Choosing the decor

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Sacrosanctity born of tradition is a status which plagues the entire English constitution, under which Wales and Scotland are also obliged to labour - for the time being at least. It’s a status which means that some things (such as the whole of 10 Downing Street) which are “ludicrously inappropriate for running a modern state” are essentially unchallengeable. No-one in their right mind (although that caveat might explain a great deal) would think it reasonable or sensible to run a government from a converted house which now contains a labyrinthine rabbit warren of rooms, which layout gives rise to perennial battles over who gets to sit where and in what degree of proximity to the PM of the day.

No-one in their right mind would believe that a parliamentary chamber with an inadequate number of seats for its membership, where the distance between the two sides is defined by the length of two swords, is really an optimal arrangement for the twenty-first century. No-one in their right mind would devise a system of voting which requires the members to stand up and queue to go through a specified door, sometimes repeating the process for hours on end as the chamber despatches a series of amendments to bills. No-one in their right mind would believe that a second chamber largely made up of appointees, with a sprinkling of others who owe their presence to some favour which an ancient and long-dead relative performed for the monarch of the day, along with a handful of senior clerics from one denomination of one minority religion which only operates in one of the constituent parts of the state, has any sensible place in the modern world. And there are plenty of other examples before we even start on the arcane rituals concerning the head of state. Whilst there is at least some debate about the continued existence and role of the House of Lords, there is not even any serious discussion about the rest of the nonsense.

On the scale of things, deciding what pictures should hang where is a pretty pathetic irrelevance, yet that is where one of this week’s controversies centres. What it was that possessed Gordon Brown to commission a portrait of one of the most divisive figures in modern UK history is one of life’s unexplained mysteries. But the fact that he did, and that the picture was then hung in a prominent position in one of the rooms in Downing Street, has developed – for some – its very own sense of sacrosanctity. The act of having it removed – to where has not yet been revealed – is interpreted by some of the worshippers of the former PM as having “no respect for our history and previous prime ministers”. Still, we should probably congratulate the Tory MP for doing something which few others are currently managing: identifying a difference between Labour and Tory. It might only be about the décor in a “ludicrously inappropriate” building, but we have to start somewhere.

Whatever happened to being tough on the causes of crime?

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In a post a few days ago, I referred to the post-war period when even Tory PMs took pride in the number of council houses built during their period in office. The two decades after the second world war saw the peak of council house building in the UK, and more than half of that time was under Tory governments. It all changed with Thatcher and the ‘right to buy’; there is no doubt that the decline in building new social housing since 1979, coupled with the large scale sell-offs of the 1980s and 1990s, is a huge factor in the housing crisis of the current day.

And yet… Thatcher did actually have a point; she understood the urge which many tenants felt to want to buy their homes, and I think she also (unusually for a Tory; they usually see property as an ‘asset’) understood the difference between a house and a home. I spent most of my childhood living in council houses, and can easily understand that people didn’t just want to own ‘a’ home (a desire which could have been fulfilled by buying a different house), they wanted to own ‘their’ home: the house in which those who chose to buy had often invested a great deal of their own time, effort and money. And it wasn’t just a desire for ‘ownership’, it was also a desire to be free of the paternalistic and pettifogging rules which councils often imposed, rules which didn’t apply to owner-occupiers. Worse, in some areas the allocation of houses was essentially corrupt, with ward councillors having an undue say in the process. I remember canvassing council estates in Merthyr during the 1972 by-election campaign and finding tenants who were genuinely afraid to say that they would support Plaid Cymru, let alone put a poster in the window, in case the local councillor found out. It was just one of the ways in which Labour maintained its hold on the population in parts of Wales in those days.

Wholesale sell-offs, let alone with huge discounts on the price, weren’t the only possible policy response. And sell-offs per se didn’t need to lead to such a huge shortage of social housing, but the sting in the Thatcher tail was the prohibition on councils using the funds raised from sales to build new houses. It also wasn’t the only way of responding to problems of corruption or clientelism in pursuit of political control, but it certainly achieved that. Or at least, I thought that it had, but it seems that old attitudes die hard.

In a classic throwback to those days, one Labour council leader has suggested that whole families of council tenants should be evicted from their homes if children do not inform on people committing knife crime. There can be few who would argue that those who know about knife crime (or indeed, any other type of crime), even if they are children, should not feel a moral obligation to divulge what they know, although the last time I looked there was still a right to silence when questioned by police, even as a witness, and fear of retribution is a powerful motive. But throwing their families onto the street if they refuse to co-operate – a punishment which can only be meted out to tenants, not to owner-occupiers, and therefore emphasises their perceived lesser status in society – is a return to some of the worst aspects of council tenancies of the past, quite apart from being a way of punishing people who have themselves committed no crime. It is not, apparently, official Labour policy, although espousing such a policy doesn’t seem to be a bar to being a parliamentary candidate, and it doesn’t exactly seem a huge jump from official policy which is to fine the parents of children perpetrating anti-social behaviour.

I seem to remember, though, in those far off days when Labour was merely Thatcherite rather than Farage-lite, one prominent leader talked about being ‘tough on the causes of crime’ (such as inequality) as well as on the crime itself. That’s been forgotten, as Starmer's Labour almost seems to be trying to make Blair and Thatcher look like bleeding-heart liberals.

Money trees and Thatcherite myths

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One of the things which has emerged from the Tory Party leadership pantomime to date is the fact that almost all of the candidates (Sunak being the sole exception as far as I’m aware) have remembered that there is a magic money tree after all. Indeed, the rate at which some of them are committing to both cutting taxes and spending more suggests that they’ve found a whole forest full of them. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on what they’re planning to do with all the money that they’re proposing to pick from the heavily-laden branches.

The prospects are not good: as Richard Partington put it in the Guardian, “…planning fiscal policy to woo a narrow group of mainly affluent Tory party members isn’t likely to meet the needs of wider society amid the worst hit to household finances of our times”. It’s a good summary, reminding us that however slick the videos or enticing the promises, they’re not aimed at the population at large, only at that small minority who actually get a vote on who should be the next PM. Initially, that’s the 350 or so Tory MPs in the House of Commons (I’m reluctant to state a precise number, given the regularity with which it is being reduced by further scandals), and then it’s the roughly 200,000 members of the wider Tory Party. By concentrating on using the money which they know can be made available to put more into the pockets of the most affluent, they are merely reverting to type.

I’m sure that they would argue that cutting taxes firstly puts more money in people’s pockets and secondly encourages economic growth, which generates more tax revenue for the Exchequer in the longer term. The first is true, after a fashion. People having more money in their pockets are better able to protect themselves against the cost of living crisis, but that rather ignores two very obvious facts: cuts in taxes are of more benefit to those who pay the most tax, and cuts in taxes do nothing for those whose income is so low that they aren’t paying the taxes in the first place. If the aim is to target help at those most in need, increasing benefits is a far more effective way of doing it. That group tend not to vote Tory though.

The second – about encouraging economic growth – is much more contentious. It’s regularly trotted out as though it were gospel truth, but the idea that ‘tax cuts pay for themselves’ is one for which there is scant empirical evidence, just like the infamous Laffer Curve. What the argument does achieve is a justification for putting more money in the hands of those who already have most and further increasing inequality. It gives a specious veneer of apparent theoretical and academic validity to those who merely want to fill their own pockets and those of their supporters.

Sunak, on the other hand, is standing up for the traditional Thatcherite myth that there needs to be an equivalence between spending and taxation. Strangely, he still seems to be the bookies’ favourite, despite making an argument which runs directly contrary to the personal financial interests of those with a vote in the contest. (He’s also backed up, apparently, by the Labour Party, whose leader has referred contemptuously to “…more than £200bn of unfunded spending commitments” made by the contenders over the weekend. That may make Starmer and Sunak the last true Thatcherites.) Maybe he’ll win anyway, but the more venal instincts of the membership appear more likely to win out.

That could leave us with the second favourite, Liz Truss. She has received a surprising compliment from Dominic Cummings this weekend. Having previously described her as being “about as close to properly crackers as anybody I’ve met in parliament”, he has now opined that, of the candidates so far declared, “at least 1 is more insane than Truss”. Whether Truss will see that as some sort of endorsement is doubtful, however; and the suggestion that multiple candidates are mad is certainly not very reassuring for the rest of us. Always assuming that the opinion of Cummings on the madness of other people is worthy of any credibility anyway.

Johnson and Thatcher aren't so different

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It has often been said that Boris Johnson and Margaret Thatcher are very different, and in some of the things Johnson says (albeit not necessarily in what he does) there is certainly a difference of tone. There is, however, one important similarity, and Brexit is highlighting that. It’s not that Thatcher would have agreed with his policy over Brexit – for all her scepticism about the European political project, there is little doubt that she saw the single market as a huge achievement, and one which she pushed as much as anyone. I doubt that she would be over-impressed by the way in which her successors have thrown her baby out with the bathwater. But it isn’t that which makes them similar – it is, rather, the way in which both set out to make changes which would become ‘permanent’ (or as permanent as possible) and their willingness to sacrifice anyone and everything in the pursuit of that aim.

No objective observer can really believe that the Brexit which is being delivered is the one which the Brexiteers promised; the more time has passed since they achieved the referendum ‘victory’ the more extreme has become their interpretation of what Brexit meant. And no-one can really deny that the ‘deal’ which was delivered is having a severe impact on businesses, communities and individuals; we are seeing reports like this one and this one on a daily basis. Some Remainers seem to believe that all we need to do is reverse Brexit and all will be well again, but it won’t. Those who have invested in moving all or part of their business to the EU, those who have redesigned their supply chains, companies which have found alternative routes from Ireland to the European mainland – none of these are going to reverse their decisions just because the UK changes its mind. They are long-term decisions, not just responses to a temporary problem. So, when the Foreign Secretary declares that we need to allow ten years to see the effects, he knows exactly what he is saying. In ten years, the changes will have become so great and so well-established that anyone campaigning against re-entry to the EU will be wholly justified in arguing that it will not be a simple solution to the economic malaise which Brexit created. All they need to do is lie and bluster their way through the next ten years and the changes which they are pushing through will be as ‘permanent’ as any of Thatcher’s. They’re quite willing to ignore and deny all the negative impacts in the meantime.

The big question, of course, is whether the opportunities which they said existed outside the EU actually exist in the real world, or, rather, whether they exist to such an extent that they will make up for the economic damage caused by Brexit. There can be little doubt that there will be some opportunities, even if what they are is currently less than clear. But many of the opportunities that the Brexiteers believed would exist depend on assumptions which they have made all along about the willingness of trading partners to accept goods and services from a country which deliberately sets out to undercut them on price by undercutting them on standards such as environmental protection, workers’ rights and so on. That assumed willingness, combined with an unshakeable belief in the special and unique nature of the UK, was the basis of the wild – and now provably inaccurate – claims about the wonderful deal that the EU would give the UK. There is little evidence to date that it’s going to be any more reliable a basis for dealing with other countries than it was for dealing with the EU.

It doesn’t matter, though. Ultimately, Brexit was an ideological project for its most zealous fans; those who bought into the idea that it would bring economic advantages were merely fellow-travellers or what Lenin would have called ‘useful idiots’. Charging ahead regardless of the damage caused is what ideologues do; expecting mere facts to change their opinion is wholly unrealistic. In ten years, the economic position of the UK will be almost unrecognisable – and there will be no easy way back. It’s easy to criticise the lies and bluster, but they’re achieving their objective of making Brexit a decision which is difficult to reverse. Jobs, businesses, and communities are just so much collateral damage. Johnson’s Conservatives aren’t as different from Thatcher’s as many seem to think.

How will you pay for it?

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When it comes to political manifestos, I struggle to work out which is the silliest – asking that question, or trying to answer it.  But that doesn’t stop them.  Having ‘fully-costed’ manifestos is, it seems, de rigueur, even if it’s economic nonsense, and yesterday’s Labour manifesto was a case in point.  I can’t remember when or how it became necessary for parties to explain in detail both the cost and the method of financing of their policy proposals, but I suspect it’s a consequence of the Thatcher years when a political ideology contrary to the interests of the many was promulgated by the simple expedient of pretending that government spending is like household spending, and must always balance out.

It’s a simple enough comparison to make, and it’s counter-intuitive to argue that it’s nonsense, which is why it has taken hold to the extent that it has.  The press and broadcast media promote the ideology by default – whether because they are biased towards it, see it as in their own best interest, are innumerate, or are just plain lazy is an open question.  It doesn’t really matter why – the effect is that parties have become so afraid of challenging the established wisdom that they seek to comply even if at least some of those involved realise how silly it is.

So, yesterday was Labour’s turn to answer the silly question and explain how they will pay for one of the boldest manifestos put forward for many a year, so they duly gave an appropriately silly answer.  Oh the numbers certainly add up, it’s just that they’re based on so many unstated assumptions as to be completely meaningless.  The government, with all its statisticians and experts, has only just been able to tell us what the rate of inflation was last month, and nobody knows what the actual rate of economic growth is until after the event either.  And that’s without throwing in uncertainty over exchange rates, Brexit, and unexpected events which are, by their nature, unforeseeable.  Yet producing a ‘fully-costed’ manifesto requires all of these things to be known for the next five years in advance.  It’s impossible; figures which can only be, at best, rough estimates based on a whole range of assumptions are being bandied around as though they are gospel truth.

Since being elected in 2010, and again in 2015, the Tories have borrowed hundreds of billions of pounds more than they said they would.  This is equivalent to hundreds of billions of pounds’ worth of uncosted expenditure compared to their manifesto promise, yet few of the media so keen to pin down Labour and other opposition parties seem to bat an eyelid over that.  Politicians can get away with uncosted expenditure as long as either a) they don’t predict it in advance, or b) they’re Tories, apparently.  But having said that, I should make it clear that it’s the hypocrisy and double standards to which I object, not the borrowing itself.

Borrowing, despite all the rhetoric, actually makes sense at a time when people are queuing up to lend money to the government at what are, effectively, negative real interest rates.  They don’t call it lending to the government, of course – they call it investing in NSI products, or buying government bonds.  But whatever they call it they are in fact lending money to the government, and are currently willing to go on doing so.  Labour’s talk of increasing borrowing not only makes economic sense, it’s a welcome change from the ideological straitjacket.  My main criticism would be that they’ve tried to put a firm figure on it, rather than simply stating that they will borrow whenever it makes sense to do so.

There’s an interesting analysis here of borrowing over the years by Labour and Conservative governments respectively.  It clearly shows that the rhetoric generally being used is at variance with the truth: overall, Tory governments borrow more and Labour governments are actually better at repaying debt.  One possible (and counter-intuitive interpretation) of this is that, actually, the Tories really are better at economics than Labour, and that, despite what they say, they have a willingness to borrow as and when appropriate – we just need to judge them on what they do, rather than on what they say they will do.  It isn’t the only possible interpretation however, and it would be a far too simplistic one.  A more detailed analysis of the difference in circumstances facing governments of the two parties would be too lengthy for this post.  It’s enough for the time being to indicate that knee-jerk criticism of Labour for planning to borrow owes more to spin than to good economics.

Mythical centres

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Talking about the political centre is easy, but defining where the ‘centre’ lies is far from being a straightforward task.  Looking back at UK politics over the past seventy years, it is obvious that the centre has been more or less continually moving, pulled either to the right or to the left by the political forces of the day.  Insofar as ‘centrism’ is a political philosophy at all, it is first and foremost about winning elections rather than about what politicians do after winning them.  It’s an oversimplification, but perhaps not much of one, to say that there are times when strong politicians from the left or the right shift politics in one direction (Thatcher comes to mind); the ‘centrists’ (and Blair comes to mind) simply accept the new settlement and attempt to work within it.

So it came as no surprise to see Blair last week stressing anew that ‘Centre-ground voters still hold the key to winning elections’ in a story that appeared in a range of papers.  It’s no different from what he’s been saying for years.  What was more interesting, though, were the comments later in the piece, where he argued that “…I think if the centre is not muscular then the extremes gain”.  This is close to being the opposite position to that with which the article started.  Standing things on their head is something else to which he is not a stranger, but he’s more or less gone from arguing that elections can only be won from the centre to arguing that they can be won from the left or right if the centre isn’t strong enough.

The centre has moved from being an essential place for anyone wanting to win an election to a bulwark against those who might otherwise win.  It’s an attempt to turn the centre from a pragmatic tactical position into some sort of coherent political philosophy – a version of his infamous ‘third way’, I suppose. 

But that bring us right back to where we started.  The problem with his third way, and with political centrism in general, is that it can only be defined in terms of what it isn’t – as a rejection of what lies to either side of it.  In the immediate aftermath of the second world war, the UK ‘centre’ moved decisively towards the left, led by a strong and committed Labour Party.  There was a consensus around the welfare state, for instance, which lasted for decades.  There was some toing and froing in the Heath/Wilson years, but the decisive break with that consensus came in the 1980s. 

The great shame of the Labour Party is that it allowed itself to be taken over by ‘centrist’ careerists who fell into a new consensus with the Tories.  It suits those concerned and their successors – largely in the parliamentary Labour Party – to argue that the party’s current internal debate is a diversion from the important business of winning elections, and to close off debate about possible alternatives.  But as Blair has effectively admitted – and as UK political history has shown - elections aren’t always won from the centre ground, wherever that may be at the time.  It’s just that wining them from elsewhere requires a party to have a strong and clear commitment to an alternative view.  The problem is that so many in Labour really don’t want the party to do that – they’re actually happy to allow the Tories to continue moving the ‘centre’ in their own direction.

Perhaps they just haven't noticed...

Tweet I was a member of the housing committee of what was at the time the Vale of Glamorgan Borough Council when the Thatcher government introduced the so-called “right to buy” legislation.  It was a piece of legislation about which I have always been rather ambivalent.

On the one hand, it was clear from the outset that what was a popular and populist policy in the short term would lead to a shortage of affordable houses to rent in the longer term – an outcome exacerbated both by the generous discounts on offer and the rule that the capital receipts could not be used to build new houses.  And one of the motives behind the policy was always to take the state – even the local state in the form of local councils – out of housing completely.  It was a piece of dogma more than anything else.

On the other hand, as someone who was also at the time living in a council house with his parents I also understood why so many tenants wanted to be able to buy their homes.  Thatcher, for all her faults, seemed to understand the difference between houses and homes in a way that many others in her own party – to say nothing of those in other parties – did not.

It was never simply about becoming a property owner or getting a foot on the housing ladder; it was about enjoying the use of the home without the restrictions which council tenancies often included.  People tend to forget how paternalistic the attitude of many councils was at that time towards their tenants.

The suggestion recently by the Tories in Wales that they would enable councils once again to build significant numbers of council homes, and would also amend the right to buy legislation in such a way as to ensure that a new home was built for every one sold, is something of a welcome conversion.  There is no sign however that they have really thought through the implications.

It’s an eye-catching headline policy, but I haven’t seen the financial detail which explains how you bridge the gap between the reduced price at which an existing house is sold and the higher price at which a new one would be built.  Nor am I entirely convinced that there is not still an ideological aversion to council ownership of homes amongst the party’s leaders, even if the Welsh branch is saying something different (or perhaps Andrew RT Davies’ bosses simply haven’t noticed his statement yet).  But since, in practice, the probability that they will ever be in a position to implement this policy in Wales is so remote, I guess it’s not something we need particularly to worry about.

Following, not leading

Tweet Tony Blair’s very public message to Ed Miliband not to turn left is a timely reminder of the way in which new Labour became the natural inheritor of Thatcher’s political legacy.  But I found his message both confused and confusing.

He seemed to be stressing the need to show leadership, but warning against taking a clear alternative position on just about anything – as though the question of leadership can and should be completely divorced from the question of direction.

There was one part of what Blair said in particular, which very much distanced him – albeit probably unintentionally – from Thatcher’s approach, although not from her ideology.  He said that British politics has not moved to the left and that there is no appetite for such a move.  It is most un-Thatcher like to seek to follow, rather than lead opinion.

When Thatcher led Britain to the right during her period in office, she didn’t do so on the basis of any pre-existing consensus of which she merely took advantage.  She did so on a proactive basis.  And I’m not convinced that her election in 1979 had much to do with any shift in political opinion; it was more to do with despair and desperation at the dog end of the disastrous Callaghan administration.  It was an election which it would have been difficult for any Tory leader to lose, regardless of ideological position.

Within the limited political spectrum of UK politics, what Thatcher showed was that a determined Prime Minister could create political change and shift opinion rather than merely responding to pre-existing opinion.  Yet, doing that in the other direction is precisely what Blair is warning against.

A point which I’ve made many times in recent years is that you do not change public opinion – on any issue – by reflecting current opinions rather than challenging them.  Reflecting opinion helps parties to win elections, but it doesn’t bring about change.  Following Blair’s advice is the best way of securing the Thatcher-Blair legacy; but then I suppose that’s what he was trying to achieve.

Unpicking the legacy

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I’m a regular user of the railway between Carmarthen and Swansea.  But for the last two weeks I’ve been unable to use that rail service due to work taking place to redouble the track at Gowerton.  (MH at Syniadau has a nice picture of the new bridge here).  Today, for the first time, I’m back on the railway using the new bridge and track.  The timing is somehow appropriate.

It was in 1986 in an act of short-sighted vandalism that the government of the day decided to rip up the other track on that particular route.  I’m pretty certain that Margaret Thatcher never actually did say the words attributed to her in 1986 namely “A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure”, but it was certainly a reflection of the attitude of the government of the day towards public transport .

It is easy though, far too easy in fact, to blame one individual for taking particular decisions that we don’t like.  It seems to me that the real “triumph” of Margaret Thatcher, if such it can be called, was not so much in what she and her government did, but in the shift in the political climate which they brought about.  The wholesale adoption of many of the Thatcher government’s policies by Tony Blair and the rest of new Labour's 'modernisers' in the pursuit of power ensured that her legacy long outlasted her reign.

It has taken 27 years to unpick one small part of the legacy of that particular era.  How much more there is still to do. 

Houses and Homes

Tweet The announcement by Cameron that council tenancies will be of limited duration in future rather than for life seems to have ruffled a few feathers amongst his coalition partners. It is, though, a natural continuation of the basic hostility to council housing which Thatcher displayed with her 'Right to Buy' legislation, but without the underlying understanding of people.

I was always a bit ambivalent about the 'Right to Buy' legislation, to be honest. On the one hand, as a member for part of the 1980s of the Housing Committee of the Vale of Glamorgan Council, I could see at first hand the effect that it was going to have on our ability to house people. But on the other, I also understood very well how appealing the idea was to a large number of the tenants on the two small council estates where I grew up.

Whilst Thatcher may well have been motivated primarily by reducing the quantity of local government housing, and reducing the power of local government in general, she also touched a chord amongst tenants. It is sometimes too easy for us to overlook that. It was a skilful piece of politics, which encouraged people to put their own immediate interests ahead of longer term collective interests. (And that's actually a neat summary of what 'Thatcherism' was really about – and the impact it's had on society.)

It pleased her party's right wing, of course, and I'm sure that Cameron's announcement will have done likewise. But there, the similarity ends. Thatcher saw families living in and wanting to own their homes, and offered them a large carrot. Cameron seems only to see an insufficiently mobile labour force occupying publicly owned dwelling units, and is trying to wave a large stick.

He's not only wrong – it's not even clever politics.

Old vinegar in new bottles

Tweet Cameron got a lot of coverage for his speech yesterday, and superficially it sounded as though it was full of new and different ideas. But even having worked through the full text, I still feel that there was a lack of hard detail. It read - as I suppose it was intended to - like one of Tony Blair's speeches; full of juicy sound bites, lacking in any real bite.

On the one hand, he talked a lot about devolving power – but managed to do so without once mentioning either Wales or Scotland. He did say that "We're going to get rid of pointless and unaccountable regional government and bureaucracy"; but my guess is that this was a speech intended primarily for English consumption, and that we shouldn't read too much into that.

Indeed, much of the speech dealt with matters which are devolved in Wales and Scotland, and it's still entirely unclear whether the Tories can or would try to foist these policies on Wales and Scotland at all. Again, he's not really aiming at a Welsh or Scottish audience is he? He knows he'll lose here whatever he says.

And although the content seemed to be new and fresh, some of it was just the madcap ideas of Thatcher and Joseph recycled and relabelled for a generation with a different zeitgeist. Old vinegar in new bottles.

"Choice" is a word which the Tories have used a lot in the past in relation to education; no real surprise to see it re-appearing. It sounds a bit motherhood and apple pie; it's hard to disagree with the idea of giving people choices, but neither is it clear how that would work, particularly in rural areas such as Wales. I'm for having all schools up to scratch in the first place – and that's a policy which, unlike the idea of 'choice', is as relevant to rural areas as urban ones.

Taking "… power over children's education out of the council's hands…" sounds an awful lot like the failed policy of school opt-outs. And giving any group that wants to the right to set up new schools sounds a lot like the Labour policy which has led to academies being founded by creationists amongst others.

Fixed term parliaments was one of the headlines; and I'd support that. But, for all the attention that one grabbed, he didn't actually promise to do anything more than think about it. I suspect that it's one of those things that appeals to him as an opposition leader but will quickly be dropped if he gets to No. 10.

PS I was pleased to see him having a go at "...bankers reaping their bonuses despite breaking the economy...". Pity he didn't extend his condemnation to political parties largely funded on the profits of wrecking the economy.

Rehashed Thatcherism

Tweet I was a bit surprised by Glyn Davies’ post today on Cameron’s big speech. Surprised for two reasons actually.

Firstly, because I really didn’t think that Glyn did sycophancy. Secondly, and more importantly, because it looks as though Cameron is starting to do what he’s steadfastly refused to do to date – by which I mean define what he stands for. And purely from reading Glyn’s account of the speech, I can certainly see why he’s been avoiding it to date.

Glyn says that the basic premise was that "We need to start living within our means". Now where have I heard that before? Oh yes, I remember. That was the homely way in which Maggie Thatcher introduced us all to the ‘pleasures’ of monetarism. That, of course, was the creed which led to the demise of much of Wales’ heavy industry.

They are also going to attack the ‘bloated’ state, apparently. Reducing the size of the state means one (or both) of two things; cuts in services and cuts in jobs. During the Assembly election, the Tories locally were keen to show their support for the workers at HMRC threatened by job losses as a result of Gordon Brown's Civil Service cuts. A little dishonest from a party which is planning even larger cuts, isn't it? Mind you, in all fairness, I have to say that it sounded less than sincere at the time.

It seems that Mr Cameron also wants more ‘choice’ in public services. Another message with echoes from the past. Wasn’t it ‘choice’ which gave us the internal market in the health service? And the idea of opt-out schools?

As I always suspected would be the case, it’s going to be difficult to tell the new Tories from the old ones. And it underlines the case for an early referendum on a parliament, so that Wales, like Scotland, will be able to opt out of the re-hashed Thatcherism which Cameron is promising us.

I said earlier that I could see why Cameron had avoided defining any sort of position to date; what I can’t understand is why he’s starting to let the cat out of the bag now. Does he really think victory is that certain that even revealing the truth about the Tories can’t stop him?