The farce that is the BNP

I have watched the BNP work, I sit next to Richard Barnbrook at the London Assembly and he was allocated an office on the same floor as the Conservative group in City Hall. I have never been intimidated by the BNP and over the last few years I have had a chance to the their incompetence up close. The latest stories of infighting, expulsions and disintegration does not surprise me at all.

There have been people who have advocated treating the BNP as a special case, saying that they should be denied a platform or that rules should be changed because some of them got elected. I will say now on this blog what I have said many times in real life:

"Do not treat the BNP as a special case, they are not special, they're just crap."

Bad news for the deficit deniers

There are a number of people who think that the huge financial black hole left be the last government is a fiction, they are mainly, but not exclusively called Ed or Ken. Many of those who don't have their heads buried quite so deep in the sand are trying to say that given enough patience all the problems will go away without having to reduce public expenditure at all.

The IMF have blown a hole in both those positions, it praises George Osbourne's strategy to eliminate the deficit within five years saying that the deficit reduction plan

“greatly reduces the risk of a costly loss of confidence in fiscal sustainability and will help rebalance the economy”.

And Ed Balls wants to be Shadow Chancellor! Oh please yes, it would complete the set and make Labour an even bigger joke than they currently are.

Crossrail will cut costs but not stations

I was very pleased to get the following press release in my inbox this afternoon:

NO CROSSRAIL STATIONS TO BE SCRAPPED IN COST-CUTTING Sep 27, 2010 11:28:25 AM

Cost savings to the GBP16 billion cross-London Crossrail scheme will not involve shortening the planned route or scrapping stations, it was announced today.

But Crossrail Limited (CRL) said new trains for the 73-mile long project would be based "on tried and tested designs" as designing a new train from scratch drove up costs.

The company also said that Whitechapel and Canary Wharf stations were being redesigned to save money.

Charged with producing a project that is value for money and affordable, CRL will report to the Department for Transport and Transport for London with an update on construction delivery costs later this year.

Today CRL said that its value management exercise did not involve reducing the scope of services between Maidenhead in Berkshire and Heathrow in the west, and Shenfield in Essex and Abbey Wood in south-east London in the east.

Also, no stations would be removed from the scheme, which will bring an additional 1.5 million people within 45 minutes commuting distance of London's key business districts.

Another saving will involve the use of disused rail infrastructure for a major proportion of the branch to Abbey Wood.

CRL said that the scheme - due for completion in 2017 - was worth GBP42 billion to the UK economy - a figure in excess of a previous estimate of GBP36 billion.

Crossrail chairman Terry Morgan said today: "Crossrail and its delivery partners recognise fully that Crossrail is a significant investment. It is critical that every pound invested in this vital scheme achieves maximum value for money. Sensible efficiency savings will be made at every opportunity.

"Crossrail is bearing down on its whole cost base, while ensuring delivery of a new railway that is fit for purpose and delivers the capacity improvements required. We are looking at every aspect of Crossrail to identify where efficiencies can be made and understanding what cost-saving lessons can be learned from other global infrastructure projects."

This follows on from the assurances that I received from Terry Morgan at the start of this year when I questioned him as party of the Transport Committee investigation, here at City Hall. The Abbey Wood spur will bring a desperately needed additional link to north Bexley and enable a convenient link to the Channel Tunnel in the future.

Red Ed's mission impossible

There will be some tough times ahead for the new leader of the Labour party, if he does what the union leaders and the hard-liners in his party want he'll make Labour unelectable. Livingstone has already damaged himself, when asked by Radio 4 on Friday if he sided with the RMT and TSSA over the tube strikes or with commuters, he said he sided with the unions. Politically stupid but what else could he say, they paid for and hosted his candidature campaign.

I've already written about the unions' counterproductive actions, people will have little sympathy with strikes when their own jobs have been in jeopardy over the last few years and private sector pay rises have been small or non-existent. The unions sailed very close to the wind with their mail out of ballot papers to members, it is impossible for Ed to say that the union leaders didn't swing it for him, they did. The Guardian explains their actions:

The union, again within the rules, put its endorsement for Ed Miliband on the front of the package sent to all members which included a magazine with his picture on the front and a letter from the leader of the GMB, Paul Kenny, explaining the union's endorsement of the younger Miliband brother.

But there is concern at senior levels in the Labour party over whether the literature fell within the principles set out by the party.

Mark Wickham-Jones, professor of politics at Bristol University, was worried by the GMB's mailout. Speaking before the result, he said: "The GMB appear to have broken the spirit of the rules guiding the conduct of the Labour party leadership election by sending out a strong recommendation for Ed Miliband together with the ballot paper for political levy payers.

"In the event of an Ed Miliband victory, if the GMB has broken the [spirit of the] rules laid down for the election, it may well be more than an embarrassment for both the new leader and the party.

Ed is now claiming that he will protect the middle classes, not drift to the left and not be bossed around by the unions. All very good if he means it, but it contradicts the pronouncements he made during the leadership race. Was he telling the truth now or was he telling the truth then?

At some point the unions will want their pound of flesh and Ed will have a choice, does he upset his sole source of financial and political support or does he do what is right for the country? If the former he won't have the money or people on the ground to win an election if the later the British people won't vote for him.

Ed has painted himself into a very tight corner and I can't see how he is going to get out of it.

The worst possible result for Labour

Red Ed Miliband is the new leader of the Trade Union Party, sorry I meant to say the Labour party. The MPs wanted David, the members wanted David, only the unions wanted Ed and the unions got their way.

We now have a union sock puppet as Labour candidate for Mayor of London and as leader of the Labour party, it really is back to the 80s.

Livingstone selected, a step back in time

I know that retro is very chic at the moment but this really is beyond a joke. Labour had the chance to pick Oona King, someone fresh and dynamic (although she had some completely bonkers policies) to run against Boris but chose Livingstone in stead.

I'm pleased that it will be our old adversary from 2008 standing again, Livingstone is unrepentant, blaming his defeat soley on the unpopularity of the Labour government at the time.

I have no doubt that it will be a tough fight, Ken will fight dirty just like last time and he has the old team from the 80s and the union organisation and money behind him (including from the TSSA, which is one of the unions which tried to bring London to a stop last week).

It is clear that Labour are stuck in the past, in their ideological comfort zone, hard leaft, high tax, union backed, shouting at the government but offering no real alternative.

Livingstone is offering nothing new, same candidate, same policies, same attitute, same clan, same result.

So, what has Boris done for us?

Labour will announce their London mayoral candidate today and people will naturally ask what has Boris done since taking office? Here's a few things:

1) Frozen City Hall's share of Council Tax after 8 years of straight rises under Ken Livingstone

2) Cut crime across London by putting more police on the beat - youth crime down by 11%, robberies down by 19%, murders down by over 25% and knife crime down by 30%

3) Improved Londoners' safety. ONE MILLION more police patrols a year by 2012 than in 2008 and an extra 450 police on the buses. Mobile knife arches at trouble-spot train stations and banned booze on the tubes and buses

4) Saved an average of £317 per Londoner by 2013 through cutting waste in London's Government

5) Transformed London's cycling culture with the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme of 5,000 bikes. Within the first month of the scheme Londoners made 250,000 journeys.

6) Extended Oyster Cards to National Rail network within London and to river travel as well - used on an extra 800,000 trips every week.

7) Fought for London's position as the financial capital of the world against EU politicians to protect jobs and investment.

8) Started to build Crossrail which will add 10% capacity to London's creaking transport infrastructure

9) Delivered 26,000 new affordable homes across London to date

10) Quadrupled London's rape crisis services

Find out more at www.backboris2012.com/getting-on-with-the-job

John Biggs the victim of Labour racism?

I sit opposite John Biggs at full Assembly meetings and it is not unknown for us to give each other a hard time, it would be fair to say that John and I are not friends. That said I think that the Labour party has acted disgracefully with respect to John.

The Labour party in Tower Hamlets is a joke. "Incompetent" is probably the kindest word that could be used to describe the party and council leadership there. If you have any doubt about how rubbish they are just have a look this debacle over the selection of their candidate to be the borough's first directly elected mayor here, here, here, here, here and here. Oh and here.

So what has all this got to do with John Biggs? Well, having been initially selected to be their candidate, his selection was overturned, he then came second in the selection re-run and when the winner of that selection was deselected by the party he was overlooked when a replacement was appointed. I believe that John Biggs has been the victim of racism within the Labour party at both local and national level.

I don't chuck the R word around very much but I struggle to think of any other explanation for these actions. It seems that Labour feel that he is the wrong colour/religion to win in Tower Hamlets with it's large Bangladeshi community. If anyone else can offer up a different explanation I'd be happy to listen.

All this messing about will highlight to voters the futility of voting Labour this Autumn and will help the person who would really help turn the borough around, Neil King, the Conservative candidate.

Closures at Queen Mary's Hospital

Yesterday the trust that runs Queen Mary's Hospital (QMH) announced that the A&E and maternity wards would be closed because of concerns over patient safety caused by staff shortages.

Because we now have a Conservative Health Secretary some of the usual suspects are claiming that this is a "U turn" or that Conservatives were lying when we said we would fight these closures. It is, however, worth looking at what has actually happened.

QMH has had difficulty recruiting and retaining staff from the moment that the former Labour government put through plans to close a number of services at the hospital, the A&E department has been closed at night since last year for this very reason. The decision was made by the trust board, not by the Department of Health and definitely not by Conservative politicians.

I find it particularly insulting that Andy Burnham, the former Health Secretary, is attacking Andrew Lansley for the results of decisions that were made on his watch.

Sainsbury's excessive packaging, it's all our fault

I will be very interested to see the outcome of Lincolnshire County Council's court case against Sainsbury's for having excess packaging on the beef joint. Supermarkets have far too much packaging and that costs us money as consumers when we buy things and then again through our council tax when the council has to dispose of it.

I have a lot of sympathy with the council's frustration and I suspect that this case is about highlighting an issue to consumers rather than using the law to force Sainsbury's to change their practices.

Ultimately the power to force supermarkets behaviour lies with us, the consumers. The problem is that we are hypocrites. I hear parents moan about the mountain of cardboard, plastic and bendy wires that comes with any and every toy we buy for our children. But would we be happy if the toy came in plain cardboard box with a picture on the front rather than a nice window with a chance to press the button which makes it go whizzzzzzz?

The Sainsbury's beef in question comes shrink wrapped, on a plastic tray, with a clear plastic covering and a cardboard sleeve. Would they sell as much if it was just shrink wrapped with an information sticker on the wrapping? They clearly believe not, or more significantly they know know that we won't because they've market tested alternatives.

We bemoan the loss of local shops, oppose to planning applications from supermarkets but the flock to them when they are opened. Whether packaging or planning, supermarkets follow our lead, they respond to our market demands, if we want them to change their behaviour we have to change ours.

The Lib Dem challenge

Like many Conservatives, I'm spending more time looking at the Lib Dems and their internal processes than ever before.

The Lib Dem conference was always going to be an interesting one this year, and the inherent challenge of moving from opposing the government to being one of the parties in government was never going to be easy. Do the Lib Dem grass roots see Nick Clegg and the other ministers as just mouthpieces for the party or can they reconcile themselves to the idea that they will make decisions that they think best without referring back to the party as a whole?

Historically significant parts of Lib Dem policy were created in motions from the members, I have a lot of affinity with that but it is almost completely impractical when a party of government. That is one of the reasons why Conservative conferences more usually have shadow ministers (now ministers) explaining and selling their positions to the members rather than harvesting proposals from them, it's a habit that has hung over from the years of being the government.

Mike Hancock MP has fired a shot across his party leadership's bows with his open letter warning of a "dictatorship" of Lib Dem minister making decisions without referring to the party as a whole. It is a variation on the idea that Simon Hughes put forward over the Summer, the one which I .... well let's just say that I disagreed with.

Many Lib Dems seem too used to being in opposition, or perhaps to comfortable in opposition, to understand that being in government is a game changer, their ministers have to be able to make decisions at the point and time when decisions have to be made. Being part of a coalition government is what they wished for, and like most of real life, it isn't quite as good as you thought it was going to be.

Litmus Test- Cross party thinking

There are lots of things intriguing about this publication, it addresses political ideas cross-party, it is written by bloggers, commentators and politicians, you can "buy" a digital copy with a tweet and it quotes me on the homepage.

Cross-party can sometimes be very bland, with all sides trying to prove their "we can rise above the melee" credentials, Litmus hasn't gone down this route but has still managed to avoid blinkered polemics.

If you're interested in looking at a argument from more than one side, and you should, I recommend that you get hold of a copy. http://www.litmustest.org/

The C word

No not that one, I mean CUTS!

The BBC has a new bone and it is clear that it intends to make the most out of it. As Conservativehome's Tim Montgomerie points out the BBC seem to only have two stories at the moment, how damaging the Tory cuts are and how people are opposed to the Pope's visit.

It has infuriated me for some time that the has been little attempt in the media to explain the cause or level of the national debt or to provide any balance to the cuts narrative. One exception to this is the ever excellent Evan Davis and his program Evan Loves Tax on Radio 4 (don't let the title put you off fellow Conservatives), it's well worth a listen.

I think one of the problems is that the figures involved are too big to comprehend and the fact that it is government income and spending makes the argument too remote. Let's personalise the issue and see if that helps to explain the dire straits that we are in.

Imaging your take home pay was £750 per month, also imagine that your outgoings were £1,000 per month, you therefore need to borrow £250 per month just to pay the bills. This is the situation that the country was in when the coalition took office. Can you imagine what the advice would be from one of those personal finance phone in programs would be? Would it be "keep borrowing and hope that you get a pay rise in the next few months" or would it be "cut up your credit cards, reduce your spending and start trying to reduce your debts".

The simple truth is that before the election were were on a tightrope, confidence in the UK's financial situation was at rock bottom and there was a very real chance that our sources of borrowing would dry up. If that had happened the discomfort of the next few years (and there will be plenty of discomfort) would have been infinitely worse.

And before the Labour leadership hopefuls and the Bob Crow's of this world try to claim that it's all about the banks, over half of our structural deficit was built up before the banking crisis, when times were good. It was Gordon Brown who ran up these huge debts and now George Osborne is now doing what is necessary in the short term and right in the long term.

Deposits on plastic bottles?

This morning I heard the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England talking about their proposals for a deposit on drinks bottles to encourage people to recycle them.

I am just (only just) old enough to remember when glass drinks bottles had a deposit and the practice was still common in Sierra Leone the last time I went there before the civil war. Children would go to houses offering to take your Coke, Fanta and Sprite bottles in and keep the deposit money as a form of payment. The result was that there were almost no glass bottles entering the waste stream.

I haven't had a chance to read the CPRE report yet and I'm sure that there will be some practical difficulties that would need to be addressed but instinctively I like the idea of creating a small incentive to nudge behavioural change.

Sir Keith Park and the Battle of Britain

This afternoon I joined Boris and a number of my colleagues at the unveiling of the permanent home for the statue of Sir Keith Park. In November last year I attended the unveiling of the temporary statue on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square but the statue is now in Waterloo Place, ironically the site of the first bomb to hit London during the blitz.

The event was planned to coincide with Battle of Britain day and attracted quite a line-up. In addition to the Mayor the Chief of the Air Staff was there as was Dr Liam Fox MP, the Defence Secretary, and the New Zealand Minister of Defence Wayne Mapp. There were Air Marshals, Generals and senior officers from the UK and overseas in seriously large numbers.

One of the highlights of the event was a spitfire flying low over the ceremony and doing a wing waggle, it really is a beautiful aircraft. That said I've always had a soft spot for the less glamorous Hawker Hurricane, the real workhorse of the Battle of Britain and often overlooked.

One fact that I particularly like is that Sir Keith was a Gunner officer in the pre-WW1 version of the New Zealand Territorial Army. I'm pleased that this great military leader, who did so much to change the course of the war, has now been properly recognised after being overlooked by history for so long.

Beths Grammar School prizegiving

This evening I was the guest speaker at the Beths prize giving. I always enjoy this kind of event as they provide an opportunity for me to give the students, staff and parents a big pat on the back in my speech.

Keeping with tradition the prize winners in each year received books and the diversity of the prize books was remarkable. Clearly the students get to choose their own prizes and I handed over a number of copies of George Orwell's 1984 as well as more contemporary fiction, books on arts, music and science including A Brief History of Time.

I had to stifle a chuckle when two consecutive books that passed through my hands were An Outline of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell and then You Couldn't Make it Up by Jeremy Kyle. You really couldn't make it up.

I was very pleased to hear in the Headmaster's speech that the school will be one of the first outstanding schools to become an academy under Micheal Gove's education reforms.

David and Ed Miliband should both resign, NOW!

The Labour attack on Andy Coulson continues unabated. Their tactic is pretty obvious, keep repeating the mantra that Coulson must have known about the phone hacking, without producing any evidence that he did and then demand that "something be done" or that Andy should resign.

The fact that this has been crawled all over by the police, CPS, parliament etc. and nothing came out to implicate Andy seems unimportant to Labour, they want blood. I'm sure they feel that if the story can be kept going long enough Andy will have to resign.

Well, let's see if I can do likewise.

I find it unbelievable that the Miliband brothers know nothing about the cash for honours scandal, I know that this has been fully investigated and nothing new has come to light but that's not good enough for me. They were both at the heart of the Labour government at the time and they must have known something, they just must have!

I think the whole investigation should be re-opened and that they should both withdraw from the Labour leadership race, have their commons passes revoked and stand down as MPs until the whole sordid business is cleared up.

Ridiculous, I know. But if we are playing by the guilty until proven innocent test as promoted by Labour why shouldn't I demand these things?

Boris to stand again

Boris has just announced that he intends to stand as Mayor of London again. Knowing how much he enjoys the job and his passion for London I can't pretend that I'm surprised but it's still great news.

In the various conversations that I have had with Londoners over the last few months it is clear that Boris is still hugely popular and the those people who claimed all sorts of terrible things would happen have been convincingly proved wrong. As you can imagine I'm pleased as punch that he's going to be our candidate for Mayor again.

You can register your support on the new Back Boris 2012 website.

You have to worry about some people

Strictly Come Dancing have announced the line up for this year's competition, a line up which includes Ann Widdecmbe. This news has clearly created a bit of interest in Ann today and I noticed a small but pronounced upturn in traffic to my blog from search engines, the specific search term generating this spike was "Ann Widdecombe naked".

It seems that a blog post of a few years ago is the top search result for that phrase, which begs two questions.

1. What the hell was I writing about?

and

2. Who the hell would look for pictures of Ann Widdicombe naked?

Don't get me wrong, I have always rated her as a politician and found her fascinating to talk to, but nude model material she ain't!

Andy Coulson, so what's new?

I was contacted by various bits of the BBC this morning trying to get my take on the update to the Andy Coulson story. The conversations were all a little bit different but went along similar lines:

"What update?" I asked.

"Well you know, ..... Labour's calling for an inquiry into Andy Coulson and ........ erm......... well you know, he's under increasing pressure"

"But what has changed? I've been in and out of meetings this morning, what's happened?"

"The Speaker has agreed to urgent questions in the House"

"Yes, but what has changed?"

"Well there's the new evidence from the former journalist, the police say that they might be looking into it."

"But what is this new evidence? From what I heard a disgruntled former News of the World journo has gone to the competitor of Murdoch's newspaper in NY and said that Coulson "knew everything". Not exactly prima facia evidence is it? When this all kicked off last year the police looked into it, the CPS looked into it, a Commons committee looked into it, and all said that there was nothing implicating Andy Coulson, so what has changed other than a load of people with a grudge trying to reheat an old story?"

"So you're not going to come in to the studio then?"

"Afraid not, I'm at the MPA all afternoon"

Unions, are they still needed?

According to new research by the Tax Payers' Alliance, the public are subsidising the unions to the tune of £85 million a year, made up both of obvious things like the multi-million pound Union Modernisation Fund and less obviously the numerous union officials who are working for their union while being paid full time by their employers.

There was a time when worker exploitation was rife and unionisation was a force for good. Think back to the time when the factory owners also owned the lives of the factory workers, when a town had only one industry and there was no such thing as workforce mobility. In circumstances like that I would have joined a union.

As much as maintaining the spectre of the manipulative, all powerful mill owner or pit boss is good to justify the workers vs the bosses narrative it just doesn't reflect the modern world of work. Today we have a mobile and informed workforce, the bulk of whom can choose where they live and what job they do. We have employers who are keen to keep hold of a workforce that they have invested in and we have consumers who care about the conditions of workers in the supply chain and adjust their buying decisions accordingly.

We more often see industrial action bringing to its knees the very industries the unions sought to protect, the most heavily unionised industries became the least competitive and died out, think of the ship building, car manufacturing and newspaper printing. BA is losing market share to lower cost airlines yet Unite is fighting to keep uneconomical business models which could see the company go out of business. Only in public sector monopolies has union activity really thrived.

We now have completely different circumstances to the ones when the unions were created. It could be argued that the unions have won their real battle, employers care for their workers, exploitations is now unacceptable and indeed illegal, the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist is an history work of fiction. The dragons that the unions sought to slay have been slain, Bob Crow, Tony Woodley, Matt Wrack et al are like those Japanese soldiers alone on Pacific islands in the 1950s refusing to believe that WWII had ended.

So I say to the knights of the workers, the champions of the common man, turn your swords into ploughshares, go back to work and stop tapping up the public to the tune of 85 million quid a year.

David Blunkett screwed up, big time..

.. as the Americans would say.

I was first critical of the extradition treaty signed by Blunkett back in 2006 when the issue of the Nat West Three came up, I felt that it was both one-sided and poorly thought through. It seems that David Blunkett now agrees with me.

I am already starting to get sick of the "in hindsight we were wrong" confessions coming from senior labour figures. Had they not been so arrogant in government and had they allowed parliament to do its job and scrutinise legislation we would not now have so much bad legislation on the statue books.

I would love to see Teresa May renegotiate the treaty as the new (and already significantly more effective than her predecessors) Home Secretary but it is far easier to get these things right the first time around than try to tidy them up afterwards.

I can already see the US headlines if we started along that road: "Britain to cut terrorist extradition to the US" or "Obama gives away terrorist extradition powers". I just can't see the Americans buying the plans when they are presented like that, and they will be.

Like so much of the Coalition Government's activities over the next few years it will involve hard work and skill in clearing up the foul legacy of the criminally inept Labour Government.