Osborne's Moody Swings...

George Osborne has now had three tries, in less than a year, at addressing the problems in the economy: the June  2010 emergency budget, the autumn statement and yesterday's full annual budget statement.

Whereas the economy that Osborne took over was clearly the legacy of Alasdair Darling and Gordon Brown, the Chancellor has scorned the efforts of his predecessors and progressively put his own stamp on the economic situation: the economy of today is George Osborne's, and no-one else's.

The economy that Osborne took over was going through a slow and halting recovery with some growth in activity and a slowing of unemployment. Osborne took control with the vow to concentrate on growth. But since he has been in charge growth has stalled and unemployment has increased. Osborne also used the fear of the UK losing its "AAA" rating from the credit agencies as a prime reason for "cut fast and deep" strategy. We were in danger of losing our AAA rating, Osborne warned, and that would severely hamper any recovery by making debt more expensive to service, said George, so we had to be ruthless..

It is therefore ironic in the extreme that both the main credit agencies, Moody's and Fitch, have chosen today to issue warnings about the forecasts for growth that accompany Osborne's budget.

Moody's is clear about the problem:

"Although the weaker economic growth prospects in 2011 and 2012 do not directly cast doubt on the UK's sovereign rating level, we believe that slower growth combined with weaker-than-expected fiscal consolidation could cause the UK's debt metrics to deteriorate to a point that would be inconsistent with a AAA rating," 

Yesterdays' budget was seen by commentators as being broadly neutral: in other words, there would be no noticeable stimulus to the economy and there were no identifiable measures that would provide that growth, and it came on the back of weakening economic figures and pessimistic forecasts.

Osborne told parliament on Wednesday that the UK economy would grow by 1.7% this year, and by 2.5% in 2012, predictions which are still more optimistic than the latest assessment from the OECD, which  predicted last week that the UK would expand by 1.5% during 2011, and 2.0% in 2012.

Fitch, a rival credit rating agency, has already warned that Osborne may have to impose further austerity measures if GDP growth is slower than expected, or if inflation continues to run much higher than official targets.


Standards & Poor, the third main ratings agency, made noises in May 2009 about reducing the UK's credit rating, much to George's approbation.

Wouldn't it be ironic if all of George's efforts to appease the markets were to result in the very rejection by the markets that he has been using as the excuse for his extreme cuts strategy in the first place...???

What you mean "legal" Kemo Sabay?

There's an old Mad Magazine* cartoon of The Lone Ranger and his trusty red indian sidekick Tonto surrounded by hostile natives. The caption reads as Tonto saying: "What you mean "we" Kemo Sabay?".

David Cameron is quoted over on Lord Ashdown's Politics Home blog as saying that the intervention in Lybia is "necessary, legal and right". The question is: what do you mean "legal" Mr Cameron?

There are so many moral and practical dilemmas in foreign intervention. What does "legal" mean in international law? What takes precedence? If an act is legal in your own national law, but "illegal" in international law, can you act anyway?  If an action is not in the interests of China or Russia and they veto it at the UN, the veto makes it "illegal" (apparently), but does that make it wrong? And if the action in Libya had been merely "necessary and right", but not "legal", should we not intervene? Surely if an action is "necessary and right", we should act to address the necessity and right the wrong, and not be hog-tied by the interests of China and Russia?

According to some (not all) opinion, the invasion of Iraq was "illegal", and deeply controversial, because it did not have UN backing. But by the same definition, the Kosovo intervention which raised no such controversy was also "illegal", but it has been deemed a qualified success. And the actions in Sierra Leone were just below the radar: nobody asked if they were legal or not, but they have been effective (so far) in stabilising that country.

On the other hand the long period on Tory non-intervention (some would say indifference) in the Bosnian crisis (before Tony Blair acted on the Kosovo events) was perfectly legal. And the blind eye that the international community turned on the horrific massacres in Rwanda was totally "legal" but, in my view, was immoral and wrong, as well as being immensely cowardly. In Bosnia and Croatia, thousands died "legally". In Rwanda a million and more ( and echoes of the crisis are still reverberating around the region), all of them murdered "legally" according to international law.

So what guide does "legality" give us in this vexed arena? Few would disagree that Gadafi is thug and a menace to his people and the world. But then so was Sadam. And Milosovic. And Taylor. And many others.

Should we have to wait for the UN, which provides extremely unreliable and unpredictable leadership on many of the world's problems, which bends to the will of the world's largest dictatorships, to give us the moral permission to do things that are "necessary and right"?

* could my memory be playing tricks....

Biased BBC.....

...is the call we frequently hear from the SNP and Tories.... A lot of lefties cry our  Conservative friends, wet liberals preparing for a Marxist state..... you often get the impression that many Tories would like to see the back of BBC News and Current affairs... they ask too many pointed question, dont'ye know...

...Scottish establishment Labour stooges, cry the Nats. They're out to do us down at every opportunity and puff up Labour. It'a cosy unionist cabal....

I wonder what the Tartan Tories and the real McCoy would have said if their spring conferences were barred from live broadcast by the BBC? Would Eck speak only to the faithful? Would he heck! Would  Dave travel all the way from Kensington to speak to the yokels if Live TV wasn't on offer. Yoiks to the oiks! he would cry, I'm orff!

Seriously, this is a strange decision by the BBC in Scotland. The excuse (that Labour's autumn conference was covered live) is weak. There wasn't an election campaign on in the autumn but there is now.

I knw that the BBC is committed to "balance", but to cover all the conferernces live, except for Labour, is an extraordinary decision and hardly balanced by any sane definition.

I can just hear Annabel and Eck phoning in their protests to the Controller Scotland: "Not fair my man. Hardly balanced and democratic.. we insist that Labour gets equal treatment with us...".

The Polls Narrow...or do they?

The Herald reports a new ICM Poll for Scotland in which the gap between Labour and the SNP narrows, but with Labour still ahead. An ICM Poll shows Labour on 39% for the constituency vote with the SNP on 35%, and Labour 37%, SNP 34% for the list vote.

"The ICM poll of more than 1000 voters was commissioned by the SNP and shows the Nationalists just four points behind Labour’s 39% in the constituency vote and three behind Labour’s 37% for the list vote."

The Tories are at 12% and 13% for the constituency and list votes – while the Liberal Democrats are struggling on 10% and 9%. The Greens scored 4% and others 7% on the regional vote.

The poll would have Labour on 57 seats, with the SNP on 46.

According to the Herald, in another poll, conducted by YouGov, Labour were on 41% for the constituency vote, the SNP 38%, Conservatives 10%, LibDems 6% and others 5%. I can't find this poll online...UPDATE. Found it thanks to Lallands Peat Worrier.


Nicola Sturgeon welcomed the poll as showing that the SNP were performing better than the actual 2007 election result. But at this time in the 2007 campaign both ICM and YouGov had the SNP ahead by about 5 points in both the constituency and regional votes. Labour in 2011 is well ahead of its 2007 election result and also ahead of the polls at this stage of the campaign. 

The poll was matched by a council by-election in Renfrewshire which saw Labour take the seat from SNP

Labour increased its share of the vote by 17 points. Labours Roy Glen won 49.3% of the first-preference votes, compared to the SNPs 32%.As a result, Labour is now the largest party on Renfrewshire Council (18 seats for Labour, 16 for the SNP).

So opinion polls versus real votes...this stage in 2007 versus today's polls...are the polls narrowing or are they not?


As I said when the previous exclusively Scottish Polls were announced,  it's still all to play for and getting out the vote is crucial. That's still the case.....

Give us the chance....

In 2007 the SNP's pitch was "give us a chance to show that we can govern properly...".

The question is: having been given the chance, have they taken it or have they blown it?

Alex Salmond would claim that they have taken the chance with both hands. The SNP decided to take on the challenge of minority government. They would, they pledgd, be different from other parties in government. They would deliver, and in delivering, they would show that they could be entrusted with power, and indpendence could and would bring a better Scotland.

Have they delivered? Well, they have and they haven't. And where they haven't they have they have made the excuse that they're only a minority, and the other parties have blocked their actions...stymied their policies.

So how do we judge? The obvious place to start is the 2007 campaign and Manifesto. What was the campaign fought on? What were they key pledges that the SNP made to get elected?

There were a number of major issues that the nats gathered votes on. One was the unpopularity of the Labour/LibDem coalition that preceded them. Another was the unpopularity of Labour in London and the prevalent anti-Iraq war sentiment.

The policies that dominated the campaign (at least the policies that I remember) were the NHS and the unpopularity of the Kerr/Kerr changes (which they sold as saving local A&Es and other local hospitals), the abolition of Student Debt, the abolition of "the hated Council Tax", the replacement of "the hated PPP" with a Scottish Futures Trust, class size policy, the promise of 1000 "new" police on the street and the promise to match Labour's school building policy "brick for brick".

On the NHS the SNP kept its promise and abandoned the Kerr/Kerr changes. Whether that was wise is not known, but it was delivery and Nicola Sturgeon has improved her reputation. And the 1000 police looks as if it will be delivered, although the peak numbers will quickly shrink in the next year, so it will bea promise met, but not for long.

But of all the other big promises, they have not delivered on most. They didn't abolish student debt as it turned out that they hadn't done the sums and it was far too expensive. They froze the Council Tax, but didn't abolish it, because their replacement policy of a Local Income Tax was not thought out properly and was never credible. They didn't replace PPP because their replacement policy of  a Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) was never properly thought out and was never credible. The class size policy was not delivered because it was never properly thought out and not credible. And the promise to match Labour's school bulding programme "brick for brick" was never met because they wouldn't use PPP and the SFT (see above) was never a credible replacement.

What all of this shows is that the SNP gained protest votes from the unpopularity of its opponents. And also from unpopular policies which it promised to replace, but largely did not. These were, by and large, "policies" which it used to get votes, but which were never going to work, because they were no more than a line in the Manifesto: "You don't like PPP? Neither do we. You want a Scottish Futures Trust? All right, we've got one here, on the back of this fag packet. Sure, it'll work... trust me, I'm a politician...".

There is one way that I can see to make some sort of judgement. The SNP has a page on its website showing all of its achievenements, and Labour has a page detailing what it calls the SNP's "100 broken promises.

Compare and contrast what the SNP claims as achievements with what Labour claims as broken promises. The decision is yours: do the achievements outweigh the broken promises? Did the SNP take its chance to show it could govern....?

I know what I think, but the lists give you the chance to make up your own mind....

Could this be significant?

Labour has held a pretty steady lead for the last few months on the YouGov daily poll. The lead has fluctuated between 4% and 6%, recently moving to 6%-8%.

But last week there were two days when the Labour lead stood at 11%. Todays poll puts the figures at 45% Labour, 35% Conservative, Lib Dem 9%, giving Labour a 10% lead.It's the first time there has been a sustained consistent 10%+ gap between the two big parties since last year's election.

The Government's approval rating is at -29%.

Allied with the recent Europe-wide poll showing that the UK was the country with least support for big economic cuts, this is bad news for the coalition. When oppositions start to do this wel in polls, governments start changing tack. Look for policy u-turns and cracks in the coalition.

SNP Delusion..

....or should that be lies?

 There have been two SNP party political broadcastss in the last two weeks. One is an all-women presentation and another features a "what has the SNP ever done for us" skit based on the Monty Python  "what have the Romans ever done for us" scene from The Life of Brian. In both of these broadcasts the claim is made that the SNP has built 330 new schools in the last four years.

Common sense tells us that cannot be true: in my own area, after having built five new schools between 2003 and 2007, there have been no schools built in the last four years.... Surely, if hundreds of schools were being built, we would have been allocated at least one... and surely if hundreds of new schools were being built we would not have the employment problems in construction that we do have?

From 2001-2007 Labour (and Lib Dems) at Holyrood provided matching funds to councils to build schools. Holyrood supplied 60% of capital costs of these projects, with councils raising the other 40% usually (I cannot swear for all of them) using PPP.

Under that dispensation, hundreds of schools were built and contracts for signed to design and build new schools .

In the 2007 manifesto Labour promised to build 100 more schools using the same mechanism. The SNP opposed PPP, but promised to match Labour's programme "brick for brick" using the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT). SFT is a proposed new mechanism that the SNP would create for funding and managing large capital projects. It is necessary because the SNP hates PPP, and refuses to use it to fund and manage new contracts.

However the SFT never materialised. There is no new funding mechansim for large capital projects. It never really existed other than an empty manifesto promise. So three years pass and, as the SNP refuses to use PPP and they have no SFT, no matching funds are available from Holyrood and therefore no new schools are commissioned from Holyrood. None. Not one. In all of Scotland.

Any schools "completed" since 2007 already had authorisation and/or funding and/or contracts in place before the SNP came to power, or some may be financed by councils out of their own capital funds. But none are due to the SNP at Holyrood.

In 2010 Holyrood says councils can put 14 secondary and 21 primary schools (approximately, I don't have the exact figures to hand) in their capital plans. That's a total of 30 odd schools for all of Scotland. The matching funding will only be 50% and will not include extraneuos items such as new road formation, school crossings etc that were typically included in the previous allocations.

In December 2010 councils which had been planning to start a school got a letter from the SNP administration saying that the money would no longer be in their capital budget, but instead would be allocated from revenues. And, btw, you have to use PPP to design, build and maintain them!!!!

Councils are still not clear what the switch means, what impact it will have on design and build timetables etc.

The result is that only one (that I know of) schoool has been started with Holyrood money  authorised by the SNP administration (remember brick for brick?). And none will be completed before the May 2011 elections.

The question is: were the 330 schools that the SNP claim to have "completed" (weasel word) since 2007 all authorised before the SNP came to power?  I.e. did the prevous administration authorise the schools, authorise the funding and the contract mechanism, have the project in place and started or ready to go before the SNP stopped all new PPP contracts?  It seems likley that this is that case.

It is clear that none of the 330 schools that have been "completed" since 2007 have been due to anything the SNP at Holyrood did. There was no matching funding from Holyrood between 2007 and 2010, how can there have been new build?

The SNP might say that their claiming to have "completed" these schools is sort-of true. Some of them have been getting built while the SNP has been in Holyrod, but in claiming the credit for "building" these schools, it becomes, in my opinion, a direct lie.

Of course I  might be barking up the wrong tree. Maybe the SNP has built 330 schools since 2007. Maybe the evidence is just not clear and they're too shy to put it into the public domain. Who knows?

So if anyone out there  has a list of these projects, their timeline and funding, then maybe they could send it, or point us to the source. Then we could get to the bottom of the mystery of the mysterious "330 new schools completed" claim. That'd be nice.