Lord Barnett has said the Barnett formula, which allocates extra public spending resources to Scotland, should be scrapped. Here's an extract of his interview with David Mills of GMTV, which will be screened on Sunday...
DM: What is the Barnett formula and what were you trying to achieve when you came up for it?
Lord Barnett : Well first the first thing to understand is that it was never a formula in the first place! I’d been having a pretty tough time getting public expenditure cut through cabinet colleagues and I wanted to make it a little easier so I said we’ll have a system that 85 % of the agreed figure for public expenditure will go to England, 10 % for Scotland, and 5% for Wales based broadly on a population per head basis. Now that saved me the trouble of negotiating separately with the Scottish and Welsh secretaries of state. That’s all it was. Indeed when I left office and published a book called ‘Inside The Treasury’ in 1982 I never even referred to it as a formula as it was never intended to last. I thought it should be based on needs which it wasn’t. So it became a formula because Margaret Thatcher then John Major kept it going for 18 years for fear of upsetting the Scots at the end of the day in 1997 they lost every single seat in Scotland and Wales, for which I take the credit of course!
DM: Obviously things have changed since then, does the system of allocating resources between the nations of the UK need to be changed?
Lord Barnett: It’s quite wrong and I’ve said so in a debate which I initiated in the House of Lords, It clearly should not be based on per head expenditure but it should be based on needs in particular areas , in the present moment the amount of Money going to Scotland on a needs basis by comparison, say with my own north west, or the north east, is far higher than it should be, indeed so it should be changed. If they want to keep the name they like the idea of a formula called the Barnet formula then it should be Mark 2 and it should be based on need not on expenditure per head.
David Mills: Could you give us a rough estimate of the sort of difference you’d envisage of the amount of money going now and under mark 2 Barnet?
Lord Barnett: Well in fairness, if you analyse the needs of Scotland, because there are large areas, agricultural areas where income per head would not be very good, where they may need extra expenditure. They may not all lose that much, they’d lose quite a bit in my guess, done on a proper needs basis because for example they paid for the cost for the whole of the enormous cost of that new building, parliamentary building, they paid for it without having to raise an extra penny. Because the parliament formula financed it. I’m going there shortly, I’m not sure whether I’ll be well received.
DM: So we’re talking about billions of pounds potentially?
Lord Barnett: Oh yes, very large sums.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Why I love Australia...
...well, actually, it's why Charles Krauthammer loves Australia. Click HERE to read his brilliant Washington Post article. I've only been there once - in 1991 - and absolutely loved it. For some reason I didn't expect to. I was on a business trip advising the Australian Liberal Party on ports reform so didn't have much time for sight-seeing, but I saw enough to make me want to go back. And one day I will. For the first time last night I even cheered them on in a sporting contest. They deserved to beat Croatia but it has to be said their victory was overshadowed by one of the worst refereeing performances I have ever seen. I suspect it will haunt Graham Poll for the rest of his life. And he's one of our better referees! Well, was.
The Gorgeous Leaflet of Young Ben Abbotts
Bromley LibDem Candidate Ben Abbotts is delivering a TV Quick type leaflet round the constituency at the moment headlined BEN ABBOTTS: LIVING IN THE REAL WORLD. The real world of LibDem by election leaflets maybe - the only thing missing is the slogan BEN ABBOTTS WINNING HERE or one of the LibDem dodgy bar graphs. Or maybe they're on the other side.Lots of lovely pics of our Ben are proudly displayed. Ben as a baby. Ben as a child. Ben getting hitched. Ben face painting. Ben with children. And then there is a picture of him with some Asian children. We'll return to that one a bit later, so do check back.
There's even a pic of Princess Diana along with some words which sound as if they were written by a twelve year old. "Meeting Princess Diana was really memorable. I'd been chosen by my school to do a reading at a service in Canterbury Cathedral. Priness Diana congratulated me afterwards on how well I'd read. I was really struck by her warmth and kindess."
Really, Really! Enough! But there's more. Beside a beaming Ben on his first day at school we are allowed to enjoy these words of wisdom... "This was my first day at school. My eldest daughter now attends a school in Bromley Borough. She makes me so proud."
Note the phrase Bromley Borough. Translation: The School's in Beckenham, outside the constituency. Later on we learn: Zara's a teacher in Bromley Borough. Translation: Zara's a teacher in Beckenham.
Not a single word of anything Ben actually believes in or has a view on. So next time the LibDems have a go at David Cameron for being 'policy-lite', quote this leaflet back at them.
Do check back a little later to learn more about young Ben's gap year in Asia. We think he may have been embellishing his Far East experience somewhat.
The Reputation of Neville Chamberlain: Speaker Meeting
The next speaker meeting of the Conservative History Group will be held on Tuesday 18 July at 6.30pm in the Boothroyd Room of the House of Commons. The subject will be "The Reputation of Neville Chamberlain". Speakers are Robert Self and Professor John Charmley. If you;d like to attend please email info@conservativehistory.org.uk. If you're not a CHG member you'll be expected to join! For the £15 membership you get invited to all speaker events and receive two copies of our Journal. Visit the Conservative History Blog HERE or the Conservative History Group website HERE. You can find details of how to join on the website.
Guido's on the Trail of Sleazy Levy
Nick Clarke's Audio Diary Is a Radio Masterpiece
I switched on Radio 4 this morning wondering who would be on Desert Islands Discs only to find they had replaced it with an audio diary by Nick Clarke, who was the presenter of The World at One until he was diagnosed with cancer. The audio diary covered the period leading up to the amputation of his leg and how he and his family coped with the aftermath. As regular readers will know, my eyes tend to moisten at the slightest excuse, and I am sure I was not alone in being deeply moved by the programme. It's still going on as I'm typing this. If you didn't manage to listen to it, go to the Radio 4 website and download it. You won't regret it. I've met Nick on a couple of occasions and he is a truly lovely man. I hope this is not the last time I hear his voice in the 9am slot on Fridays. For me he would be an ideal presenter of Desert Island Discs.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Ben Abbott Fails to Learn from History
No comment necessary. Particularly from me. I'll get my coat. Perhaps I should have done after this picture. I wonder if the press will give Ben Abbott the same treatment they gave DD. No, I doubt it too.
PS. For those who don't know Ben Abbott, he's the losing LibDem candidate in next week's Bromley & Chislehurst by-election. Hat-tip for graphic to No Geek is an Island
Your Earliest Political Memory?
In his interview on this blog earlier this week Adam Rickitt said his earliest political memory was the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Dizzy is worried that it was his too. Croydonian, who's a similar age to your humble servant, says his earliest political memory was Watergate. I was born on 1962. My first political memory was the power cuts and the three day week in 1974. I would like to say that my first political memory was Mrs T abolishing school milk - which I always hated - and that set me on the hallowed path to Thatcherism. But I can't. Because it wasn't. What is your earliest political memory?
Pete Doherty's 150 Grand Injection
The publisher of my last book was Weidenfeld and Nicolson, which is owned by Orion Publishing. Today it was reported that Orion has paid an advance of 150,000 pounds to drug addict musician Pete Doherty for his memoirs. They might just as well have cut out the middle man and delivered him a sack full of white powder. Who on earth believes Pete Doherty is physically or mentally capable of writing a sentence let alone a book? The only sentence he is capable of writing is a death sentence - his own. Perhaps Orion executives might contemplate what message this sends out to impressionable teenagers as well as its own authors.
Who are the Bashful Three?
The Evening Standard reports tonight that a Labour donor has spent fifty grand on legal advice before being interviewed by Inspector Knacker about cash for peerages. But more interestingly they say three more key witnedded have refused to co-operate with the police inquiry. Who are they? What have they got.to hide? This all suggests great dangers ahead for the Dear Leader. Which is why I still believe he may be gone by the end of the year.
Maguire Fingered!
Spotted: The Mirror's Kevin Maguire emerging from The Treasury this lunchtime. Expect a glowing piece on Gordon Brown in his paper tomorrow.
New Freedom of Information Blog From the BBC
An old friend of mine Martin Rosenbaum has started a blog. Martin wrote a very good book on political campaigning a few years ago called From Soapbox to Soundbite, which is now sadly out of print. He's a BBC radio journalist and has become a bit of a specialist in Freedom of Information matters. And now he's the latest BBC journalist to start a blog. It's called Open Secrets and you can find it HERE. He could start by doing an FOI at the BBC and telling us how much of our licence fee is going to the likes of Jonathan Ross!
Gordon Brown Supports Government Policy Shocker
Perhaps I am missing something but can someone please explain to me why the BBC is leading its news bulletins and its onine news pages with the story - if it can be called that - of Gordon Brown supporting government policy on a replacement for Trident? Now if he didn't support it, that indeed would be a story. GORDON BROWN SUPPORTS GOVERNMENT POLICY is a bit like saying DAVID CAMERON THINKS THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY SHOULD CHANGE. Phew what a shocker. However, the BBC has managed to change it into a news story of sorts by rolling out the predictable lefties to slag him off. They've even got Sir Malcom Rifkind to have a go at the Dour One. BBC News website reports him describing Brown's remarks as "shabby". Sir Malcolm accused Mr Brown of trying to stifle a debate within the Labour Party and said: "It is not the responsibility of the chancellor in an after dinner speech to announce nuclear policy." Hmmm. Far be it from me to defend Britain's next future ex Prime Miniter (if you see what I mean) but as Chancellor surely he has an absolute right to defend government policy - and I am assuming Sir Malcolm actually agrees with him. This just gets more bizarre the more you think about it.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Charles Kennedy Begins The Long Walk Back
Charles Kennedy begins Project Rehabilitation on Question Time tomorrow night. He's known to still be furious at the way he was overthrown and to this day refuses to speak to those who he regards as the Guilty Men and Women. He's still very popular among LibDems who must be pulling their hair out at how they have fared since.
Look for coded clues from Kennedy about a possible comeback. Cue barage of comments from my LibDem readers. Just remember it was this blog which first broke the story in December last year that Kennedy was not only on the sauce but his leadership was on the skids. At the time I was ridiculed by Libdem readers of this Blog. Events proved me right.
I make no predictions of an imminent Kenndy comeback, and from what I hear of his health, it's not likely, but I do wonder why he has chosen this month to become rather more vocal than he has been for the last six months.
Sue Ellen, You're a Drunk, a Whore & An Unfit Mother!
Blogging will be a little light for the next few hours as I take some time out to meet three of my TV heroes, Larry Hagman, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy. They're filming an episode of Wogan Then & Now, and little old me has been invited to go along to meet them. Dallas remains one of my favourite TV programmes. I can remember watching the pilot episode in 1979 and thinking it was something very new. Although it tailed off towards the end of its run it remains for me an iconic programme and I am collecting the DVD Box Sets. It was the Desperate Housewives of its day! For those of you who share my fascination for Dallas there's a fantastic fan site called Ultimate Dallas which you can visit HERE. Now that I have ruined any remaining political credibility I had left - which wasn't a lot - I'll just get my coat...
Vote for a New Conservative Logo
ConservativeHome is inviting you to vote for your favoured new Conservative Party logo HERE.
Scrapping Barnett: Alice Thomson is Right & Wrong
Alice Thomson has an excellent article on today's Telegraph headlined HOW TO DEFUSE THE SCOTTISH QUESTION. You can read it HERE. She argues that the Barnett formula should be scrapped...
His (Gordon Brown's) solution lies in his own department and is suited to his tinkering temperament: scrap the Barnett formula that subsidises public spending north of the border by £1,400 per Scot every year. It must be obvious to the Chancellor that this handout is increasingly unacceptable to the English. It has allowed the Scottish Parliament to bring in free care for the elderly, free nursery places and free tuition at universities, as well as enabling them to build a £431 million parliament building. But as the Economist pointed out this month, representation with no taxation in Scotland hasn't worked. Under the headline "A Lament for Scotland", the magazine argues that devolution has not brought confidence. "Scotland has regressed into an inward-looking, chip-on-the-shoulder, slightly Anglophobic country," according to the report. "It has gained self-doubt, while clinging to an old dependency on England." The Barnett formula, in other words, has encouraged what Mr Brown says he wants to stop - the Scottish being treated as second-class citizens. It has prevented their parliament from being known for anything other than minor scandals and it hasn't encouraged the economy - over the past 10 years, it has grown by one per cent less than England. Mr Brown might lose some seats in Scotland to the SNP, but he would gain in the south for having the courage to address the issue. If he so desperately wants to be prime minister of a United Kingdom, this is the way to do it.
Alice is right to say the Barnett formula should be scrapped, but she is wrong if she thinks that will solve the problem. It will still mean that Scottish MPs can vote on issues which do not affect their own constituents. Others say the solution is to cut the number of Scottish MPs still further. The size of Scottish constituencies, with one or two exceptions, is now broadly in line with English ones, so I don't think that argument holds water.
The only solution to this question, and it's one I wish my own Party would embrace, is to allow a referendum in England on the creation of a Parliament for England. Having let the genie of devolution out of the bottle it is difficult to see how Labour could argue against such a referendum, although argue against it I am sure they will. Several senior LibDems, including Simon Hughes, have flirted with English devolution, but in the end they retreat back to their policy of regionalisation. The Conservatives have a policy of asking the Speaker to ensure only English MPs are allowed to vote on English only issues (which is re-heated HERE in the Telegraph today). It sounds good until you examine its practical implementation.
The Conservatives should now seriously think about how an English parliament would work. There's nothing anti-Scottish or anti-Welsh in arguing for an English Parliament. There's certainly nothing anti-Scottish or anti-Welsh in arguing that the English people should be given a referendum, just as the Scots and the Welsh had in the late 1990s. This is the debate we should be having - not one about tinkering with parliamentary procedure.
UPDATE 11.48am I have written a much longer version of this article which will appear on Comment is Free later today. Until then you can read it HERE.
UPDATE: 11.59pm The article is now on Comment is Free HERE and has provoked quite a furious debate!
His (Gordon Brown's) solution lies in his own department and is suited to his tinkering temperament: scrap the Barnett formula that subsidises public spending north of the border by £1,400 per Scot every year. It must be obvious to the Chancellor that this handout is increasingly unacceptable to the English. It has allowed the Scottish Parliament to bring in free care for the elderly, free nursery places and free tuition at universities, as well as enabling them to build a £431 million parliament building. But as the Economist pointed out this month, representation with no taxation in Scotland hasn't worked. Under the headline "A Lament for Scotland", the magazine argues that devolution has not brought confidence. "Scotland has regressed into an inward-looking, chip-on-the-shoulder, slightly Anglophobic country," according to the report. "It has gained self-doubt, while clinging to an old dependency on England." The Barnett formula, in other words, has encouraged what Mr Brown says he wants to stop - the Scottish being treated as second-class citizens. It has prevented their parliament from being known for anything other than minor scandals and it hasn't encouraged the economy - over the past 10 years, it has grown by one per cent less than England. Mr Brown might lose some seats in Scotland to the SNP, but he would gain in the south for having the courage to address the issue. If he so desperately wants to be prime minister of a United Kingdom, this is the way to do it.
Alice is right to say the Barnett formula should be scrapped, but she is wrong if she thinks that will solve the problem. It will still mean that Scottish MPs can vote on issues which do not affect their own constituents. Others say the solution is to cut the number of Scottish MPs still further. The size of Scottish constituencies, with one or two exceptions, is now broadly in line with English ones, so I don't think that argument holds water.
The only solution to this question, and it's one I wish my own Party would embrace, is to allow a referendum in England on the creation of a Parliament for England. Having let the genie of devolution out of the bottle it is difficult to see how Labour could argue against such a referendum, although argue against it I am sure they will. Several senior LibDems, including Simon Hughes, have flirted with English devolution, but in the end they retreat back to their policy of regionalisation. The Conservatives have a policy of asking the Speaker to ensure only English MPs are allowed to vote on English only issues (which is re-heated HERE in the Telegraph today). It sounds good until you examine its practical implementation.
The Conservatives should now seriously think about how an English parliament would work. There's nothing anti-Scottish or anti-Welsh in arguing for an English Parliament. There's certainly nothing anti-Scottish or anti-Welsh in arguing that the English people should be given a referendum, just as the Scots and the Welsh had in the late 1990s. This is the debate we should be having - not one about tinkering with parliamentary procedure.
UPDATE 11.48am I have written a much longer version of this article which will appear on Comment is Free later today. Until then you can read it HERE.
UPDATE: 11.59pm The article is now on Comment is Free HERE and has provoked quite a furious debate!
It's the UK Not the USA Which Needs to Look Beyond Its Borders
I've just spent half an hour on Crane Durham's Nothing But the Truth on 97.1 FM Talk in St Louis Missouri. Crane is a right wing talk show host and I guess in this country we try to pigeonhole shows like this as rabid right wing rants and because we're used to the liberal slant of the BBC we tend to look down our noses at them. But how many UK radio shows would spend half an hour talking about North Korea and China with someone on the line from another country? Answer, none. We all think the USA is very insular and that Americans can't see beyond their own borders. That caricature needs destroying. If anything, it is we who should be examining ourselves.Foreign news coverage in our newspapers is lamentable and declining. Yesterday's Daily Telegraph had two and a half pages of foreign news. TV programmes on world politics are rarer than a sighting of John Prescott doing some work and even Radio 4 is increasingly insular. Things have come to a pretty pass when I'm considering taking out a subscription to the International Herald Tribune, the only newspaper available in this country which gives an all-round unbiased coverage of what's happening throughout the world. Country of origin? The United States.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Dave 1 Gordon 0
That nice Hugo Rifkind is reporting this interesting piece of political football gossip...
David Cameron is on his way to Germany for the match. According to his spokesman, Dave will be watching the match from the stands, "like everybody else." Gordon Brown, who will also be there, is expected to watch it from the box. Cunning. That should make for some nicely contrasting pictures tomorrow.
Indeed. Now, to the tune of Go West... One Nil to the Ca-Mer-On.
David Cameron is on his way to Germany for the match. According to his spokesman, Dave will be watching the match from the stands, "like everybody else." Gordon Brown, who will also be there, is expected to watch it from the box. Cunning. That should make for some nicely contrasting pictures tomorrow.
Indeed. Now, to the tune of Go West... One Nil to the Ca-Mer-On.
Tony Blair's Football Credentials
From The Guardian...
It was the question about the Scots, specifically his next-door neighbour, and Britons not supporting England which drew the most interesting response.The PM said he could not understand the antipathy the Scots and the Welsh have for the England football team (where has he been?). He felt that you could support a team without necessarily hating your rivals. "As a Newcastle Uni'ed suppawer," he said, "I would be ri' behind Sunderland if they go' into Europe [Come on now, Prime Minister, be serious] and I'm sure, Adrian, if Aston Villa were in a big European final, you would suppaw them, wouldn't you?" Chiles (a West Brom fan) gasped at the very suggestion."Er no," was his answer. And so, in a stroke, were the Prime Minister's credentials as a football fan destroyed."
Blogging might be a bit light tonight. Come on England! Rooooney! Rooooney!
Hat tip to LabourWatch
It was the question about the Scots, specifically his next-door neighbour, and Britons not supporting England which drew the most interesting response.The PM said he could not understand the antipathy the Scots and the Welsh have for the England football team (where has he been?). He felt that you could support a team without necessarily hating your rivals. "As a Newcastle Uni'ed suppawer," he said, "I would be ri' behind Sunderland if they go' into Europe [Come on now, Prime Minister, be serious] and I'm sure, Adrian, if Aston Villa were in a big European final, you would suppaw them, wouldn't you?" Chiles (a West Brom fan) gasped at the very suggestion."Er no," was his answer. And so, in a stroke, were the Prime Minister's credentials as a football fan destroyed."
Blogging might be a bit light tonight. Come on England! Rooooney! Rooooney!
Hat tip to LabourWatch
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)