moyo, it’s a vulnerable moment for the aid agenda. The fear is that achievements are hard won – involving huge effort in mobilising people on to the streets – and can easily fall apart: commitments dropped, and targets missed when everyone thought the job had been largely done.

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Mandelson shelves Royal Mail privatisation

July 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

• Business secretary blames poor market conditions
• Trouble looms over £10bn pension deficit

The government today abandoned its controversial bill to part-privatise the Royal Mail before the general election, the day after it dropped plans for compulsory ID cards.

Lord Mandelson blamed the lack of credible bidders for the proposed 30% stake on the depressed market. He had found only one plausible candidate and was unlikely to secure a decent price of about £2bn. The sale might also have fallen foul of EU competition laws.

A Mandelson aide said that trying to force the legislation through the Commons would “be time-consuming and would completely dominate the government’s political agenda over the summer when we knew we would be unable to implement it in the immediate future”.

It is a severe blow to a government that had repeatedly said part-privatisation was essential to modernise a declining business under severe technological threat. Only on Monday Mandelson had accused David Cameron of going soft on public sector reform, a charge that was thrown back in his face last night by the shadow cabinet.

Mandelson told the prime minister of his decision yesterday and informed the chancellor, Alistair Darling, this morning before making a formal announcement in the Lords in the afternoon. He told peers: “Market conditions have made it impossible to conclude the process to identify a partner for the Royal Mail on terms that we can be confident would secure value for the taxpayer.

“There is therefore no prospect in current circumstances of achieving the objectives of the postal services bill. When market conditions change we will return to the issue.”

Last month Mandelson admitted he was struggling to secure a decent price for Royal Mail, but suggested he would press ahead with the bill, even if no satisfactory bidder was immediately available.

Now that option has also been dropped, leaving the government to hope it can revisit the issue if re-elected.

The bill had already been through the Lords and had been waiting for its second reading in the Commons. Mandelson had made strenuous efforts to win over backbenchers and strike a deal with the Communication Workers’ Union. There is no prospect of fresh legislation being introduced into the Commons in the final parliamentary session starting in November.

As part of the deal, the government had been planning to take on the £10bn pension fund deficit, as well as to change regulation.

But now Mandelson has put himself on a collision course with Royal Mail, its pension trustees and unions by refusing to bail out the postal company’s estimated pension deficit.

The trustees are expected to revise their estimate of the shortfall from the current figure of £3.3bn to at least £10bn in the next few weeks. This would require Royal Mail to more than double its annual payments to plug the deficit, which would bankrupt the company.

Royal Mail has until next June year to agree with its pension trustees how to protect the fund and its 450,000 members. Jane Newell, chair of the Royal Mail’s pension fund, warned Mandelson earlier this year of the “very severe consequences” for the pension scheme and Royal Mail if privatisation did not take place.

She met officials from the Department for Business yesterday to urge them to plug the deficit.

Yesterday, the CWU also stepped up the pressure on Royal Mail and the government when it announced that postal workers would stage three days of rolling strike action in London.

The union claims Royal Mail has reneged on their agreement on how to modernise the business, accusing it of making arbitrary cuts.

Royal Mail said in a statement that the need to resolve the three key issues facing the business had not gone away: “The need for fairer regulation, the need for a resolution to the large and growing legacy pension deficit and flexible and timely access to capital remain as urgent as before.”

The shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, said: “This is the government of the living dead. They are in a state of chaotic inertia.

“Even Peter Mandelson is no longer in control of the Labour party, let alone Gordon Brown or the rest of the cabinet.”

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Commons rejects expenses reforms

July 1st, 2009 | No Comments

• Reid and Beckett among rebels in three-vote defeat
• Tories accused in rush to push through legislation

The government’s efforts to rush through emergency legislation to clean up politics tonight took a second knock in as many days as it was defeated in its attempts to make it easier to secure prosecutions in alleged cases of “cash for questions”.

On the third and final day of debate on the parliamentary standards bill in the Commons, the government was defeated by three votes, 250 to 247, on plans to end “parliamentary privilege” and allow parliamentary debates to be used in court as evidence. John Reid, the former home secretary, voted against the government for the first time in his parliamentary career. Margaret Beckett, the former foreign secretary, was another rebel.

The justice secretary, Jack Straw, said he would “respect” the will of the house.But a government spokesman described the defeat as “scandalous” and accused Conservative MPs of a lack of will to reform. A Conservative spokesman said the vote was “a complete shambles” and insisted they supported other planks of the bill. The new legislation has been squeezed into the last three weeks of parliament’s agenda, as the main parties push for new rules to reach the statute book before the summer. That would allow MPs to leave Westminster for the three-month summer break to work in their constituencies. But some have been unhappy at the crunched timetable for the bill and the attempt by the government to add new “legal” elements to the legislation.

Under the plans, the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority would oversee expenses claims and have powers to recommend fines or expulsion for MPs who break the rules.

On Monday night the government dropped plans which could have made a new code of conduct for MPs legally enforceable. On Tuesday the justice secretary dropped a further aspect of the bill, which would have legally required MPs to declare any “specified financial interest” before taking part in a debate in the Commons chamber. After the Labour backbencher Frank Field said he would rather go to jail than obey this, Straw announced he would drop that aspect.

Sir Stuart Bell, one of the Labour rebels, said: “When we kicked off we expected a bill that was going to get rid of the incestuous relationship between MPs and the Fees Office. But then the government added in all sorts of additional clauses that created new criminal offences.

“The problem was that we were seeing all privilege going to the courts as in the US where Congress gets challenged all the way to the supreme court.”"

Today the cross-party justice select committee published a report warning ending parliamentary privilege would curb MPs’ ability to speak freely on behalf of voters. Particularly damaging was evidence by the clerk of the house, Malcolm Jack, who warned the move would have a “chilling effect” on MPs and undermine parliamentary privilege. The concerns of the justice committee were shared by the human rights committee. Its chair, Andrew Dismore, said the parliamentary standards bill in its current form was incompatible with human rights laws, and MPs under investigation should have the “opportunity to be heard in person”.

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Student grants frozen as tuition fees rise

July 1st, 2009 | No Comments

The government is freezing all student grants and loans and cutting financial support for trainee teachers as a result of the recession, it announced today.

Union leaders said the moves were a “kick in the teeth” after it emerged that tuition fees will also rise by 2.04%, taking the annual charge to £3,290 – nearly £300 more than when fees were introduced in 2006. Grants are to be frozen at £2,906 for the poorest students and loans for living costs are also frozen, while loans to cover tuition fees will rise to cover the increasing fees. Teacher training grants of up to £6,000, which had been universally offered, are to be restricted to people from lower income homes.

David Lammy, the universities minister, said in a written ministerial statement to parliament: “In these difficult economic times, we are continuing to take difficult decisions in the interests of students, universities and taxpayers alike. We have therefore decided to maintain the current package of maintenance support for full-time students, reflecting the current low inflationary environment.”

It is understood ministers were forced into the decision to free up cash to avoid a cut in the grant as student numbers rise.

A promise to give university grants to all students who previously received £30-a-week study grants at school has been reversed in favour of means testing.

Teacher training grants for postgraduates will be cut substantially. Those with household incomes above £34,000 will pay for the majority of their living costs through loans of up to £5,000 instead of grants, adding to the debt mountain for some new graduates. Previously all trainees qualified for non-repayable grants.

The changes apply to England alone and will come into force in September 2010.

Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said: “Students are already racking up thousands of pounds of debt. It appears that the inflation rate is being applied where it suits universities, but not where it will improve student support. These real-terms cuts in student support will be felt in students’ pockets.”

The statement to parliament came hours after the government published figures revealing that the proportion of students from the poorest backgrounds is increasing. Some 21% of 18- to 21-year-olds taking degrees last year were from the poorest four socio-economic groups, compared with 18.1% the year before.

David Willetts, the shadow universities minister, said: “Gordon Brown tried to increase support for students in his first week as prime minister and he’s been cutting it back ever since. Students from poorest families will be the victims.

“The government needs to get on with the fees review and look at ways to offer a better deal for poorer students.”

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Martin move ‘could damage Lords’

July 1st, 2009 | No Comments

Michael Martin, the former Speaker of the Commons, was today elevated to the House of Lords despite a warning from the independent appointments commission that his presence could “diminish” the upper house.

In an unprecedented move, the commission wrote to Gordon Brown to warn that Martin’s conduct in recent months, which led him to become the first Speaker of the modern era to be forced out, could damage the Lords’ reputation.

The intervention by the commission, chaired by the former Foreign Office permanent secretary Lord Jay, is understood to be the first time in modern times that questions have been raised about elevating a former Speaker to the Lords.

By convention, Speakers are appointed on their retirement from the Commons to the House of Lords where they sit on the non-partisan crossbenches. The appointments commission was established in 2000, the year Betty Boothroyd, Martin’s predecessor as Speaker, was appointed to the Lords without any questions.

In its letter to the prime minister, the commission drew attention to concerns it had about the possible impact of Martin’s presence on the reputation of the Lords. The commission, which has the power to advise but not to veto, has a duty to warn the prime minister of the impact of any “public controversy”.

In Martin’s case this referred to his controversial handling of the Commons in the past year. Martin became the first Speaker of the modern era to be forced out after losing the confidence of the Commons over his response to the expenses crisis and his handling of the search of the Commons office of the Conservative frontbencher Damian Green.

In a carefully worded letter to the prime minister, the commission referred to the terms of its vetting procedures. These state that the commission’s role “is to advise the prime minister if it has any concerns about the propriety of a nominee”.

It adds: “Propriety means … the individual should be a credible nominee. The commission’s main criterion in assessing this is whether the appointment would enhance rather than diminish the workings and the reputation of the House of Lords itself and the appointments system generally.”

Martin was nominated for a peerage by the Commons as part of a “humble address” to the Queen.

In a message to MPs on Monday the government whip, Helen Jones, in her role as the vice-chamberlain of the household, reported that the Queen had agreed to confer a peerage on Martin “for his eminent services during the period in which he has, with such distinguished ability and dignity, presided in the chair of this house”.

The traditional form of words was greeted with ridicule. Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, a Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: “This is old-fashioned nonsense. Parliament should start using words that people understand and believe. Michael Martin should not be handed a P45 in an ermine envelope.”

Martin was the biggest casualty of the expenses scandal after he was blamed by MPs for failing to understand the gravity of the crisis, a charge he vehemently denied.

The government is now rushing through legislation to establish an independent body to oversee MPs’ expenses.

A new parliamentary standards bill will create a new commissioner for parliamentary investigations to examine breaches of rules on allowances and an independent standards authority which can punish MPs. New criminal offences for making false claims will also be established.

On Monday, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, was forced to water down a key element of the bill which would have put a code of conduct on a statutory footing. This will now only apply to MPs’ financial interests.

The joint Lords and Commons committee on human rights yesterday warned that the bill may not be compatible with the European convention on human rights in respect of an MP’s right to a fair hearing.

The committee said: “We recommend the bill should be amended to include procedural safeguards – such as the opportunity to call and examine witnesses – where disciplinary action is being considered.”

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Brown’s spending plans under scrutiny

June 30th, 2009 | No Comments

PM’s manifesto, Building Britain’s Future, overshadowed by charges that Labour is hiding funding cuts

Gordon Brown’s efforts to set out a compelling pre-election vision based on enforceable rights for citizens were badly hampered today when the government finally admitted it will not publish future spending plans ahead of the election.

Brown unveiled a manifesto entitled Building Britain’s Future and a draft Queen’s speech containing 12 bills. The overall aim was to downgrade Whitehall public service targets in favour of individual rights, with some enforceable by the community and others by individuals.

Ministers argued that after months on the back foot, Brown had delivered a policy programme that contained eye-catching measures and a more coherent reform framework for public services.

There was no mention of the plan to part-privatise the Royal Mail, once seen as the government’s litmus test of its determination to reform the public sector.

Lord Mandelson, the architect of that policy, became the first minister to confirm that the Treasury was abandoning plans to publish a spending review covering 2010-11. The government has so far staged these department-by-department spending limits every two years, and faced charges that it was hiding the coming cuts from the electorate.

Tonight it emerged that Brown was raiding other government departments including transport, the Home Office and health to triple the social housebuilding programme by £2.1bn over two years, one of the centrepieces of today’s announcements.

Just under half the extra £1.5bn housebuilding cash will come from reallocations inside the communities department, including funds previously set aside for a social housing refurbishment programme. Another £300m will come from the transport department.

The extra money is aimed at building 20,000 affordable homes over two years, including 3,000 council houses. More than 4 million people are on the waiting list. The prime minister said: “There is now a real choice for our country: driving growth forward or letting the recession take its course.”

But David Cameron, accusing Brown of deceit, said there would be “riots on the street” if spending cuts were made after an election campaign in which politicians pretended they were not required. He described the prime minister as “living in a dream world, unaware that the money has run out” and publishing “a programme without a price tag”.

Mandelson insisted that the last spending review had covered the years up to 2011, “beyond the next election, and therefore it is reasonable to review public spending at that time”. He added: “We are not in a position, in June 2009, to be able to forecast what growth will be and what the performance of the economy will be in 2011. That is why we have to wait.”

In signs of a tussle at the top of government the treasury chief secretary, Liam Byrne, said Mandelson had corrected himself over his claim that there would certainly not be a spending review this side of the election. He added it was for chancellor to look at the issue of whether to hold a review at the time of the pre-budget report in the late Autumn when the state of the public finances are clearer.

Alistair Darling is not minded to have a full scale spending review setting spending totals over three years for each department, due to the extreme uncertainty of the finances, but instead wants to give some figures and be straight with the electorate. “There is no need for instance to say how many paper clips can be ordered by the culture department” said one source.

Darling is likely to use the pre-budget report in November, or the budget next year, to spell out if some programmes will have to be cut to meet his plan to halve the budget deficit in five years.

Building Britain’s Future startlingly admits: “A sense of unfairness pervades modern contemporary Britain. Key national institutions on which the public thought they could depend have acted in a way that is directly at odds with the fundamental values of and expectations of the British people.”

Mandelson said the Royal Mail bill was being delayed because it was “jostling for space” in the legislative programme. But Cameron, aware of the scale of the Labour backbench revolt over the measure, teased Brown by offering Tory time to complete the bill’s passage through the Commons. He accused Brown of “bottling it”.

Among the measures announced, the prime minister said young people aged 18-25 and unemployed for more than a year would lose their benefit unless they take up an offer of a job or training. Ministers expect the scheme to cover 70,000 young people by the election. About £1bn will be spent on creating 100,000 jobs for young people and 50,000 others in industries with high unemployment. Other measures include:

• The right for cancer sufferers to see a specialist within two weeks, and to receive hospital treatment within 18.

• Entitlement to a free check-up on the NHS to anyone aged 40 to 74.

• The right for communities to meet their neighbourhood police team once a month.

• A personal tutor for every pupil at secondary school and one-to-one catch-up classes for those who need it.

• A draft bill introducing a largely elected second chamber, with fresh legislation to abandon byelections for the remaining 92 hereditary peers.

• Limited reform of the council house allocation programme allowing councils greater discretion to give priority to local people.

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Ed Balls set to publish schools white paper

June 30th, 2009 | No Comments

Proposals include annual report cards for schools and one-to-one tuition for all pupils that need it

The schools secretary, Ed Balls, will today publish a white paper for education, setting out plans for schools to be issued with annual report cards to give parents a better idea of their academic and sporting endeavours as well as the standard of pupils’ behaviour.

Parents will take part in annual surveys, which will feed into the document. It is based on a system used in New York to hold schools to account, which the government hopes will provide a more intelligent school accountability system than the current league tables, which are based on pupils’ test results.

Speaking ahead of the announcement today, Balls said the plans for England would include a set of guarantees for every parent. “What I am saying today is, to parents, I want you to know that whether your child is academic, wants to go to university, [is] more practical, might want to get an apprenticeship, we will make sure that the schools give you choices, qualifications, so your child can succeed and do well,” he told GMTV.

“If your child starts to fall behind, we should step in straight away and give one-to-one or small group tuition.”

The white paper is expected to:

• Signal the end of the centrally controlled national strategies, which include the literacy and numeracy hours, to decrease Westminster control of schools and give headteachers more powers to drive up standards.

• Introduce a wave of federation and chains of schools, where good headteachers are given control of more than one school to spread their expertise.

• Give parents guarantees of a place at school or college for their child until the age of 18, a promise of one-to-one tuition if their child is falling behind and a personal tutor throughout secondary to give them pastoral support.

• In return, parents will be under new obligations to support their child at school. They will have to sign stricter home school agreements and face fines of up to £1,000, enforced by the courts, if they fail to meet the conditions.

Balls defended the plans against accusations that they will not be affordable as public spending takes a downturn, saying he had already found savings within his own budget to pay for some elements.

He also revealed he is poised to make fresh announcements on the Building Schools for the Future programme, the government’s initiative to rebuild or refurbish every school in England, amid speculation that it could be a victim of spending cuts.

The prime minister, Gordon Brown, said yesterday: “I want all our children to have opportunities that are available today only to those who can pay for them in private education.

“It is right that personal tutoring should be extended to all who need it, so there will be a new guarantee for parents of a personal tutor for every pupil at secondary school and catch-up tuition, including one-to-one, for those who need it.”

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Schools accused of wasting £1bn

June 29th, 2009 | No Comments

Billions of pounds pumped into schools by Labour have remained unspent or been wasted on expensive contracts, according to the spending watchdog which accuses ministers of failing to hold headteachers to account for their expenditure.

The Audit Commission report, published tomorrow, concludes schools are wasting nearly £1bn of public money every year by “hoarding” it in bank accounts and failing to shop around for the best deals on meals, equipment and cleaning. The intervention will add pressure on the government over its spending plans and decision to delay its long-term spending commitments in the comprehensive spending review until after the general election.

Michael O’Higgins, chairman of the Audit Commission, said: “Schools are not wasting money deliberately, but I don’t think the focus has been enough on economy and efficiency. The focus has been the drive to raise standards – that’s not incompatible with economy and efficiency, but if you take your eye off the ball you lose that focus.”

It comes as the children’s secretary, Ed Balls, prepares to publish a schools white paper setting out plans for an annual report card for schools and a drive to federate high-performing secondaries with lower-performing neighbours.

The report concludes that despite record increases in funding since 1997, when Labour came to power, headteachers have not put all the money to good use. They could save £415m if they negotiated better contracts for the running of their schools and are also sitting on £530m in “excessive” reserves. There has been a collective failure through the system – from schools right up to government level – to emphasise efficiency, the report will say. “If no one is asking ‘could you do this more efficiently, more cheaply?’, you’re not going to be focused on it,” O’Higgins said.

“Individual schools have taken their eye off the ball. If you’ve had resources pumped in, you might not be aware of the last 1% you could be saving. Given the tight financial forecasts, they are going to have to [be aware].”

The report will urge the government to ensure that schools are spending money efficiently.

It should also consult over methods to redistribute school budgets if it isn’t being spent. It could lead to councils clawing back more from headteachers who aren’t using all their funds. It suggests that Ofsted should scrutinise schools’ finances more closely during inspections.

O’Higgins also warned that public spending would have to be reduced in the recession. “Budgets are growing more slowly and schools need to start planning for a more austere future. We believe savings could be made without adversely affecting pupils or their education.”

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “At a time of financial uncertainty, it is sensible to hold more in reserve against the rainy day that we know is to come in 2011.”

Michael Gove, the Tory shadow schools secretary, said his party would make schools “more accountable to parents so that parents get higher standards and value for money”.

Vernon Coaker, the schools minister, said the government expected “local authorities to take action where necessary to ensure … proper value for money.”

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Brown unveils new policy agenda

June 29th, 2009 | No Comments

PM’s Building Britain’s Future proposals attacked for containing ‘rehashed ideas’ and ‘top-down tinkering’

Gordon Brown today pledged £1bn to create 100,000 jobs for young people and another 50,000 posts in areas of high unemployment as he attempted to revive his political fortunes with a new agenda for the government.

But as the prime minister set out a raft of new policy goals for schools, hospitals, housing, transport and the economy in what amounted to a mini-manifesto, he stood accused of announcing some “rehashed ideas” involving “top-down tinkering”.

David Cameron, the Tory leader, branded the Building Britain’s Future document a “package without a price tag” and claimed the initiatives had all been announced before.

Brown had hoped his proposals would establish clear blue water between Labour and the Conservatives in the run-up to the next election.

They contained a series of policy shifts designed to give people more power over public services and were expected to form the basis of Labour next election manifesto.

In a statement to MPs, Brown promised broadband for all by 2012, a new technology innovation fund, and a new push to improve transport infrastructure.

Announcing new measures to create jobs, Brown said: “In the last two recessions tens of thousands of young people were written off to become a generation lost to work, a mistake this government will not repeat.”

From January, everyone under 25 who has been unemployed for a year will receive a guaranteed job, work experience or training place, Brown said. They will be obliged to accept that guaranteed offer or risk having their benefits cut.

And from September every 16- and 17-year-old will receive an offer of a school or college place, training or an apprenticeship.

Brown said the cost would be met by switching some spending to meet new priorities.

An energy bill will pledge support for up to four commercial-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration plants.

There will be a £150m “innovation fund” for biotechnology, life sciences, low carbon technologies and advanced technologies that would encourage up to £1bn in private sector investment.

The government will also treble investment in housing to £2.1bn. Social housing will be reformed so councils give higher priority to local people.

And the prime minister said there would be a guarantee that nobody needing to see a cancer specialist would have to wait more than two weeks and no one would have to wait more than 18 weeks for hospital treatment.

He also pledged to reform the House of Lords, promising a “smaller and democratically constituted second chamber” with legislation in the next session to remove the last hereditary peers.

“We will not walk away from the public in these difficult times,” Brown told MPs.

But Cameron accused the prime minister of “living in a dreamworld”, adding: “When is someone going to tell him he’s run out of money? What world is he living in? … This is a package without a price tag, some rehashed ideas and some top-down tinkering.”

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Cameron: Brown claims black is white

June 29th, 2009 | No Comments

There is a thread of dishonesty running through the government, says Tory leader

David Cameron today launched a blistering personal attack on the prime minister, claiming there was a “thread of dishonesty” running through his premiership.

The Conservative leader stopped short of calling Gordon Brown a liar but claimed the prime minister said “black is white” and his government had “lost touch with morality”.

He described the apparent postponement of the next government spending review as an attempt to “cover up the truth about Labour’s cuts”.

The Tory leader said the move was part of the government’s “pattern of deception” in the recent row over future spending on public services.

Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, indicated today that the government would not set out new public spending plans before the next general election, arguing it was currently impossible to forecast the economy two years ahead.

But speaking at a Westminster press conference today, Cameron said: “Cancelling the spending review is nothing to do with economic uncertainty and everything to do with political manoeuvring.

“It is a blatant attempt to cover up the truth about Labour’s cuts.”

Listing a catalogue of issues on which he claimed the prime minister had not told the truth, Cameron said: “There is now a huge amount of deceit about the government’s spending plans … I believe there is a thread of dishonesty running through this premiership.

“From cancelling the election and then saying it had nothing to do with the opinion polls, to his claim that abolishing the 10p income tax [rate] would have nothing to do in terms of hitting the poor.

“We’ve had his insistence that Alistair Darling is his first choice as chancellor. We all know that wasn’t true.”

Cameron added: “At the end of the day the truth will out. The prime minister is calculating that the public are too stupid to notice it. I have much more respect for the public than that.”

Asked whether he was prepared to go into the next election with the Conservative party proposing public spending cuts while the government pledged to increase spending, Cameron replied: “I don’t care what the government does any more. They can announce cuts, they can announce increases, they can set out whatever they want. Set the whole thing to music and do a karaoke. I have lost faith in a prime minister who stands up and says black is white. We will make our own decisions about what’s right for the country.”

Pressed further about Brown’s claims that a Conservative government would cut spending, Cameron referred to tactics he claimed were being used in the upcoming Norwich North byelection. “When you see the leaflets they have put out I don’t know how the prime minister gets out of bed in the morning,” Cameron said.

“At the end of a government like this I think they have lost not only touch with the public but all sense of morality. They have got to be honest about their own spending plans.”

Asked directly whether he thought Brown was a liar, Cameron said he had chosen his words carefully, but he added: “I have said there is a thread of dishonesty running through the government. We have got someone [the prime minster] who is not being straight with us. I cannot put it any clearer than that.”

During the hour-long press conference the Tory leader announced that from December all member of the shadow cabinet would give up their second jobs, and he published a list of shadow cabinet outside interests as of 1 July. He also challenged Lord Mandelson’s claim this morning that a controversial vote on Royal Mail would have to be postponed due to lack of parliamentary time.

He suggested extending the parliamentary sitting for an extra day to accommodate the debate and said he would look into whether it was possible to allot an opposition day debate to ensure the proposal gets a second reading.

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PM’s council house plan stirs migrant debate

June 29th, 2009 | No Comments

• ‘Local’ people to be given priority for social housing
• Policy sets out rights from education to policing

Local people are to get greater priority on social housing lists, the government is to announce as it discards its former reliance on centrally controlled targets and ushers in new “entitlements” across all elements of the welfare state.

Ending the target culture established by his predecessor, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown will shift evaluation of public services away from Whitehall to the public, saying that people should have entitlements to personal tuition in schools, minimum GP waiting times and access to police working in neighbourhoods.

Though the prime minister plans to hand to the public the power to evaluate whether they have been adequately cared for, details of what redress people will get will follow in another paper, due to be published in the next few months.

The plan – Building Britain’s Future – is likely to form the basis for Labour’s policy platform before the next general election, and elements of it appear to be an attempt to drain support from far-right parties which blame immigrants for housing shortages. In the European elections three weeks ago, the BNP won two seats in the European parliament.

The policy of greater priority for local people in social housing is likely to attract criticism from senior Labour figures that the entire relaunch is an overtly populist package.

When the then minister Margaret Hodge first suggested in May 2007 that council house allocation should be dependent on length of residence and national insurance payment details, the then mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said such a move would be “illegal” and “wrong”. Though Hodge used the same language the government uses now, describing a “legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family” Livingstone accused her of “magnifying the propaganda of the British National party”.

The then deputy leadership contender Jon Cruddas was also uncomfortable with “racialising arguments over housing allocation” rather than concentrating on the need for more social housing.

But the government may avert this with another element of the package, likely to include a wave of construction of social and affordable housing.

The document will make the current 18-week NHS waiting list target an obligation; alongside a right to a free health test for anybody between the age of 40 and 74. At the moment primary care trusts are not obliged to offer either service.

Cancer patients will also be given the right to private healthcare if NHS hospitals can not see them within two weeks, with the bill met within existing funds.

New rights to one-on-one tuition will be extended into early secondary education.

The policy reboot has to be pulled off against allegations of a dwindling set of ideas after 12 years in government, and diminished public funding.

The Tory leader, David Cameron, has called on the prime minister to apologise after he said that capital expenditure would rise every year to 2012, when it will actually fall after 2010. In an interview with the Guardian on Saturday, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne, confirmed that while current or “day-to-day” spending may rise, capital spending would fall after the current burst to kickstart the economy. The environment secretary, Hilary Benn, appeared to suggest on Radio 4′s Any Questions that his department would have less to spend after the next election.

Yesterday the children’s secretary, Ed Balls, told the BBC’s Sunday AM programme the government had to be “defter and smarter”. Balls, who will also publish an education white paper on Tuesday, insisted the government’s spending plans could be met, despite tough conditions.

Balls is adamant that as the economic outlook improves, Labour will be able to “release resources” to key areas. But he did appear to have modified his position, saying: “We are increasing investment this year and next year.”

The work and pensions secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the targets had helped to drive improvements in a range of public services, but that the new strategy was about improving accountability.

She told BBC1′s Politics Show: “Having made those improvements, the next step we now need is to be able to say, ‘okay, those services are now accountable to local people’. Local people should be entitled to things from their health service, from their education service, and that’s how we measure improvements in future.”

Cooper was unable to say what will happen if the entitlements were not met and insisted the new rights were not a “lawyers’ charter”.

Byrne said that the rules might see patients able to commission a greater number of doctors if waiting lists lengthen, neighbourhood police being ordered to hold local meetings, and councils required to find alternative social care.

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Defence black hole ‘may finish Trident’

June 28th, 2009 | No Comments

Big projects must go to save billions, experts say

Defence projects worth billions of pounds, such as replacing the Trident nuclear deterrent, could have to be axed to help fill a “black hole” in the defence budget, senior military and political figures will warn tomorrow.

Overstretch of the armed forces must be ended, according to a report whose authors include the former Nato secretary general, Lord Robertson, ex-Marine Lord Ashdown and former chief of the defence staff Lord Guthrie.

They argue that Britain should no longer struggle to maintain a full range of defence capability like the US and instead consider scrapping up to £24bn of future “big ticket” projects – including two new aircraft carriers, the F35 joint strike fighters designed to fly from them, six new Type 45 destroyers, four new Astute hunter-killer submarines and the replacement of the Vanguard submarines carrying Trident.

The report from the National Security Commission, convened by the thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research, argues Britain still needs a nuclear deterrent but should seek cheaper alternative or patch up the Vanguards.

However, it makes clear that even if unjustifiable spending is axed the defence budget may still need more public money. It calls for boosting the armed forces from 98,000 to 120,000 personnel and the creation of a new stabilisation force to tackle situations like postwar Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yesterday Des Browne, who as Labour’s defence secretary pushed the Trident decision through parliament, welcomed the report, telling the Observer that while it was the right choice at the time to upgrade the system, possible alternatives were now emerging.

“I never, ever thought that the decision about Trident closed the debate down,” he said. He also confirmed claims of a black hole, adding: “There is an order book which outstrips the department’s capacity to pay for it – that’s no secret.”

The report is embarrassing for Gordon Brown, who yesterday marked Britain’s first Armed Forces Day at a ceremony in Kent. He has refused to discuss possible public spending cuts despite the recession and denied that overstretch hampers Britain’s defence capability.

But Guthrie insisted the human costs of underfunding were high: “My concern is that we have soldiers who are dying because of inadequate equipment.”

A spokesman for the MoD said its budget was in the longest period of sustained real growth for over two decades. “Of course, there are always things we could spend a bigger budget on, but our job is to manage within our allocation, recognising that the financial situation is now difficult right across the UK.” The nuclear deterrent was an investment “that as a nation we can and should afford”.

• Scottish secretary Jim Murphy yesterday hit out at “sickening” protests which disrupted an Armed Forces Day parade in Glasgow. Several people were arrested and one person was injured. The protesters, believed to have been an Irish republican group, began chanting during a service in George Square. Murphy said: “These people stand against every value the veterans we celebrated today fought – and died – for and they must know that the majority of Scotland has no time or patience for their vile views.”

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