REFORM THIS WEEK INC BALLS’ UP & DOWN

Reform – The Week

This
week saw a new realism gripping government as both politicians and Whitehall
acknowledged the need for reductions in public spending. Sir Gus
O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, took the unprecedented step of warning
that there would be sweeping cuts in public services, while Lord Mandelson and
for the first time Gordon Brown
acknowledged that there would be “tough choices”. But a growing number of
commentators, including the Telegraph’s Ben
Brogan and the Times’ Danny
Finkelstein, argued that tax rises would be necessary in addition to
spending cuts to bring the deficit under control. Politicians must be wary of
stunting economic growth as the UK begins to exit the
recession.

Dale
Bassett, Editor

Reformer of the week

Lord
Mandelson, who
acknowledged that “there will be spending choices and a growing need for greater
efficiency across the board, and less
spending in some programmes”.

Reactionary of the week

Professor
Alice Rogers, Vice
President of the London Mathematical Society, for advocating a faux maths A-level as the solution to
widening post-16 maths participation.

Good week for

 

Education
reform

Michael
Gove proposed that academics take a greater role in setting school exams,
and Sir
Cyril Taylor advocated replacing league tables with a much greater wealth of
accessible information. Meanwhile Oxford University’s outgoing Vice Chancellor
advanced the case for the university’s
privatisation.

Crime
kingpins

A new
government report on serious
organised crime proposed that all regions should establish dedicated police
units to fight the growing threat, but offered little in the way of incentives
or funding.

Shrinking
the state

A
report urged Ireland to cut 17,500 public
sector jobs and 5 per cent of social welfare spending to save £4.6 billion a
year.

Bad week for

 

Spending
restraint

Lord
Adonis became the latest Cabinet Minister to argue for ringfenced
spending, while the Centre
for Social Justice proposed unfunded tax advantages and counselling for
married couples.

Accepting
the inevitable

The
Government published a long-awaited look at long
term social care, sensibly resisting the temptation to load the whole
financial burden onto the taxpayer. However the options should be widened to
include greater insurance input.

Green
shoots

As unemployment
breached 2.38 million, the IMF
warned that the UK’s economic recovery remains uncertain and is set to be both
“slow and subdued”.

Quote of the week

“This
week, in a report called Every Family Matters, Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre
for Social Justice repeated its demand, which is now Conservative party policy,
that marriage be recognised in the tax system. It is strange to see
Conservatives, who usually disparage the capacity of government to make the
world a better place, turn into Ed Balls when it comes to
marriage.”

Philip
Collins

Reform’s week

Reform
launched its new report, Productive parents, at an event with Maria
Miller MP and Shirley Conran OBE. The report was covered by BBC
Online,  The Financial
Times, Children and Young
People Now, Nursery
World, Bytestart, The Daily Telegraph,
Community
Newswire, Ask
a Mum, Progress
Online, Mumsnet
and Made
for Mums. Reform’s Patrick Nolan wrote for the Spectator
and ConservativeHome.
Elizabeth Truss
wrote for the Yorkshire
Post and Thomas Cawston wrote for the
Daily
Mail.

 

There
was further coverage of Educators for Reform’s submission to the QCA
consultation on the new Use of Maths A-level, including the Guardian,
Mail,
Liverpool
Daily Post, Press
Association, TES, THE
and Tim
Gowers’ blog. Reform’s report
A new level was also discussed in the Independent
and on
the Guardian
website.

 

Reform
continued to debate the future of public spending, on CentreRight, the
Guardian, the FT,
The World
Tonight (at 14:36)
and
The Week in
Westminster (at
8:40).

 

Elizabeth
Truss, Deputy Director of Reform, appeared in a feature in the Observer.

 

Reform
held a
seminar with Nick Herbert MP discussing the future of water policy.

 

 

DALE
BASSETT
Senior Researcher
REFORM
45 Great Peter Street
London
SW1P
3LT
 
Tel 020 7799 6699
Fax 020 7233 4446
www.reform.co.uk
 
Reform is an independent, non-party
think tank whose mission is to set out a better way to deliver public services
and economic prosperity.

Brown defends ministers over tax

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8062303.stm

I hope he and his Chancellor accord me the same ‘blind eye’ when I default on my tax liabilities

Anant

FIRST IN 350 YEARS – THE SPEAKER AND TWO LABOUR LORDS RELIEVED OF THEIR DUTIES – BUT AT WHAT FURTHER COST TO THE PUBLIC PURSE????

Farewell then

Prickly, decent, lonely, kind – life with Michael Martin

Breaking News – Two Labour Lords on the make suspended. From the gallows?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8060003.stm

WHEN A ROYAL PC IS FORGIVEN FOR RECIPROCATING A NON-PC GESTURE

Yes, this is the pic devoid of PC
protocol – The President greeting a PC with common human touch

LABOUR ROSE – CAN IT SURVIVE WITH ANTI-BLIGHT TREATMENT OR DOES IT NEED ERADICATING & PLANTING A NEW STRAIN – DIVERSITY ROSE?

	Blears attacks Labour’s ‘failure’ Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has attacked the government’s "lamentable" failure to communicate.
	Labour MPs ‘ponder Lib Dem move’ Some senior Labour MPs have talked of joining the Lib Dems if the party loses the election, Lord Ashdown says.
	Clarke in smears row action call Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke calls for a clear-out of ministers and advisers linked to the smear e-mails row. Did the Rose review prune enough? Mike Baker steps back in time to reflect on what the future holds for England’s primary schools.

GORDON BROWN’S MORAL COMPASS?

VIDEO AND AUDIO NEWS

Brown makes e-mails apology

	Labour’s chief ‘met e-mail pair’

Much before the imminent Earth’s magnetic field reversal – this is the reversal of the New Labour Party’s political and moral field. And what compass? The party has lost it’s direction and purpose. It is running around like a headless chicken, which is an insult to the poor chicken, not knowing what if anything it could do to just simply survive? Demise of a party with a needleless compass is inevitable and imminent – unless it is ruthless in implementing root and branch reform.

Open ,accountable and transparent governance does not happen by Blair & Brown sound bites. The Govt has to be exemplary like that of President Obama
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8006597.stm

President Obama’s release of four "torture memos" outlining harsh interrogation methods sanctioned by the Bush administration is the step in the right direction and doing the right thing.

Likewise the politicians have to have experience of the other side of life or what is generally called the University of Life. Spending one’s entire life in Westminster village is not conducive to being "attuned to the public pulse" – another Blair empty sound bite.

Anant

POACHER TURNED GAMEKEEPER SUSPECTED OF INCOMPETENCE

Blair urged to ‘reconsider’ job  by his friend in sleaze Lord ‘cash for honours’ Levy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7930229.stm

Asked if he thought Mr Blair should step down, Lord Levy said: "As a
friend I would say to him, do you feel you have the time, do you feel
you have the tools, to really make a difference in this arena?


What this means is that given that Blair never had the talent nor credibility for it is now seen as an incompetent unable to deliver dodger. Given that Bush’s gift to him for his ‘loyalty’ is wearing thin with Obama and the rest of the World, Levy wants to see his ‘friend in deed’ leave this Global arena with some unblemished credibility that could be salvaged if at all.

http://vyas7.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!47CC3F604E92E3C4!1495.entry

Sunday 8 March: Or could this unusual foresight or even premonition on the part of Lord Levy be attributed to what he knows about "Demands for MI5 ‘torture’ inquiry" 
regarding UK resident Binyam Mohamed claims MI5 fed his US captors questions, at a time he said he was being tortured in Morocco? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7930888.stm

Anant

MINISTRY OF INJUSTICE

The home secretary, Jack Straw, has refused to release the cabinet minutes
in the build-up to the Iraq war. A ruling last month by the Information Tribunal
called for the release of the minutes covering the discussions of the legality
or otherwise of the war.

 

But today Mr Straw is exercising a clause in the freedom of information law
(the first time this has happened) which gives him the power to veto the
tribunal’s ruling – he says that the release of the papers would cause “serious
damage” to cabinet government.

 

But the real question is whether it also shields from public gaze a paucity
of questioning and discussion within the Cabinet about such a momentous
decision.

Note & comment: Of course the release of the info would seriously damage the Govt especially that of the poacher turned game keeper Blair given that he was merely discharging the British obligations owed to the USA for the Second World War funding – which has been given the blanket name of ‘special relationship’. Who would otherwise support a personal vendetta of an American nincompoop hell bent on settling personal score with Saddam?

Whether there were meagre questions or none at all at that Cabinet meeting is not important to know. The important knowledge is that the British Cabinet of the day decided to support Bush’s whim when the entire rational World was hoping that common sense would prevail at least within the British Government’s Cabinet.

Straw has been with Blair since May 1997. By vetoing against the release of the information that the public is entitled to, Jack has used up his Ace and squandered an only opportunity to regain the British credibility by demonstrating the sense of fair play and self criticism. That may well prove to be the last straw.

POACHER TURNED GAMEKEEPER? LABOUR IS NOT WORKING

Rarely has a resignation been so conveniently timed. The exit of Sir James
Crosby just before prime minister’s questions this lunchtime spared the really
awkward questions about this banker turned gamekeeper.

 

The former HBOS boss was fingered yesterday as someone who, in the words of
Vince Cable, was perhaps more part of the problem than the solution when it came
to the banking crisis. Yet he became one of Gordon Brown’s most important
advisers and was appointed to the position of number two at the body charged
with regulating the conduct of banks and the financial sector.

 

Tonight, more on the allegations against James Crosby and his insistence
that he has done nothing wrong. But perhaps more importantly, where it leaves
us. His exit can be seen as perhaps distancing the government from the spread of
blame and culpability when it comes to the banking crisis. Yet it was the
treasury who decided on the level of regulation and appointed the key
people.

 

So given that bankers, regulators and government are all part of the what
might be seen as a systemic failure, who is best placed to look into all this?
Indeed, is anyone doing so? Well, not really.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7884121.stm?lss

POACHER TURNED GAMEKEEPER

Obama gets a blessing from "good friend" Blair

He made a decision that shaped the future of Britain, America and the World – adversely – for ever.

Anant