There was a cartoon in Punch after the death of Stalin. Mao had been piqued at not being recognised by the Russians as the natural successor as leader of world communism and there had been some sabre-rattling on their shared border. The cartoon (by Emmwood or Illingworth, I can't remember which) showed western leaders rolling with laughter in their seats or cheering while Mao and Khrushchev faced off in the aisle. Pointedly, each of the communist leaders was carrying a bomb and the scene was a passenger plane in mid-air.
Many LibDems have accompanied their joy at Mike Thornton winning in Eastleigh with glee at the effect the result has had on the Conservatives. Being pushed into third place by UKIP has led to calls from Tory commentators in the media - and some within the Conservative party - for Cameron to be deposed as leader. These articles have been reposted on Facebook and in some Liberal Democrat blogs. While it is understandable to revel in our political opponents' discomfiture and the probable benefits in Conservative-held constituencies where Liberal Democrats are challengers, I suggest that in the short term civil war among our coalition partners could lead to an economic plane crash.
Consider the outcome of a successful challenge to David Cameron (always assuming that party rules still allow this): it is probable that the successor will be a "dry", instinctively opposed to coalition with a more liberal party. At the least, he or she will seek to renegotiate the coalition agreement on terms which Liberal Democrat leaders would find unacceptable. More likely, they will outright repudiate the agreement. It is unlikely that there will be enough votes in the Commons to force a dissolution, so we would be stuck with a minority government, horse-trading from day to day to get its programme through.
The main raison d'etre for the coalition was the stability it would bring to the economy and the restoration of confidence in UK Ltd on the part of our creditors and trading partners. Those would be jeopardised by the premature end of the coalition.
The situation in late 2014 will, one trusts, be rather different. With UK borrowing beginning to plateau, normal political hostilities may resume.
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Friday, 1 March 2013
The spare-room subsidy
Wednesday saw a full-scale debate in the House of Commons, on a Nationalist and Green motion, on the subject of the Housing Benefit under-occupancy penalty. Greg Mulholland and Simon Hughes raised concerns which have still not been addressed by the government, but minister Steve Webb, in a powerful response to Dr Eilidh Whiteford's impassioned opener, demolished two myths:
Convicts will not be exempt from the penalty. It is true that accused persons remanded in custody on even serious charges will not be subject to it, but as the minister pointed out, we are still innocent until proven guilty in this country - unless this is another civil liberty which Labour intends to remove should they get back into power.
Housing benefit will go up, not down, when service personnel leave to serve away from home. As the minister explained: "The young serviceman or women, who will be on a wage, is deemed to be making a substantial contribution towards the household rent—say £70 a week or so—but when they have been away for more than 13 weeks, that non-dependent deduction does not apply any more, so the housing benefit goes up substantially. There will be a charge for under-occupancy, which might be, say, £14 a week. Instead of paying £70 to the household housing costs, the young serviceman or woman will not have to pay anything, so if they value the room at £2 a day, they could still pay that £2 to mum and dad and be more than £50 a week better off. Rather than seeing mum and dad’s housing benefit fall, therefore, they will see it increase."
There are doubts as to whether the amount of cash the government has set aside for local authorities to provide for exemptions, like overnight provision for carers, is sufficient, but at least the minister has promised to keep the situation under continuous review.
Convicts will not be exempt from the penalty. It is true that accused persons remanded in custody on even serious charges will not be subject to it, but as the minister pointed out, we are still innocent until proven guilty in this country - unless this is another civil liberty which Labour intends to remove should they get back into power.
Housing benefit will go up, not down, when service personnel leave to serve away from home. As the minister explained: "The young serviceman or women, who will be on a wage, is deemed to be making a substantial contribution towards the household rent—say £70 a week or so—but when they have been away for more than 13 weeks, that non-dependent deduction does not apply any more, so the housing benefit goes up substantially. There will be a charge for under-occupancy, which might be, say, £14 a week. Instead of paying £70 to the household housing costs, the young serviceman or woman will not have to pay anything, so if they value the room at £2 a day, they could still pay that £2 to mum and dad and be more than £50 a week better off. Rather than seeing mum and dad’s housing benefit fall, therefore, they will see it increase."
There are doubts as to whether the amount of cash the government has set aside for local authorities to provide for exemptions, like overnight provision for carers, is sufficient, but at least the minister has promised to keep the situation under continuous review.
Would Cameron have preferred AV now?
I wonder if anyone else had this thought after the Eastleigh result was announced? AV is not a proportional system, but in this constituency at this time it would surely have prevented the conservative vote being split.
LibDem 13342
Con 10559
UKIP 11571
Labour 4088
That was the first reaction, followed swiftly by a sense of relief that the Conservatives did not win and give support to the hard line on Europe and social security cuts which LibDems in coalition have been fighting against. It also meant that Channel 4 News, virtually the whole of the press and the BBC, failed in their attempt to decide who should lead the Liberal Democrats by means of the Rennard allegations.
It is a great result for Diane James and UKIP, in that order. From what little I saw of her on television it was clear that she was personable and media-friendly, and in my opinion more effective than her party leader, Nigel Farage, would have been.
For Labour, it is a sign that they need to keep channels open to other parties, especially the Liberal Democrats. The LibDems are clearly not going to be decimated or worse, as the opinion polls in the press suggest. It is more than likely that there will again be no clear winner at the next election.
Congratulations to Mike Thornton and to what must have been over a thousand LibDem volunteers who turned out for the Eastleigh campaign.
LibDem 13342
Con 10559
UKIP 11571
Labour 4088
That was the first reaction, followed swiftly by a sense of relief that the Conservatives did not win and give support to the hard line on Europe and social security cuts which LibDems in coalition have been fighting against. It also meant that Channel 4 News, virtually the whole of the press and the BBC, failed in their attempt to decide who should lead the Liberal Democrats by means of the Rennard allegations.
It is a great result for Diane James and UKIP, in that order. From what little I saw of her on television it was clear that she was personable and media-friendly, and in my opinion more effective than her party leader, Nigel Farage, would have been.
For Labour, it is a sign that they need to keep channels open to other parties, especially the Liberal Democrats. The LibDems are clearly not going to be decimated or worse, as the opinion polls in the press suggest. It is more than likely that there will again be no clear winner at the next election.
Congratulations to Mike Thornton and to what must have been over a thousand LibDem volunteers who turned out for the Eastleigh campaign.
Thursday, 28 February 2013
Amateur detection
Now that whatever two penn'orth I throw into the blogosphere can no longer be construed as prejudicial to the Eastleigh by-election, here are a few of my reactions to the allegations aired by Channel 4 News and taken up so avidly by the BBC.
I first learned of allegations against Chris Rennard in early 2009 when they were aired by Guido Fawkes*. In those fevered pre-election times when dirt was being flung on all sides, I mentally placed them in the same trough as rumours of William Hague's homosexuality (which he was eventually forced strenuously to deny). In neither case were any specific names mentioned, which tended to discredit them. With Lord Rennard's elevation the rumours subsided, only to resurface in harder form on Channel 4 this month.
It seems that Nick Clegg was also unaware of the identity of the complainants in 2008. He and Danny Alexander were, however, persuaded that there was substance to the complaints, as Alexander's official statement indicates. In the face of strong denials (which he maintains) by Chris Rennard and the then reluctance of complainants to be publicly identified, it is hard to see what other action the new leader and his chief of staff could have taken at that time, other than to ensure that Chris was no longer in a position where he could be thought to be taking advantage of vulnerable people.
It is surely this reluctance on the part of the women concerned to put their heads above the parapet which prevented the matter being resolved to their satisfaction five years ago. On the face of it, it also seems surprising. A senior LibDem parliamentarian said after the Channel 4 broadcast that he knew the leader's assistant to be a strong character and would have expected her to respond immediately with a slap on the face if she had been propositioned or fondled. It is remarkable that until this month that Nick was unaware that she had been one of the aggrieved. Another young woman, who I have always thought to be strong beyond her years, has reluctantly made herself known publicly, but only to forestall the now inevitable revelation by journalists. These women appear to have confided at the time of the incidents only in other women.
We men in the party clearly overestimate the self-confidence of seemingly strong women. The fact that so many of them were prospective parliamentary candidates must also have been a factor, as Alison Smith's contribution last night to BBC's persistent coverage makes clear.
If they had had recourse to the Public Concern At Work charity, whose good offices the Liberal Democrat party is now promoting, it might have been a different story. Setting up both an inquiry into the specific cases and that continuing mechanism for concerns to be raised safely is right. The measures are clearly overdue, but at least it they are being done. One wonders what arrangements other political parties have made.
As to the timing of the 2013 revelations, Channel 4 say that their programme had been in preparation for some time before the by-election was called. One might respond that the possibility of Chris Huhne being forced to resign his seat had been known for two years. One of the people behind the programme is a Conservative who briefly defected to the Liberal Democrats before returning to the Conservatives. This is not to say that the programme should not have been aired. It was clearly a matter of public concern and the sooner it was shown, the better. However, there is testimony from telephone canvassers on the eve of the poll that former LibDem voters in Eastleigh were wavering. The only new factor was the publicity given to the Rennard accusations.
The affair has brought to the fore the whole subject of casual sexism by men in positions of power, at all levels. I am sure everyone who has been in local government can tell of councillors in the ruling group taking advantage of staff, usually no more than an uninvited pat or a risqué comment, but sometimes more. It is true of Labour councillors down here; I have no doubt it is also true of Conservatives in Blue country. A swift glance at Webfetch reveals such writers as Grace Dent, Cathy Newman and Jane Martinson pronouncing on the subject, remarkably consistently given their different political backgrounds. In their articles, they have admirably moved on from the particular to the general. Is it a forlorn hope that it will stay on the agenda this time?
* I find Paul Staines' references to Lord "Sexperv" somewhat hypocritical given the 77 pages of "totty watch" on his blog. http://order-order.com/tag/totty-watch/page/6/ is typical.
I first learned of allegations against Chris Rennard in early 2009 when they were aired by Guido Fawkes*. In those fevered pre-election times when dirt was being flung on all sides, I mentally placed them in the same trough as rumours of William Hague's homosexuality (which he was eventually forced strenuously to deny). In neither case were any specific names mentioned, which tended to discredit them. With Lord Rennard's elevation the rumours subsided, only to resurface in harder form on Channel 4 this month.
It seems that Nick Clegg was also unaware of the identity of the complainants in 2008. He and Danny Alexander were, however, persuaded that there was substance to the complaints, as Alexander's official statement indicates. In the face of strong denials (which he maintains) by Chris Rennard and the then reluctance of complainants to be publicly identified, it is hard to see what other action the new leader and his chief of staff could have taken at that time, other than to ensure that Chris was no longer in a position where he could be thought to be taking advantage of vulnerable people.
It is surely this reluctance on the part of the women concerned to put their heads above the parapet which prevented the matter being resolved to their satisfaction five years ago. On the face of it, it also seems surprising. A senior LibDem parliamentarian said after the Channel 4 broadcast that he knew the leader's assistant to be a strong character and would have expected her to respond immediately with a slap on the face if she had been propositioned or fondled. It is remarkable that until this month that Nick was unaware that she had been one of the aggrieved. Another young woman, who I have always thought to be strong beyond her years, has reluctantly made herself known publicly, but only to forestall the now inevitable revelation by journalists. These women appear to have confided at the time of the incidents only in other women.
We men in the party clearly overestimate the self-confidence of seemingly strong women. The fact that so many of them were prospective parliamentary candidates must also have been a factor, as Alison Smith's contribution last night to BBC's persistent coverage makes clear.
If they had had recourse to the Public Concern At Work charity, whose good offices the Liberal Democrat party is now promoting, it might have been a different story. Setting up both an inquiry into the specific cases and that continuing mechanism for concerns to be raised safely is right. The measures are clearly overdue, but at least it they are being done. One wonders what arrangements other political parties have made.
As to the timing of the 2013 revelations, Channel 4 say that their programme had been in preparation for some time before the by-election was called. One might respond that the possibility of Chris Huhne being forced to resign his seat had been known for two years. One of the people behind the programme is a Conservative who briefly defected to the Liberal Democrats before returning to the Conservatives. This is not to say that the programme should not have been aired. It was clearly a matter of public concern and the sooner it was shown, the better. However, there is testimony from telephone canvassers on the eve of the poll that former LibDem voters in Eastleigh were wavering. The only new factor was the publicity given to the Rennard accusations.
The affair has brought to the fore the whole subject of casual sexism by men in positions of power, at all levels. I am sure everyone who has been in local government can tell of councillors in the ruling group taking advantage of staff, usually no more than an uninvited pat or a risqué comment, but sometimes more. It is true of Labour councillors down here; I have no doubt it is also true of Conservatives in Blue country. A swift glance at Webfetch reveals such writers as Grace Dent, Cathy Newman and Jane Martinson pronouncing on the subject, remarkably consistently given their different political backgrounds. In their articles, they have admirably moved on from the particular to the general. Is it a forlorn hope that it will stay on the agenda this time?
* I find Paul Staines' references to Lord "Sexperv" somewhat hypocritical given the 77 pages of "totty watch" on his blog. http://order-order.com/tag/totty-watch/page/6/ is typical.
John Pugh's ten-minute rule bill
While waiting for the result from Eastleigh, parliamentary anoraks should enjoy John Leech's witty speech from mid-day yesterday introducing his Ten-Minute Rule Bill drawing attention to the fraught relationship between local and central Government (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130227/debtext/130227-0001.htm#13022775000002, Column 316).
Given where we are in the parliamentary timetable, one would have to be wholly ignorant or severely optimistic to assume that the Bill I propose stands any chance whatever of becoming law—this year. Although as a Lib Dem I am equipped by necessity with boundless reserves of cheery optimism, I have no expectation of seeing the Bill mature into legislation. So confident am I of seeing it strangled at birth that I did think of calling it the “Local Government and Futile Measures Bill”, only to realise that the additional phrase probably applied to much of the legislation in this place. I am far from disheartened, however, because such events, apart from seeming a piece of typically British, eccentric constitutional indulgence, or useful occupational therapy for Back Benchers, can have an effect, by putting, or keeping, on the agenda important key themes. My last foray in this role was an attempt to introduce a Bill to enhance, or provide, democratic accountability for NHS services. The Government have now actually done that, although I would like to think that my proposals, which involved the creation of no new institutions or structures, offered a more elegant, less expensive and less complex solution than that contrived by the Government in the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
Parliament, Brussels notwithstanding, has unfettered power, or what Lord Hailsham referred to as elective dictatorship. Local government also has powers, but they can be increased, decreased, removed or added to, fettered or unfettered, by us in Parliament. Governments often promise—I have heard them do so—to liberate or empower local government, but the liberation of local government by central Government often resembles Stalin’s post-war liberation of eastern Europe, as it simply allows discretion to decide on how to implement unpopular policies, thereby sharing or deflecting the blame.
Largely, and insistently, central Government retain all their rights to interfere in any area, at will, with little or no notice. I am not making a party political point; it is not in the DNA of central Government, irrespective of who is in power, to give away power that matters, and one can understand why. Local government deals with huge areas of national importance—education, social care, transport, the environment, the economic vitality of communities—and Ministers simply cannot be uninterested in what local government does or how it does it, so they keep in reserve, understandably, a range of powers, regulations and incentives to influence how local government performs. Parliament will not have its will crossed—it is, as they say, an elective dictatorship. The Bill aspires not to change any of that, but strives more modestly to stop elective dictatorship becoming or turning into elective tyranny.
[...]
The distinction is rather helpfully illustrated by the exemplary behaviour of our current Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [Eric Pickles]. Only someone as gifted as him in the art of irony could possibly have introduced a Localism Bill—with over 100 new powers ascribed to himself. Only someone with a feel for the truly comic could wring £250 million out of the Chancellor in hard-pressed times in order that statesmen can interfere with the nation’s bins and council collection times, or could instructively chastise and threaten councils that have set their council tax exactly within the limits he himself laid down. As he himself has said, he takes liberties, but presumably only to demonstrate through a process of reductio ad absurdum how little power local government really has and how it can be removed, changed or denatured by the whim of Whitehall.
[...]
It seems to me that having to make clear Whitehall’s interest in interfering, as it does, with council’s planning policies, housing targets and borrowing arrangements, which are all contentious areas, and having to make a case and then abide by it, could hopefully throw up a plethora of anomalies and unjustifiable restraints and perhaps expose the dead-weight influence of state bureaucracy accrued over a fair period, which cannot be a bad thing. It might, in the process, rid me of an abiding and disturbing image of the Secretary of State as a languid eastern potentate or sultan governing by mood or arbitrary decree, and it would hopefully put the fraught relationship between local and central Government on a business-like footing. This issue, which has been raised in various parts of the House and in a number of different places, will not go away, unlike my Bill, which I commend to the House.
Given where we are in the parliamentary timetable, one would have to be wholly ignorant or severely optimistic to assume that the Bill I propose stands any chance whatever of becoming law—this year. Although as a Lib Dem I am equipped by necessity with boundless reserves of cheery optimism, I have no expectation of seeing the Bill mature into legislation. So confident am I of seeing it strangled at birth that I did think of calling it the “Local Government and Futile Measures Bill”, only to realise that the additional phrase probably applied to much of the legislation in this place. I am far from disheartened, however, because such events, apart from seeming a piece of typically British, eccentric constitutional indulgence, or useful occupational therapy for Back Benchers, can have an effect, by putting, or keeping, on the agenda important key themes. My last foray in this role was an attempt to introduce a Bill to enhance, or provide, democratic accountability for NHS services. The Government have now actually done that, although I would like to think that my proposals, which involved the creation of no new institutions or structures, offered a more elegant, less expensive and less complex solution than that contrived by the Government in the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
Parliament, Brussels notwithstanding, has unfettered power, or what Lord Hailsham referred to as elective dictatorship. Local government also has powers, but they can be increased, decreased, removed or added to, fettered or unfettered, by us in Parliament. Governments often promise—I have heard them do so—to liberate or empower local government, but the liberation of local government by central Government often resembles Stalin’s post-war liberation of eastern Europe, as it simply allows discretion to decide on how to implement unpopular policies, thereby sharing or deflecting the blame.
Largely, and insistently, central Government retain all their rights to interfere in any area, at will, with little or no notice. I am not making a party political point; it is not in the DNA of central Government, irrespective of who is in power, to give away power that matters, and one can understand why. Local government deals with huge areas of national importance—education, social care, transport, the environment, the economic vitality of communities—and Ministers simply cannot be uninterested in what local government does or how it does it, so they keep in reserve, understandably, a range of powers, regulations and incentives to influence how local government performs. Parliament will not have its will crossed—it is, as they say, an elective dictatorship. The Bill aspires not to change any of that, but strives more modestly to stop elective dictatorship becoming or turning into elective tyranny.
[...]
The distinction is rather helpfully illustrated by the exemplary behaviour of our current Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [Eric Pickles]. Only someone as gifted as him in the art of irony could possibly have introduced a Localism Bill—with over 100 new powers ascribed to himself. Only someone with a feel for the truly comic could wring £250 million out of the Chancellor in hard-pressed times in order that statesmen can interfere with the nation’s bins and council collection times, or could instructively chastise and threaten councils that have set their council tax exactly within the limits he himself laid down. As he himself has said, he takes liberties, but presumably only to demonstrate through a process of reductio ad absurdum how little power local government really has and how it can be removed, changed or denatured by the whim of Whitehall.
[...]
It seems to me that having to make clear Whitehall’s interest in interfering, as it does, with council’s planning policies, housing targets and borrowing arrangements, which are all contentious areas, and having to make a case and then abide by it, could hopefully throw up a plethora of anomalies and unjustifiable restraints and perhaps expose the dead-weight influence of state bureaucracy accrued over a fair period, which cannot be a bad thing. It might, in the process, rid me of an abiding and disturbing image of the Secretary of State as a languid eastern potentate or sultan governing by mood or arbitrary decree, and it would hopefully put the fraught relationship between local and central Government on a business-like footing. This issue, which has been raised in various parts of the House and in a number of different places, will not go away, unlike my Bill, which I commend to the House.
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Confirmation of a liberal conspiracy
Professor Keith Clayton CBE, who died on 12th February, was a Liberal Democrat councillor on Broadland District Council for four years after his retirement from academia. But of course he is deservedly better known as the man who helped set up the pioneering Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Fellow-professor Tim O'Riordan is quoted in The Independent: "The science of maintaining the planet largely began here in Norwich with Keith. More people than we realise owe a great debt to him, and I certainly was one of those. He set a trend which dozens of campuses are only now seeking to emulate. He broke the mould of single subject science and opened up an era of coordinated and communicative science which embraced all manner of people throughout the world."
Far from being defensive in the face of baying from vested interests in the States that global warming is a liberal conspiracy, we should proclaim the fact that sound science and progressive policies to implement it come together in this party.
Far from being defensive in the face of baying from vested interests in the States that global warming is a liberal conspiracy, we should proclaim the fact that sound science and progressive policies to implement it come together in this party.
Twenty-five years a Liberal
- or rather for a fortnight a Liberal and twenty-four years and fifty weeks a Liberal Democrat. I joined the Liberal Party as a result of participating in the general election of 1987 and, before that, the Gower by-election of 1982. Why my membership started so late is probably not so much delay in the Liberal HQ but the extra push I needed from working with John Newbury and Jim Kelleher again in the Newton by-election of 1988. (The winner here, Sue Waller, later retired from active politics on the death of her husband.)
Of the two components of the SDP-Liberal Alliance, I felt most comfortable with the Liberals, but that became academic with the formation of the Social and Liberal Democrats, immediately nicknamed the "Salads" by the press. This title did not last long, thank goodness.
On the 21st anniversary, an editorial in Liberal Democrat News began: "On 3rd March 1988 this party came into being. Twenty-one years ago the political landscape was totally different - consisting of a massively unpopular Conservative Party and a Labour Party that was in the process of reinventing itself".
Plus ca change.
Deirdre Razzall's editorial concluded: "In the preamble to the Lib Dem constitution it says: 'We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity.' It is in the DNA of the Liberal Democrats" Our task as a party is to ensure this unique character is maintained through the difficult political waters of the next two years.
Of the two components of the SDP-Liberal Alliance, I felt most comfortable with the Liberals, but that became academic with the formation of the Social and Liberal Democrats, immediately nicknamed the "Salads" by the press. This title did not last long, thank goodness.
On the 21st anniversary, an editorial in Liberal Democrat News began: "On 3rd March 1988 this party came into being. Twenty-one years ago the political landscape was totally different - consisting of a massively unpopular Conservative Party and a Labour Party that was in the process of reinventing itself".
Plus ca change.
Deirdre Razzall's editorial concluded: "In the preamble to the Lib Dem constitution it says: 'We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity.' It is in the DNA of the Liberal Democrats" Our task as a party is to ensure this unique character is maintained through the difficult political waters of the next two years.
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Lessons from the Premier League
Ed Balls fetched the chancellor of the exchequer back to the House of Commons yesterday to make a statement on the economic situation. The excuse was that one of the credit rating agencies, Moody, had downgraded the UK by one notch from its top rating. Since all sides seemed to agree that this was not very significant and the markets had taken the decision in their stride, the whole occasion seemed rather synthetic. However, it was enlivened (if one could use such a word in connection with the lugubrious Mr Davies) by the following exchange:
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op): May I congratulate Swansea City on its triple A rating after winning the league cup? At the same time, the Chancellor is fouling up the economy and has caused a penalty that has lost us the triple A rating. He should be focusing on a growth strategy and should not be cutting the poorest hardest, given that they spend the most.
Mr Osborne: Of course, I congratulate Swansea on its victory in the Capital One cup.
We have to take difficult decisions on things like welfare, but we are helping people have incentives to be in work, helping people who are in work and supporting people by, for example, increasing the personal allowance and taking the lowest-paid out of tax altogether. I would hope that the hon. Gentleman supports that.
If Mr Osborne had been more clued up on Premier League football, he could have pointed out the parallels with a once-proud organisation which had crashed following an unsustainable spending binge and been restored by sound financial governance. As the Indy reported in its sport section yesterday:
Not a penny of debt, a wage bill of £34 million and a new stadium built in a journey back from the brink of oblivion that began almost exactly 11 years ago. Added to the balance sheet at Wembley yesterday was the first major honour of Swansea City's 101-year history – and you simply cannot put a figure on that.
If their Capital One Cup victory over Bradford City was every bit the stroll that you might expect for a Premier League side playing a team 70 places and three divisions below them, then best to consider just how far Swansea have travelled to reach this point.
They are, quite simply, a shining example of how to run a British club in the 21st century.
But perhaps a Tory politician could not be expected to endorse a co-operative effort.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op): May I congratulate Swansea City on its triple A rating after winning the league cup? At the same time, the Chancellor is fouling up the economy and has caused a penalty that has lost us the triple A rating. He should be focusing on a growth strategy and should not be cutting the poorest hardest, given that they spend the most.
Mr Osborne: Of course, I congratulate Swansea on its victory in the Capital One cup.
We have to take difficult decisions on things like welfare, but we are helping people have incentives to be in work, helping people who are in work and supporting people by, for example, increasing the personal allowance and taking the lowest-paid out of tax altogether. I would hope that the hon. Gentleman supports that.
If Mr Osborne had been more clued up on Premier League football, he could have pointed out the parallels with a once-proud organisation which had crashed following an unsustainable spending binge and been restored by sound financial governance. As the Indy reported in its sport section yesterday:
Not a penny of debt, a wage bill of £34 million and a new stadium built in a journey back from the brink of oblivion that began almost exactly 11 years ago. Added to the balance sheet at Wembley yesterday was the first major honour of Swansea City's 101-year history – and you simply cannot put a figure on that.
If their Capital One Cup victory over Bradford City was every bit the stroll that you might expect for a Premier League side playing a team 70 places and three divisions below them, then best to consider just how far Swansea have travelled to reach this point.
They are, quite simply, a shining example of how to run a British club in the 21st century.
But perhaps a Tory politician could not be expected to endorse a co-operative effort.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)