Why Are You A Liberal Democrat?

The party has released a video asking the question "Why are you a Liberal Democrat?" of a whole load of our MPs and Lords. (Hat-tip to Politics Home for drawing my attention to it)



It's interesting, and characteristically liberal, I suppose, that for every person asked, a different answer is forthcoming, and yet at the same time, a good picture of what the party is about is built up. I particularly like the typically understated final word from Paddy.

What would your answer to this question be?

Done Seen Watchmen

James Graham has posted a good, thoughtful review with which I am 99% in agreement here, so I won't put myself to the trouble of writing anything similar. Instead, here are a few random thoughts.

1. For goodness sake, Jon, put some pants on. I know he's naked for most of the graphic novel, but there's... what... five frames that actually show proper full frontal nudity? In the film, it's every five minutes.

2. Many films invite the use of a particular line as a one-line review. Watchmen, it occurred to me, does this in the form of Jon's line "they're making me into something gaudy", which seemed to me curiously appropriate.

3. Several of the scenes seem to run on rather too long, mostly because the makers of the film are rather enjoying the song they've decided should accompany it.

4. Generally, the pacing is such that I'm not entirely sure if the film is too short or too long. If they had to cut a bunch of plot strands from the original, in an otherwise very faithful film, then couldn't they have kept some of it by not being quite so self-indulgent? The titles take about ten minutes, for goodness sake.

5. Couldn't the New Frontiersman have become just a regular newspaper or something? Is there really any point introducing it in the last minute of the film?

6. Despite the plot weirdnesses introduced by the changes, as James describes, I do rather like the new ending.

7. Chopping arms off. Grow up, folks. What, exactly, did that add?

8. Supposedly Terry Gilliam thought it would make a better miniseries. I think I'm inclined to agree with him. That way, you could have kept the sequence of examinations of each main character in an episodic format.

9. I quite like most of the actual acting and stuff.

9a. Rorschach doesn't sound like that. Sorry.

10. Most of the film's technical aspects are pretty good, too. The sound design and photography is lovely, and the set design remarkably faithful to the book.

11. It's just a shame that the film's writer and director clearly value gratuitous shock value over the character examination of the book.

Vince Interview Part 3

And so we come to Game Theory, and the story that appeared in the FT, Graun and BBC a couple of days ago (on the day of the interview, in fact). I lobbed Vince a nice soft ball, inviting him to make any comments about the story. His response was that he was quite cross about the story's appearance; he feels that it's a silly story that has been somewhat manufactured by a journalist who saw some mind maps on a white board in Vince's office. Vince told us that the mind maps weren't actually about a hung parliament at all, but were about "economic research". He regretted that the story had been picked up, because it has apparently "upset a few people", presumably the party's press handling wing.

All of which is fine, but it doesn't entirely explain the story that appeared. I'm quite prepared to accept that the mind maps bit might be wholly unrelated to thinking about a hung parliament, but nevertheless, the story did make itself out to be based on more than just the mind maps thing. So... I dunno what to make of it, really.

Richard was up for another go next, asking about the sale of the Royal Mail: Is now (the bottom of the market) a good time to sell it? Vince was broadly supportive of some of Mandelson's aims in the legislation he proposed, in particular the correcting of earlier mistakes in the government's handling of the Royal Mail. He pointed out that the new legislation would mean much less "cherry picking" of the Royal Mail. Vince also feels that there is a role for private capital in the Royal Mail, but not in the Post Office, which should be national. Having sounded not-wholly-unopposed to the government's plans, however, Vince did say that John Thurso's series of tests for the legislation probably weren't going to be met, and that therefore we would likely oppose the legislation. The tests are all the usual Lib Dem stuff about worker shareholding of the Royal Mail, etc.

Next Alix, with the excitement of Howard Dean's speech still ringing in her ears (and her conference luggage still sat at her feet), was interested to know Vince's reaction to Dean's reaction to her question to him.

Ahem. I'll try that again.

Howard Dean doesn't really like over-targetting resources, and thinks we need to do everyone the courtesy of at least asking for their vote. What does Vince think about this? Well, it turns out that Vince thinks we're not running a presidential campaign, and that our FPTP system forces us to ensure a "base" of support, so Dean's advice could be taken too far. Having said that, Vince seemed in tune with the optimism of Dean's approach, pointing out that almost all Lib Dem seats were no-hopers at some point, and that usually it's just a matter of gnawing away until a tipping point arrives. Often, it's very much down to the right individuals getting things moving. There are many areas where we don't really have much presence in the way of councillors, and yet we do have a lot of members.

Jo wanted to know what Vince felt was good and bad about the experience of being a PPC. Vince, lest we forget in the glare of his current glory, stood three times for the party before being elected: twice in York, and once in Twickenham, the seat he eventually won. He began this process, he says, quite naive, believing that getting elected was all about making "a few good speeches" and raising a profile that way. He quickly came to appreciate the importance of canvassing, getting out the vote, and all the other bits and bobs that go with winning elections. He emphasised the importance of building a good team - it's not just an individual effort.

Lastly, Mark asked what Vince's attitude to his "glamorous appearances" at various dinners was. Were they targetted? Essentially, the answer was that it tends to be "first come, first served"; Vince tries to play the target seats game, but finds it in some ways more interesting and heartwarming to stray from this beaten track and visit the aforementioned local parties with little elected presence, but nevertheless a reasonable membership. Vince is something of an enthusiast for such local parties, and tries to visit them if he can fit it in whilst visiting a target seat, because it's quite possible that a nice dinner with Vince could be what a local party needs to get itself off the ground.

And on that optimistic note, our time with Vince was almost up, leaving just enough time to take a picture. And here it is, complete with bizarre Portcullis House carpety wall hanging:


Bonus points available for correctly identifying me as the one who doesn't look like Jennie, Mary, Jo, Helen, Vince, Mark, Alix or an elephant.

David Cameron's Homophobic New Friends

Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard has pointed out that the parties that the Tories are proposing to ally themselves with in the European Parliament include the Polish Law and Justice Party. He points out that one of the party's MPs made the pretty interesting remark: "Obama is an approaching catastrophe. This marks the end of white man's civilisation."

Their founder is also a climate change denier, quoted as saying that "Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so."

A quick scout round the internets produces some more interesting information. The co-founder and current chair of the party, Jarosław Kaczyński, has, for instance, been quoted as saying that "The affirmation of homosexuality will lead to the downfall of civilization." This, just to be cheap for a second, from a man who is unmarried and lives with his mother.

Meanwhile, the Tories have been hiding behind Kaczynski's twin brother Lech, who is the current President of Poland, pointing out that he has disowned the remarks made by one of their MPs about Obama.

Maybe, but the charge of a homophobic party is rather less easily shrugged off. Lech Kaczyński himself, on a state visit to Ireland, was quoted as saying that the human race "would disappear if homosexuality was freely promoted". In march last year he broadcast a video of a gay American couple's wedding on Polish national television, to warn the nation that supporting the Lisbon Treaty, and therefore the EU Charter of Human Rights, would mean that same-sex marriage could come to Poland.

Make no mistake, this party has made homophobia a centrepiece of its identity.

If the Tories think it's unfair that people are mocking them for leaving the EPP Group in favour of joining forces with Europe's nutters, they've got some explaining to do.

Vince Interview Part 2

You join us, dear reader, sat around a table in a room in Portcullis House, wondering whether to eat another donut, and talking to Vince Cable. If you want to know how this came about, read part 1.

Next to ask a question was Millennium's daddy, Richard. He wanted to know about the Euro, and whether it was likely that the recession would unify the Eurozone or split it. Vince didn't really know, so he said so; it'll all come out in the wash. The question then is, how do we, the UK, react, and how do we stand to fare in the meantime. Vince was cautiously pessimistic about the verdict of the international currency markets when assessments of the UK's position are made, including the toxic assets that we have now taken on. It may not be good.

With that in mind, Vince reminded us that he and Nick Clegg are "well disposed" to the Eurozone, and hinted that the grass which Chris Huhne was said to have kicked the Euro into a little while ago might not be quite as long as some had imagined. If the Euro turns out to have weathered the recession well, the issue of our joining it should be revived.

Helen was up next, and asked Vince about blogging, and why he didn't do it. Vince's response, perhaps unsurprisingly, was "time", and priorities. Vince has spent a good deal of time on the MSM recently, and, whilst he recognises that the print media in particular are a sinking ship, he obviously doesn't feel it's time to cut our losses and run for the cyberspace dry land just yet. He also felt that he already got quite enough contact from people writing to him, and wasn't blogging likely to encourage more? Having said that, he was open to the idea, and praised Lynne Featherstone's efforts to persuade him of the merits of blogging.

Mary tried to offer encouragement, in the form of the information that her site gets a higher readership than Vince's constituency site does. She suggested that blogging was a good way to drive up readership of a site. Vince seemed interested in this - what was it about blogging that did this? The answer, of course, is regularity. If you can spend half an hour a day on a press release, you can spend it on writing a blog post, and with any luck, the press will just lift quotes from your blog instead. Vince pointed out that he already does post up all the press release type material on a daily basis, to which the response was that a more personal feel to the blog was key to its appeal.

It's for this reason that I have to say, personally, that I suspect if anything blogging would reduce the correspondence that Vince's office has to deal with, because the more people feel that they have real contact with someone online (the great strength of blogging), the less motivated to contact them by other means they become.

Into this mix, Alix added the observation that the LDV fringe event at conference, at which several people from the US Democratic party had described techniques that worked for the Obama campaign, had a real focus on personal stories: canvassers on the doorstep were encouraged to simply tell their own stories, of what had motivated them to get involved with the campaign. The benefits of blogging stem from the importance of the personal in politics. At least, I think that's why that was relevant!

Jo was next, for the question that we all sometimes worry about as Lib Dems: is Vince's approval rubbing off on the Lib Dems sufficiently? What could be done to improve this? First off, Vince didn't really buy any argument that the Lib Dems are especially weak at the moment, looking at where we have often been at similar points in the election cycle. In any case, he tries always to get a mention of the Lib Dems from his appearances, but he also feels that it's important not to be too tribal in his punditry, otherwise people simply wouldn't come to him for it at all.

Jennie recalled that when people tell her Vince should be leader, she's not convinced, because then we would be back in the situation that the party has fought to escape from, which is that we are perceived as a one man band. Vince agreed; there shouldn't be a return to the Paddy Ashdown days. As such, it seems to make sense to me that jitters about Vince's position in the press are a growing pain for the Lib Dems: we aren't used to there being more than one person representing us in the media, that's all. We are now fortunate enough to have Nick, Vince, and not forgetting Chris Huhne, who quite often manages to get himself on the telly 'n' that as well.

Mark wanted some investment advice next, a modern day South East Asian unit trust, if you will, but Vince wasn't biting. He pointed out that he is as fallible as the rest of us, and that if you'd asked him what to do five years or so ago, as his wife did, he would have suggested a diverse investment in stocks and shares, whereas his wife chose instead to just stick it in a high interest Nationwide account, and is all the better off for it. The point Vince did want to make was that diversity of investments is key, and that in fact, in his estimation many assets are currently under-priced, so people with the liquidity have every reason to invest at the moment.

Out of this, came a brief discussion of an issue that bothers Vince, specifically the unpleasant way that means-tested benefits effectively confiscate savings. Unfortunately, my notes on that are pretty indecipherable to me, so you'd better hope someone else writes it up better!

Mary congratulated Vince on his contributions during conference to the debate over faith schools, commenting that it was nice to hear Vince give opinions on issues other than economics. Vince pointed out that to some people in his constituency, it was unusual to think of him as a treasury spokesman; on a local level, Vince has tended to be more a crime and hospitals kind of guy.

Anyway, that's enough of that for now, but join me in part 3 for Vince reaction to the recent Game Theory story.

Vince Interview Part 1

Arriving at Portcullis House, I managed to blink as the security people took a picture to hang round my neck. I staggered, bewildered into the atrium, looking around for people who looked like bloggers. I got it right first go - well, the elephant was a dead giveaway - and we loitered until joined by more bloggers. Lady Mark was already ensconced on the other side of the glass barriers - the glass is greener on the other side - and then who should we spot, but Vince. Much waving ensued, and he came and let us through into the special area for special people. Since there were a lot of us, he went and got us a room to use instead of his office (quite disappointing - no opportunity to verify this Mind Maps business!).

And so, sitting comfortably and suitably donuted, we began.

Alix kick off, asking whether we're heading for an overhaul of our tax policy, perhaps after seeing hints of such a move picked up over the weekend by some in the MSM. Vince's answer was basically political speak for "yes, it will be changing": the aims will remain the same, but "the details of how we do it will have to change over time". He reiterated that we are committed to a 4p cut in income tax "or the equivalent", and mentioned allowances as one such potential avenue of equivalency.

Jo, meanwhile, wanted to know about diversity and equality and stuff, and Vince's role on the Diversity Engagement Group, asking what the next steps are, and whether issues like these were going to end up on the back burner because of the recession. Vince felt that these priorities wouldn't be changed by hard times, and, whilst seeming to concede perhaps that there wasn't as obvious a "next step" on wimmin, he hoped that BME candidates might stand to do very well under the party's stated strategy of attacking the soft underbelly of Labour support in northern cities, etc.

Jennie was next round the table, and asked about Vince's interest in bees. Vince explained that, as part of the normal business of being known around one's constituency, he had been invited along to the apiary at the end of his road, for an open day. It was there that he had his ear bent about Colony Collapse Disorder and the surrounding issues, and with this ringing in his ears, he went back to parliament and asked Gordon Brown a question about it in committee. The response was so derisory and uninterested as to make Vince a whole lot more bothered about it than he would otherwise have been, it seems. Brown implied that it was exactly the sort of daft issue that gets Lib Dems going, and was a waste of serious people's time. It was this scientific illiteracy - a common theme for many bloggers, not least Jennie - that convinced Vince that pressure was required to help ministers do the right thing, and since then a cross-party campaign has grown around the issue.

Mark's question was about the civil service, and whether the party was seen as "Civil Service friendly", following Vince's criticism last conference of some public sector bonuses. Vince felt it was important not to differentiate between the public and private sectors, and that practices that were criticised in one sector would therefore be criticised in the other. Vince was aware, of course, that his comments about the number of civil servants on over £100,000 had annoyed some of our councillors, and he expressed some sympathy for the lower ranks of the civil service, but he's sticking to his guns. He was rather keen on the term "public sector aristocracy", and pointed out that it wasn't so much just the wages, as the triple-whammy of wages, job security and pensions that put many in the civil service in such a privileged position. For Vince, it's about attacking privilege, and it extends from the private sector, to civil servants, and to MPs, who he also singled out as unusually shielded from the economic weather.

Mary asked how the government's habit of offloading the dirty business of taxation onto local government could be fixed, and about the unfairness of central government's funding of local government currently. Vince's response was that there is always lobbying on the formula that works out funding to local authorities. Although generally quite good, he believes, the formula tends to fall down at the extreme ends of the income scale. Essentially, local government needs a stronger local tax base, and Lib Dem policy would do this, for instance by making business rates local.

Next up it was my turn. Looking at my scribbled notes made earlier in the day, I plumped for a more outward looking question, for variety's sake, and asked about Gordon Brown's alleged interest in international regulatory frameworks. Was he likely to achieve anything useful from making the issue a focus of the G20? Vince's reply was closer to the Tory line than I expected, calling Brown's focus on this as a solution "a cop out", to avoid responsibility for his mistakes; of course, now comes the bit where it deviates from the Tories: Vince can spell out what he means by that. Brown had, after all, allowed finance to become far too large a part of our economy, and failed to implement the Basel rules in the UK as well as other countries, like Spain and Canada, did it; here the rules acted pro-cyclically in the housing market.

Vince rounded off this answer with a quick mention of his forthcoming book, The Storm. Subtitled "The world economic crisis and what it means", it will likely cover the answers to my question and a great many more besides. So I will leave part one of my write up here, to allow you to go off and pre-order it!

Woop!

1. I now have access to the electric internet again; my usual inconsistent pace of posting will return shortly.

2. I interviewed Vince Cable today, along with several other bloggers (see below).

3. I met several lovely fellow bloggers who I've not met before, including the regal Lady Mark, the owner of an excellent bag Jennie, the I'm-trying-desperately-to-resist-the-temptation-to-call-her Jo Crispy-Strips, the distinguished Mary Reid, the brilliant Alix, the lovely Helen Duffett, and of course the fluffy Millennium with his daddy Richard.

4. An evening in the pub's always quite nice, innit?

"Green" Gas?

Reading this report on the BBC News site, I was struck by the following paragraph:

Today's report will contribute to the growing debate about heat, which produces 47% of the UK's CO2 emissions - much more than electricity or transport. The government will soon launch a consultation on a heat strategy.

Aaaaaaaaargh!!!! Why the hell hasn't the government already started working out the most difficult part of achieving its 80% cut to emissions? For fuck's sake, guys, hurry up, we don't have long!

That goes doubly so because the problem is an exceedingly prickly one, as anyone who's read, say, George Monbiot's "Heat" should be aware. Gas is the most efficient producer of heat (as opposed to electricity), but burning it requires a separate infrastructure for its supply, and shifting to hydrogen and combined heat and power (one option) would likely* require a proper, serious commitment from the government to get around the old "no market until all the infrastructure's in place / no incentive to install the infrastructure because there's currently no market for it" problem, because the pipes required are different to the ones we currently use to supply natural gas. (* I say likely because I'm sure market fans would argue that companies should be able to see far enough into the future to see a way to make profit down the line, but I have to say, given how good the market has been at thinking long term so far, I'm skeptical.)

The other option is finding enough renewably sourced gas to replace most natural gas (unlikely, and relies on a wasteful economy just when we're trying to move away from one), moving to things like woodchip burners (not great, a lot of woodchip to be transported about), electrical heating (inefficient, but, with a lot of renewable electricity, an option), or converting all our housing stock to passive houses (also not easy).

What becomes clear is that all the options involve some serious changes and a big, proper commitment from government to a particular strategy. Electrical generation is one thing, but heating our homes and workplaces is a very knotty problem with no simple answers. Anyone looking at this in even a cursory manner could have told you this years ago. So hurry up, government!

Global Peace & Unity: Closure?

Back in October last year, Nick Clegg attacked Policy Exchange for releasing a dodgy dossier on various speakers at the 2008 "Global Peace and Unity" event. At the time, I looked at the dossier and offered my opinion on it, but the general consensus that came out of the comments thread brouhaha on LDV was that we should reserve judgment on Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes's decision to attend the event until we could see what they had to say.

Well, that day has come, the videos of speeches at the event are here.

Nick's speech:



Simon's speech:



Currently, I'm sat in Starbucks, Virgin Media having continued to not supply me with internet access for two weeks now. Consequently, I haven't been able to actually watch the videos with the sound turned up myself yet, so I will have to reserve judgement.

Of course, the really interesting thing might also be to find the speeches of the controversial speakers to whom Nick and Simon might have been lending credibility by appearing on a common platform with them. If you can be arsed to do so, go here or here. Personally, I have more important things to do with the 18 mins of laptop battery left to me!

I Have Moved... to the Stone Age

Apologies for lack of blogging lately, but I have been getting myself sorted out to move out of my parents' house for the first time and move to London, which is a lot to get your head around, or at least it would have been if I had really thought about it until now. Unfortunately, I now find myself on my own (my housemate isn't going to be here permanently until February) in a house with no internet (about which more in a minute).

As a result, you are reading this via the medium of the free wifi at wherever I've decided to go and use free wifi to post this up, having pre-writted it at 22:06 10/01/09. I expect I'm now drinking a coffee or a pint, depending what time of day it is.

So anyway, I'm now living in Camden (nice, albeit a bit trendier than really suits me), trying to do little things like clean the oven so I can cook in it, plumb in the washing machine, get a job, etc. Which has been moderately succesful so far. But when I moved down here, I thought I was going to be online by Friday 9th. Instead, when the Virgin Media chap turned up, he informed me that the cable to our house is "dead" and will have to be replaced, and guessed it would be 1-2 weeks more until I had an internet connection. Which is a bit of a pain in the arse, really, because I had been hoping to be able to use the internet to find out where stuff I wanted was, where temping agencies might be found, etc.

But it was only this evening that I realised it's more than that. Sat here without a housemate to talk to, I felt very isolated, not because I'm sat in a house on my own (which I've done many times before, obviously), but, I realised, because I would usually go on the internet and watch Maron V Seder, leaf through Lib Dem Blogs, poke about Facebook or some forums, etc. In short, the internet makes up a fair chunk of the ways I socialise.

Then it occurred to me that it was somewhat bizarre to feel like I was cut off from the world. After all, before the internet existed for the use of the general public, this was the normal state of affairs. So is this a generational thing? I don't imagine, for example, that lack of access to the internet for a couple of weeks would bother, say, my parents, anything like as much. Is this, I wonder, connected to why I'm so crap at getting reading done in my leisure time - because faced with a choice between reading and talking to people on the internet, I'm generally likely to choose the latter, with the exception of very few books.

Then again, is this a generational use of the internet thing, or just that I value time talking to other people more than many other people do? After all, at uni, where all my peers were roughly my age, I chose to keep more of my time available for just chatting over a cup of tea to friends, when I might otherwise have been sat on a million different committees, or involved in more ADC shows, or something.

Ho hum. Anyway, if you've read this far, you might as well write a comment. How much does it bother you when you're cut off from the internet?

Franken Winning?

Norm Coleman should be worried: Nate Silver has proclaimed as much. I do hope it continues to go well for Franken, I genuinely think he would make a better Senator than Coleman.

Apart from that, while I'm here, I might as well note that the Minnesota recount business has been interesting from a spin point of view; with the benefit of the hindsight applied to the Florida recount in 2000, both Coleman and Franken have shown a determination to win not only the legal wranglings over the recount process, but also the public perception battle.

Jacqui Smith's Cunning Plan

Some of my Lib Dem Blogs colleagues have been unaccountably sniffy about Jacqui Smith's brilliantly clear and incisive analysis of the situation we have with sex trafficking and prostitution. Personally, I think it's brilliantly sensible, makes absolute sense, and the same strain of thought should be rolled out more widely to solve other problems.

For instance, sweat shops. We all know that the people who are buying garments cheaply from chain stores, without knowing that they haven't been manufactured by child labourers or otherwise exploited workers, are partly morally culpable, so why don't we make it illegal for them to buy these garments? Ignorance of the consequences of their actions is no excuse, and we can all agree that this is a stain on the conscience of our society, and action must be taken, etc.

Of course, the business lobby will suggest this will "unfairly" punish customers who buy many "legitimate products", by simply putting them off buying any products at all. But I think anyone with any sense will recognise that this is a sensible direction to go in. I mean, yes it's a shame to have an adverse effect on the livelihood of people in good, legal jobs on a living wage, but we shouldn't let that get in the way of cracking down on this great social evil. So lets bang up anyone who buys a cheap item of clothing that turns out to have been made by an eleven year old!



Phew, I'm not sure I could have kept that up much longer. I don't know how Labour ministers do it.

Seriously, is there anyone who can explain to me what the thinking on this policy is? Can you, dear reader, think of a single other instance where the same thinking would make much sense whatsoever? I can't. I mean, if people are being exploited, surely the thing to make illegal is the exploitation, and the best way to enforce that is to make said industry as transparent and open as possible, so that it can be suitably regulated and investigated. No?

Jacqui Smith should just be honest, and say that she doesn't like prostitution, and she wants to ban it. I mean, that's the only way this makes sense, because as an attempt to tackle trafficking it's fucking bonkers. But she's frightened of being honest, because she knows she'd lose the argument: it's the world's oldest profession and she'd just drive it further underground, etc. Instead, she fudges a policy together that achieves actually fuck all, is probably worse than either an outright ban or a destigmatisation and legalisation, but which allows her to muddy the political water on this just enough to get away with not doing anything that might be perceived as bold.

Cameron Tries To "Nudge" His Way Out Of Recession

The Tories have announced a plan today to give companies National Insurance breaks on employing people who have been unemployed for over 3 months. Detail on their website, but the gist is this:

It costs the government £8100 per annum in benefits payments and lost income tax receipts to support an unemployed person. So their proposal is as follows:

Private sector employers, who hire someone who has been claiming unemployment benefits for more than three months (13 weeks) and who has not previously worked for that company in the previous year, would receive a credit against Employers National Insurance Contributions. The credit would be worth £2,500 for full time jobs of 30 hours a week or more, or half that amount for part time work of 16 hours a week or more. It would be phased out beyond the higher rate tax threshold so that only basic rate taxpayers would be eligible for the full amount.
• To prevent companies making people redundant in order to replace them and claim the tax cut, the payment would only be available to companies that had made no redundancies in the previous three months, or for three months after claiming the credit.
• To limit the amount given in tax cuts to companies who are already growing rapidly, the tax cut would be limited to a maximum of 20 per cent of the workforce of any one company.
• The credit would be available for one year after the employee starts their new job.

David Cameron doesn't believe you can borrow your way out of a recession, it seems. Instead, he seems to intend to Nudge his way out of one. It's a pity, then, that in the words of Nick Clegg, "Cameron has drawn the fly on the floor". This doesn't help anyone who is already in a job. It doesn't help businesses who are struggling to keep employing the people they already employ. It doesn't seem likely to boost consumer spending all that much. It doesn't even seem likely to genuinely get all that many people back into employment. All it really does is tip the scales in favour of people who have been unemployed for over 3 months.

Let's look at this from the point of view of the people it's aimed at: employers (and note, in passing, that the last two Tory tax announcements - VAT delay, and now this - have been aimed at helping business, not people in the most direct sense).

To employ someone on minimum wage full time costs them about £11,000 (depends what hours they're on, so no point being too precise here). £5682 of that is above the Earnings Threshold, so National Insurance is paid on it, to the tune of 12.8%, or £727. So overall it costs the employer £11,727 to employ someone on the minimum wage. The Tory credit reduces that to £9227. Essentially, the Tories want to reduce the price of employing someone on minimum wage by 21%.

The significance of these credits only gets lower the higher the wage you're talking about. Someone on £20,000 costs their employer £21,891 to employ. That becomes £19,391, a cut of 11%. Or if you're on £30,000, it costs your employer £33,171, becoming £30,671, a cut of 8%. Much beyond that, the credits stop under the plan in question. So the jobs this is likely to have most impact on is those at the bottom end of the pay scale.

Fair enough. But now ask yourself this: Are you, a struggling company in the middle of a recession, going to set yourself back £9227 a year to employ someone who is currently unemployed out of the goodness of your own heart? I suggest that the answer is no. I suggest that most of the companies who are going to be taking people on in the next few years are the ones who had a pretty good chance of employing some extra people anyway: businesses who are just filling gaps left by employees leaving, or who are recruiting people they would have needed anyway. The Tories themselves admit that this would be true to some extent; the £2500 figure is based on an estimate that only ~31% of the jobs that would be created under this scheme wouldn't have been created anyway. I suspect it would be rather less than that, depending on how bad the recession gets.

Is it too cynical of me to suspect that this isn't really a Tory prescription for the recession at all? I reckon what this is is a bit of policy they had on the back burner as a remedy for long-term unemployment, which has been tweaked a bit and packed up in a shiny new box that says "Tax Cut!" on it, to cover up for the fact that the Tories, and specifically Gideon Osborne, don't know anything about the economy, really, and it has only become obvious to them relatively recently that the "responsibility ... sharing the proceeds of growth ... no irresponsible tax cuts" line wasn't going to cut it any more. Everyone else is talking tax cuts now, but they've got nothing much to announce, and the fiddly bits and pieces they'd come up with so far (Council Tax "freeze", Marriage Bonus, Inheritance Tax threshold to millionaire-friendly level, etc) were looking a bit shabby and tight-fisted in comparison. Hence today's policy.

It's a good job we've got an economic team who were able to beat the rest of the parties to it, despite the slowing effect of the Lib Dem policy ratification process, isn't it? We've had a revenue neutral package to really help people on low and middle incomes for over a year now. The way to create job growth is to give everyone a significant amount of their own money back. Spending goes up, jobs are really created, etc. Today's Tory plan does next to nothing to mitigate the recession.

Go back to your drawing board and try again, Gideon and Dave.

It's Not Over Yet

As Kos's map shows, the senate results are not yet in.

There is a post explaining what's going on with these races that are yet to be called here. The presidential result is already determined, so the electoral college predictions are largely academic (give or take an LDV mug).

But the Senate races are important. The Democrats had hoped that they might come out of this process with a filibuster proof senate. If they are to achieve this, the four yet to be called races all have to go that way. That's a tough call on the face of it. But lets just look at those a bit closer (from the Kos posting linked above):

We're currently at 56 seats with Sanders and Lieberman. We need a clean sweep in Alaska, Georgia, Minnesota and Oregon to win.

Alaska: With 99% of precincts reported, Ted Stevens (R) leads Mark Begich (D) by 3500 votes.

There are reportedly over 60,000 absentee ballots filed, so no one has called it yet.

Georgia: Saxby Chambliss (R) leads Jim Martin (D) 50-46. However, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that over 600,000 early votes have not been counted. Martin led handily in early voting, so it's highly likely that Chambliss will end up below 50% and this will go to a runoff.

Minnesota: Norm Coleman leads by less than 600 votes now. All outstanding ballots will matter, and there's the possibility of a recount as well.

Oregon: Gordon Smith (R) leads Jeff Merkley (D) by 15,000 votes with 75% of precincts reporting. Not looking good.

So Oregon looks like a write-off, which is a shame. But even so, there is every chance of 59 Democratic caucusing Senators by the end of all this.

Minnesota could get nasty, with lawyers piling in on both sides. Al Franken is talking up his chances of changing the result:

The Associated Press uncalled the Senate race at about 9 a.m., saying they had prematurely declared Coleman the winner.

Franken said this morning that he intends to exercise his right to a recount.

He also said his campaign is investigating alleged voting irregularities at some polling places in Minneapolis, and that “a recount could change the outcome significantly.”

“Let me be clear: Our goal is to ensure that every vote is properly counted,” he said.

It will be some time before we know what happens there, with the recount not expected for some weeks.

Alaska looks, initially, bizarre. They seem to be about to re-elect a convicted felon, but as Kos point out, there are absentee ballots to be added. More importantly, even if Stevens wins, he is likely to be forced out of the Senate if his appeal fails, and that will trigger another election to fill his seat.

If Georgia fails to give Saxby Chambliss an overall majority (which looks likely), then that too will trigger another election, a runoff between the two highest voted candidates (the Rep and the Dem).

So in Alaska and Georgia, there is a significant chance for what remains of the Obama war chest to be put to good use trying to win a couple of extra senators, not to mention spending it on lawyers to help Al Franken's efforts to inch it in Minnesota.

We may not know for some time exactly what the Democrats' Senate position is going to look like. The only thing we can be sure of is that they seem likely to fall short of that all important 60 seats. Oh well.

US Election Night

Sofa and TV: Check

Several tabs in Firefox on laptop displaying various websites:
- LDV's liveblog when it arrives: Check
- Maron v Seder: Check
- 538.com to see how their predictions went: Check
- CNN Results page: Check
- Political Betting: Check

Popcorn with which to enjoy the looks on the inhabitants of Fox News's faces: Check

...yup, all set!