Fantasy Political Evening Guests

This weekend I was lucky enough to meet Roger Ward, the author of the book "City State And Nation" - Birmingham's Political History 1830 - 1940. His book is one of my favourites because it offers unique insights into Birmingham's political development and in our brief conversation today he managed to recommend a couple of others and passed on a couple of pearls of wisdom. The briefest of meetings with a real authority on a subject is worth its weight in gold.

As a member of several political groups in Birmingham, the topic of political speakers comes up from time to time. Many of my colleagues seem overly keen on getting leading politicians of the day to come (up from London) to talk, but I find them to be less than candid and often in a hurry. Apart from Roger my short list of the people I would like to have present at one of our local political meetings looks like this.

Dermot Reeve - Successful Warwickshire cricketer, innovator and man manager.
Nick Booth - Community media guru - full of ideas, enthusiasm and delivery.
Clare Short - Always has something interesting to say (e.g. this weekend)
Heather Brooke - The successful open government campaigner.
Jon Moulton - As someone who speaks with clarity about the recession, he is a rarity.

Roger gave me a quiz question which I was unable to answer. Name the last Liberal elected to Parliament from Birmingham? Can anyone get that?

Easter In Wales

At Easter, Wales was the only sunny place in the UK, but fortunately that's where we went. We started at Mellington Hall where my wife and I stayed for a night. Built like a Cluedo boardgame, I imagine that the murder mystery nights they host there are great fun. Its grounds were perfect for a relaxing evening stroll.
Here's a few pictures from the country roads and lakes of mid-Wales.

The perfect reflection at Lake Efyrnwy was a joy.
We ended up at the distinctive Powys Castle near Welshpool which remains inhabited.

Birmingham's Kinda Quiet These Days

Survey Results

The evolution of my blog poll during 2008 has been fascinating. At the start of the year - when all the London teen knifings were in the news - violent crime was right up there. I will give you my quick views on the top 3 in more detail



The Economy

Just two weeks on from a PBR that predicted Q4 economic growth of 0.75%, these government predictions have been shown to be massively and palpably wrong. Similarly bad news is that the new US president is no fan of capitalism and shares Gordon Brown's moronic belief (or is that line of least resistance) that massive additional government borrowing, populist bullying of the productive part of the economy and 'global solutions' are the way out of this mess. In the long run, we will only regain our previous position as a significant economic power by rewarding work and enterprise and massively reining in the size of the state. The actual direction of travel is ominous.

Welfare

Just as getting a job gets significantly more difficult becomes Labour has belatedly recognised that welfare dependency is a bad thing and started to reverse the something for nothing culture that they have defended for the last 11 years. Will the government be offering Norman Tebbit an apology?

Europe

In terms of my poll, this has become less prominent as the year has developed. Is that an air of resignation? The newly re-elected 'leadership' of the Conservative Party in Brussels offers nothing that enthuses me. To say that work on a European reform agenda is embryonic is far too polite. I can't see my efforts to assist the West Midlands delegation being too strenuous in the lead up to May 2009.

Alternative Realities

In the wake of the Mumbai atrocities the Indian Home Office Minister, Shivraj Patil, has emphasised the operational independence of India’s police force and security services.

Meanwhile, here in the UK, following the events surrounding the arrest of an opposition politician, Home Office Minister Jacqui Smith has taken full responsibility for the actions of the police and submitted her resignation.

PBR In A Nutshell

Yesterday, Tories were nervously expecting Labour to steal a tax-cutting march. What Darling finally announced is complex, irrelevant and unaffordable. The main economic effect of the flagship VAT policy will be felt by the big spenders who spend more on goods that attract the full rate. But of course, the massive movements in the updated borrowing forecasts (previously shown by Dizzy to be systematically optimistic) are the most shocking element of the PBR as shown below.



Clearly the 45% tax rate and 0.5% NI rises aren't going to plug the gap. You might reasonably ask where the other future tax rises were in Darling's announcement. They are missing because the government is banking on spending cuts and efficiency savings the likes of which they have never achieved in the past... The message is clear - we're in the shit and our grandchildren will be paying for it.

Increasing The Size Of The State

Most governments would like to spend more and tax less especially when approaching an election. New Labour has been on an election footing since Gordon Brown was crowned leader and (surprise surprise) the size of the fiscal deficit has gone up and up since then. The G20 meeting was of course nothing more than political cover for turning this significant fiscal gap into a chasm.

As well as being politically cynical and utterly irresponsible by passing the tax burden onto future generations, increasing the size of the state is economically damaging. Much research negatively correlates the proportion of government spending in the economy with economic growth.

In Mervyn King, we have a discredited Bank Of England head, who is probably more focused on fighting to keep his organisation independent than tackling the real problems we face. These bank forecasts look like complete fantasy to me. The recession is much worse than policymakers seem to realise. Here in the real world, bad news is accelerating. Gordon Brown seems quite happy. He is a vampire feeding on our misery.

PragueLabour

I remember certain online combatants from the Labour Party threatening to set up Prague Labour identity. It seems that fifth columnist Cynthia Roberts got there before them. Here. Understandably, she denies being an STB spy..

Why Are Labour Attacking Osborne? - To Please The Great Leader

Of course, it's true that Labour high command want Osborne out. Draper, Campbell, Mandelson and every small name Labour whip would all be there claiming credit were he to be moved. And on Labour's left, class war idiots like Bob Piper love nothing more than a mean-spirited campaign against a 'Tory toff', but I find it surprising that acute observers, Tim Montgomerie and Iain Dale have reached the conclusion that ;

1. Labour’s high command’s main motivation is to damage Project Cameron,
2. That motivation is relevant when it comes to picking our top team

I’d criticise point two for being too cynical, but point one for being insufficiently cynical. In my view, the anti-Osborne mob mentality at the top of New Labour comes from trying to please the leader. I doubt many will dispute that there is no Conservative politician who Brown despises more than George Osborne and it is that personal animus that is the primary motivation propelling Labour’s spin doctors and politicians on a collision course with George. Independent thought has been hollowed out of the Labour Party. It's cynical careerism all the way.

I must add that Tim and Iain's defence of George is doing him no favours. David Belchamber, who is my favourite commenter on Conservative Home, concludes that it appears that George retains his post solely because he is a close friend of David Cameron. Outside the Westminster Village, that is a widely held and deeply damaging perception that Tim and Iain are reinforcing. My view is that the Shadow Treasury Team urgently needs freshening up and clarity of purpose. Short-term face-saving is not a justification for delay.

Little Positive Effect!!!

London’s leading shares remained in the red during the afternoon session as Obama's US Presidential election victory had little positive effect on the markets...

As at 9am on Thursday 6th, I reckon the FTSE has fallen about 6% since Obama's coronation...

Since when did little positive effect mean deeply negative?

Obama Milestone

The occasion of the first black US president ranks up there with the first man on the moon as momentous event that will go down in history. It represents more than just a wonderful symbol, but unfortunately I can't help but wish that was all it was.

In Obama, we have an avowed economic protectionist and a foreign policy prevaricator. There will be sops to the left, but having experienced Blair 1997 or Clinton 1992 it feels like we've been here before. I expect Obama's first term to be strong on right-wing rhetoric with a determination to hold the centre ground. Obama's campaign for 2012 starts here.

This will no doubt fall on deaf ears, but is there any chance we can get back to sorting out the UK now?

The Mirage Of Economic Success Under Labour

By 2002/3 New Labour were breaking new records for economic cronyism and incompetence – it was a period in which they pushed supercasinos, 24 hour pub opening and broke free from Tory spending plans. I recall routinely bumping into public sector managers trying to find ways to spend unnecessary budget increases - the period that followed left Labour seeking new ways to disguise falls in public sector productivity. Meanwhile, economic researchers were already wondering aloud whether the productive part of the economy was operating on borrowed time.

UK Personal Lending 2003 – Published December 2002 by Datamonitor

With the UK’s troubled manufacturing sector continuing to underperform, a full blown recession is only being avoided by exceptionally strong consumer credit and soaring house prices, which, in turn, are only possible due to low interest rates and low inflation. However, if consumer confidence fails there is a distinct possibility that the UK economy could slip into recession once again.

UK Personal Lending 2004 – Published December 2003 by Datamonitor

The consumer credit market has defied expectations and produced another record year in 2003, helped on by low base rates, low levels of unemployment and a strong housing market… leaving many to wonder whether the current levels of personal debt are sustainable.

ISN’T IT NOW CLEAR WHAT LABOUR DID?

Labour decided to “avoid recession” by stoking unsustainable levels of personal debt. In the long term, you can only create economic success by improved productivity. This is underpinned by building a cohesive society where work and enterprise is rewarded. Anything else is a mirage. Labour’s policies amount to the same as ever – pure protectionism – the main difference this time is how long they sustained the heresy. Eventually, Labour always wrecks the economy.

UK Personal Lending Reports

Datamonitor produce an annual report on personal lending in the UK. I was having a tidy up and came across their reports for 2003 and 2004. Authoritative tomes, they provide bone-crushing evidence that the "UK credit crunch" was predicted and predictable from way back.

British Banking System - Get Well Soon

RIP or get well soon? Let me give you a personal perspective.

At the age of 26 in 2001, I arrived in the Czech Republic for a two year secondment with Deloitte. On my first day there, an American boss pulled me into his office to tell me the lay of the land. Amongst other things, he informed me that, in his opinion, the Czech government’s woeful/criminal (?) management of the banking sector had cost every taxpayer the equivalent of a year’s salary.

During the 1990s the Czech government had ‘liberalised’ the banking sector without actually privatising it, therein blocking necessary modernisation of the bloated banks and resulting in (ahem) leniency for politically favoured customers. Naturally, this situation eventually led to a pretty nasty banking/currency crisis in 97/8 followed by several “Austerity” budgets.

Fortunately, the Czech Republic did take firm action to restore confidence in the banking sector – ringfencing distressed assets and selling off the large state-owned banks to reputable foreign banks. On a personal level, it was a great opportunity for me as I worked closely with some of these banks attempting to change the organisational culture and develop the skill set to compete in the free market. At the micro level, here are some of the measures the newly private banks took to improve their efficiency.

- Zero-based budgets (i.e. budgets that are based on what needs to be done rather than what was spent last year)
- Staff training on credit management to improve credit decisions, credit valuation and Workout effectiveness.
- Removed time-servers/blockers
- Encouraged entrepreneurial thinking and customer focus
- Changed back office functions from cost centres to profit centres.
- Improved financial reporting
- Enhanced management information (e.g. KPI suites etc)

Look at the Czech Republic’s economic growth data series

1997 0.3%
1998 -2.3%
1999 0.5%
2000 3.6%
2001 2.5%
2002 1.9%
2003 3.6%
2004 4.5%
2005 6.4%
2006 6.4%
2007 6.5%

One of the main lessons I learnt from my first work experience in Czech was that a properly functioning capital market/banking sector is a pre-requisite for a strong economy – almost more important than anything else. This is why when our government takes major stakes in the four major UK banks (apart from the worrying implications/unintended consequences for the rest of the UK banking sector), immediately I want to hear about the states’ exit/re-privatisation strategy. I haven’t heard a thing. People may like to read and learn from this report. If there is an appetite to get the UK back on its feet it may become very relevant in the nearish future.

Broker Updates

PS - The carnage has only just begun.

Proudest Moments

Being a proud Conservative and a proud Brummie I was keen to see that the Conservative conference in Birmingham would reveal both groups in a good light. Thankfully, it has. Daniel Hannan and Matthew Parris showered the city with compliments and the local meeja gave the Tories more coverage than I could have imagined... but what's my proudest recent moment. Finding out that to counter mischievous Tory bloggers Labour Home screen out Prague residents. I am not joking.

Cameron - Pragmatic or Ideological?

A friend of mine is embarking on an interesting piece of research on whether Dave is pragmatic or ideological since becoming leader. Obviously, actions speak louder than words, but I mentioned to him that he has 400,000 words to plough through. I have my own views, but I'd be interested in what readers think.

People Of Faith Not Welcome?

As you can see from their fringe listings, the Conservative Party play host to "prayer breakfasts" during conference - a long tradition, I believe. Go to Labour's fringe listings and marvel at their "no prayer breakfast". It should be an uncontroversial idea that people of all faiths should feel comfortable in all the mainstream parties.

But with the departure of Des Browne and Ruth Kelly from the Labour front-bench, it appears that Labour's leading anti-Catholic MEP Mary Honeyball has got her wish. I'm fairly open-minded on these things (grins), but how can a person of faith possibly support the Labour Party?

Tory Conference Update

I promised some pictures during conference - unfortunately a bag containing my camera was stolen on the Saturday night. It was a successful conference on a personal level - Mark Wadsworth should know what I mean, but everything is a bit of a jumble, so I might blog once I have organised my thoughts.

Me Elsewhere

As local officer for Birmingham University Conservative Future, I will be attending their Fresher's Fair stall at their Guild today at some point between 10 and 4. I've recently written an article for their website - although I didn't choose the graphic.

In anticipation of party conference in Birmingham, I’ve prepared an introduction for delegates. I thought this deserved a wider airing and Tim Montgomerie has kindly published it as a platform piece on Conservative Home.

I have decided to do some picture blogging during conference as I can’t be bothered to exercise the grey matter too much, but, along with the Thunderdragon, Westbromblogger and Andrew Allison I have agreed to do a special piece for The Brummie Republic blog – which is of course a local website. ;-)