Tory Housing and Pension advice to the common people of Britain

The UK's Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has warned young people not to rely on home ownership to fund their retirement. Unveiling a radical overhaul of the state pension, the Work and Pensions Secretary said rising house prices were putting bricks and mortar out of reach. He added it was "absolutely imperative" that the Government took steps to "secure the position of the next generation" and encourage saving.

Swanbourne, Buckinghamshire

He added that 70 per cent of today's pensioners owned their own homes, but their grandchildren were "struggling to even get a foot on the housing ladder" because house prices for first-time buyers had risen by 40 per cent in real terms over the last decade. "The next generation will not be able to rely on bricks and mortar in the way their parents have been able to," he said. "It's no wonder our children are increasingly cynical about saving." Now Iain Duncan Smith happens to live not too far from the Sage's Castle in Buckinghamshire and I happen to know a bit about his own bricks and mortar.

Lord and Lady Cottesloe

This is such good advice from a person who when he was made redundant had the comfort and support of his father in law, John Fremantle, 5th Baron Cottesloe, who built and gave him a house on his 1,400 acres of land at Swanbourne, in North Buckinghamshire where IDS lives to this day. Iain Duncan Smith is married to Elizabeth "Betsy" Fremantle. As IDS observed during the Foot & Mouth epidemic, he understands the plight of the ordinary farmer. And no doubt the ordinary person made redundant who doesn't have the cushion of an aristocratic father-in-law?

His “ordinary farmer” father-in-law is the 5th Baron Cottesloe. He also inherited the Austrian noble title "Baron Fremantle", which is an authorised title in the United Kingdom by Warrant of April 27, 1932. He was Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire between 1984 and 1997. An Old Etonian and former naval commander, he owns the Swanbourne estate in Buckinghamshire, which includes the picture-postcard village of Swanbourne, complete with post office, village store, tea-rooms, prep school and houses, plus rolling acres of prime farmland. Lord and Lady Cottesloe live in the Old House, a manor house set in five acres. As Betsy is the Cottesloes' oldest child, the next village squire could be Iain Duncan Smith. Despite attempts by Tory Central Office to present him otherwise, Duncan Smith is resolutely upper class.

The Fremantle Family's Betsey Wynne Pub at Swanbourne.

The Pub’s name comes from Betsey, who married Thomas Fremantle when he was a sea Captain with the British Fleet in Naples, 1797. Horatio Nelson was the best man. From their prolific union stems the complete Fremantle line of distinguished Naval Officers, including three Admirals and the present head of the family, Lord Cottesloe, who lives at Swanbourne. IDS's wife is named after her and Fremantle, Swanbourne and Cottesloe in Western Australia are named after the family who claimed Western Australia for the crown and founded the Swan River Colony, today Perth.

IDS served as a British Army officer in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981 and his father was a Group Captain in the RAF. Intriguingly, given his wife's family wealth, his two homes, and his children going to public schools, Duncan Smith has complained that life as an MP had been "a financial disaster”. From his aristocratic marriage, military background, free house and personal wealth of over £1 million he is able to understand the hearts and minds of the ordinary men and women of Britain.

IDS cares about housing

It is wondrous to see the Quiet Man of British Politics lead the Tory led Coalition’s cynically amoral assault on the poor (mainly working poor) of Britain claiming there are no “soft options.”

A Newsnight investigation in December 2002 found that Iain Duncan Smith's CV contained 'inaccurate and misleading' claims about his education. The investigation found that Duncan Smith's biography on the Conservative Party website, his entry in Who's Who, and various other places, stated that he went to the Universita di Perugia in Italy. It transpired instead that he had attended the Universita per Stranieri, which is also in Perugia; however the University did not award degrees when Duncan Smith attended in 1973. When challenged by Newsnight, Duncan Smith's office confirmed that he 'didn't get any qualifications in Perugia or even finish his exams'. The first line of Ian Duncan Smith's biography on the Conservative Party website claimed that he was 'educated at Dunchurch College of Management'. Dunchurch was the former staff college for GEC Marconi, where he worked in the 1980s, again Duncan Smith's office confirmed to Newsnight that 'he did not get any qualifications there either, but that he completed six separate courses lasting a few days each, adding up to about a month in total'. John Garside, a former Dunchurch tutor, told the Newsnight investigation team 'I'm puzzled, flattered, but puzzled. What we did was offer short courses… it was not a continuous form of education by any means.

There have been plenty of soft options for IDS who became an arms salesman through the Old Boys network after his short six year Guards career in the army and had his house built for free on his father in law. Lord Cottesloe's, land when he was made redundant after six months in the only real job he ever had. He also (as an MP) took six months off work in 2009 when his wife Betsy was diagnosed with breast cancer. Is this another case of do as I say, not as I do?

IDS is 58 years old and has suckled upon the publicly-funded teat for most of his life. He's signed on the dole. He's had four children and received child benefit for all of them. He has put them each through private school, too. His wife hasn't worked since they married, except for 15 months in which he got her a job paid by the taxpayer.

He and his colleagues eat and drink food you subsidise in a palace you pay for, he is driven around in a car you own, and when he is too old to 'work' any more you will pay for him to have a better pension than you, too. He started out at the age of 21 with six years of taxpayer-funded military service, during which he acted as bag-carrier to a Major-General.

Then in 1981, aged 27, he left the Army and signed on the dole for several months. He then began a period of ordinary work based upon the skills he had gained at the taxpayer's expense, and worked in sales for arms dealer GEC-Marconi. He then moved on to a property firm, where he was made redundant after six months, and then sold gun-related magazines for Jane's Information Group.

After 11 years of this all-too brief career he succeeded in once again boarding the publicly-funded gravy train in 1992. In the intervening 20 years he has been paid by the taxpayer every year more money than most taxpayers earn. He has topped it up, along the way, to more than six figures for a few years here and there. In 2001 he helped his unemployed wife to have a suckle, arranging for you to pay her £15,000 to be his diary secretary.

These days he is given the grand total of £134,565 a year from the taxpayer. He lives for free in a £2million Tudor farmhouse on his father-in-law's ancestral estate in Buckinghamshire. He has three acres of land, a tennis court, swimming pool and some orchards, which is not bad for a life in the pay of the state.

Now let us in the spirit of the Tories Big Society all sing the first verse and chorus of the hoary old anthem “We are all in this together.”

Another disaster at DWP?

Once again the Tories are having to back pedal as their Universal Credit programme shows signs of falling behind schedule and facing major problems. The system, which will roll all benefits and tax credits into a single payment automatically linked to earnings, was expected to be trialled for new claimants across four areas of the country from late April.

Unfortunately, and typical ignorance of the simple realities of life, Iain Duncan Smith failed to check out with those who deliver welfare benefits and consequently he has been forced to scale back the trials to a single JCP office in Ashton-under-Lyne. So much for a grand roll-out.

Three other pilot areas in Wigan, Warrington and Oldham that were also due to ‘test out’ the new programme will not now begin processing the payments until at least July and possibly later.

Of course it would be nice to think that IDS would have the humility to admit to, and display a little embarrassment, but I suspect we may be waiting a long time. This is a man noted for his single-mindedness. No doubt over the coming days we will hear a range of excuses, but the bottom line is that it has been a kick in the pants for the Secretary of State.

In February, 2013, Iain Duncan Smith drafted in one of the Government’s most experienced trouble-shooters to take charge of the programme – a move which led to the departure of another senior DWP civil servant a few weeks later.

The delay in rolling out Universal Credit are probably due to the fact that most frontline staff do not have the training, computer programmes or experience in place to avoid making disastrous mistakes which could lead to people not receiving the benefits to which they are entitled. A point made by a number of welfare organisations months ago. Could this be more evidence that IDS doesn’t listen to those around him?

In its announcement of the delay the Department of Work and Pension made no attempt to explain why it was unable to proceed as planned. Interestingly, in a neat little sidestep a spokesman for the department searched for a way to get IDS off the hook and tried to suggest it was “sensible” to start with one area before rolling it out to the other three in July.

Speaking on behalf of DWP, he said:

“It will allow us to make any changes that we feel we need to make and see what works and what doesn’t”.

Liam Byrne, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, tried to capitalise on this bungling by condemn UC and describing the announcement as “yet another embarrassing setback”.

He went on to say:

“The scheme is already late and over-budget and in spite of earlier promises Ministers have admitted that they have no idea when out of work claimants will move over to Universal Credit … The truth is the IT for Universal Credit appears to be nowhere near ready. Universal Credit calculations depend on salary data from HMRC's new PAYE Real Time Information system. Obligations for small firms to provide PAYE data on or before each employee payment have recently been delayed from April until October. And DWP are so worried they are now barring access to their five main contractors. This scheme is now on the edge of disaster. Ministers must admit this project is in crisis and start to fix it now – before millions of families tax credits are put at risk.”

Regrettably, Byrne failed to point out that UC will create significant challenge to low-income families. The simple reality is that, according to a Resolution Foundation report, “Conditions Uncertain”, almost 1.2 million low-paid workers entitled to support under Universal Credit will have to look for extra work or face the risk of having payments withdrawn. Furthermore, in a report by Tanni Grey-Thompson, 100,000 disabled children stand to lose up to £28 a week and 116,000 disabled people who work will be at risk of losing up to £40 per week from help towards additional costs of being disabled.

These are injustices that appear to be going through on a nod and a wink. The Tories and their Lib-Dem puppies will force this programme onto the most vulnerable in our society and it is a responsibility of those on the left to expose the extent of these injustices and campaign for their eradication.

We have a responsibility to do everything in our power to protect the poor and the vulnerable. If we fail them now we have no right to ask for their support later.

Not in my name

Did anyone else hear about the Rally against Debt last Saturday? It seems about 350 people demonstrated in support of Government cuts and that it would be immoral to leave the debt to future generations.

It believed in substantial spending cuts sooner rather than later to avoid seeing more taxes going on debt interest, not paying for services.

Protesters held placards bearing messages including "Drowning in debt", "No more EU bailouts" and "Stop spending money you don't have".

Some of the crazies on this ‘demo’ included known Conservative activist, Matthew Sinclair, who attended under the banner of the Taxpayer's Alliance and said the cuts are essential:

"The country's facing a choice. It's facing a choice between racking up more and more debt and spending decades with taxpayers' burden and with the economy dragged down by that incredible debt. Or we start to take action to cut spending, to deliver better value and to start to rebuild our economic fortunes."

Other notable right-wingers attending included UKIP MEP Nigel Farage, who said: "We want to make it clear that not a penny more of British taxpayers' money should be spent on Euro bail-outs...and we regard giving £40m a day to Brussels for our membership of this union is giving us bad value for money. So from that little lot you get a fairly big shopping list of real, good, sensible cuts that could be made and we could perhaps keep a few more local libraries open."

With so few people attending you would have thought they would have been too embarrassed to call it a rally, wouldn’t you? But no, these are die-hard Tories we are talking about and they wanted to show those who attended the TUC demonstration earlier this year (yes, the one with half a million protesters) that there was an alternative voice.

Now let me get this right – this band of nutters think a fiasco in London can stand alongside one of the greatest demonstrations against government policy since the time of the Poll Tax resistance. Could I just remind them they were outnumbered on a ration of 1:1428!!!!

If this is the best the Tories can do then we have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, they are usually far better organised and far more capable of causing bedlam to our society.

As we speak, hundreds of welfare to work staff are facing redundancy as they wait to hear if they will have a job for the next five years. Many won’t and will be forced to become clients of the new Work Programme themselves. Throughout, the government have been notable only by their silence and Chris Grayling, the architect of this demise has failed to answer accusations that he has watched whilst Rome burns.
The new Work programme will operate with fewer staff, yet will be expected to achieve better results than its predecessor, Flexible New Deal. As one writer recently said:

“… the delivery model is basically the same for A4e except we are being told to push the customers harder and not allow being on programme to become the easy option.”

But this isn’t just an A4e problem, it is across the entire sector and the government have failed to invest correctly, resulting in a programme that will be unable to achieve any better result than those before it, and at a cost of substantial redundancies for those who have been working in the sector for many years.

This lack of investment and strategic ineptitude was further exposed last week when the Department for Work and Pensions abandoned plans to introduce a system to automate the processing of all benefit claims. The DWP said that the system would still require "human intervention". In other words, they hadn’t thought it through, spent a fortune trying to get it to work and then found it wasn’t suitable.

The same disaster is set to hit the NHS as Citizen Dave continues his plans to “reform” the service. Unfortunately, some of those nasty discontents in the Lib Dems seem likely to put a spanner in the works and slow down or stop any of his plans. This won’t be enough to stop Citizen Dave – he is a man on a mission, even though the British Medical Association and some Labour MPs have expressed concern that the plans will allow private health firms to get a stronger foothold in the NHS.

The critics argue that the bill will allow competition law to be applied to the health service and lead to a much greater involvement, which in turn could undermine local NHS hospitals. The BMA has even likened it to the privatisation of utility industries.

But Citizen Dave, like the 350 who attended the “rally” in London last week refuse to listen to reason – they are Tories after all. Their venom is constantly being spat out and regurgitated by the media. Take the fact that the national media bothered to report the rally in the first place. It is another significant coup for the right because it tries to show how they represent the views of the majority.

Well, I refuse to have my name associated with the tragedy happening to the welfare to work sector. I do not wish to see changes to the NHS so that the private sector can cream off millions of pounds in profit.

When the Tories destroy our society, let the message be clear – they are not doing it in my name.

Why many ESA claimants aren't 'fit for work'

The government is on its latest tirade against the poor, the sick and the unemployment. Now they have discovered three-quarters of people who apply for sickness benefit are found fit to work or drop their claims before they are completed, official figures show. Department for Work and Pensions figures showed 887,300 of 1,175,700 employment and support allowance (ESA) applicants over a 22-month period failed to qualify for assistance. Of those 39% were judged fit to work, while 36% abandoned their claim.

As a result, Employment Minister Chris Grayling has said the welfare system needed changing. He said the figures underlined the need to reassess people still on the old incapacity benefit - a process which the government began rolling out last month.

"Once again we have clear evidence of the need for change in our welfare system. We now know very clearly that the vast majority of new claimants for sickness benefits are in fact able to return to work. That's why we are turning our attention to existing claimants, who were simply abandoned on benefits. That's why we are reassessing all of those claimants, and launching the work programme to provide specialist back to work support. We will, of course, carry on providing unconditional support to those who cannot work, but for those who can it's right and proper that they start back on the road to employment."

Before he opens his mouth this man really should engage his brain. When people go to doctors, health visitors, Citizen’s Advice Bureaux, or welfare rights organisations they are often advised to apply for incapacity benefit (or employment and support allowance as it is now). There is no subterfuge on the part of the working classes, no plot to overthrow the state and we aren’t a nation full of social security scroungers either.

The reality is that many of these assessments have been found to be inhumane, lacking or evidence of genuine care and designed exclusively to trap people into a situation where they can no longer claim benefit.

Take some of the following cases:

“In Hull, my Atos doc showed up on the cancelled day (I had another appointment to go to that I could not reschedule) and I had to send him away, then I attended the centre for the next attempt, it is in a busy area, buzzer at door, terrible chairs and long corridors. My wheelchair broke in the car park they watched me and my friend struggling with it out of the window and did not offer help. In the end we gave up and I used my crutches. We told the doc exactly what happened so she made no mention of it on my assessment and said I only use crutches! Amongst other 'mistakes' and flat out falsification, I was refused all help and am still awaiting an appeal date a year later.”

“The fellow came to my house as I was housebound - they knew I was housebound and yet they kept trying to find evidence of me walking.”Don't you go round to the shops?" No, I don't, it was too far in winter and unsafe, and if they had called my carer at all she could have told them that (The DWP never even contacted her). He managed to drag out that I had been fed up with being stuck at home for three months so I dragged myself into town to get some flowers and visit my favourite coffee shop - it was the same day my son ended up getting excluded and so I spent the three days afterwards trying to recover with an autistic hyperactive child, drugged to the gills on Tramadol. Result on the assessment form? "Can walk up to 500 yards pain free." Once I got the arthritis scan in there which shows damage to the bones in my feet, I wanted to appeal the "no mobility allowance" grounds but missed the appeal date by three days. I now have to file, yet again, for change in circumstances, which is the second time I've had to do this after appealing my first claim. It's doing my head in, and I'm appalled that it seems they never bothered to follow up either my GP report, the OT report or my carer's input.”

“The centre in Bristol is at flowers hill. It's a concrete bunker at the end of a long and boring bus ride. Very awkward to get to and depressing place. Not great if you're suffering from post-traumatic stress and depression. Having let food rot in the fridge and been too stressed to leave the house I figured out I could demand a home visit so I did. Haven't been back there since and I have no intention of doing so if I can avoid it. The first and only time I went there the assessor twisted everything I said and dumped me off incapacity benefit. The copy of the form (I had to request in advance) was full of lies. Didn't have it in me to appeal at the time and it took ages before I could reapply to go back onto IB. Home visits have been better for all the obvious reasons. The first home visit was done by a real doctor and I had a person from the mental health authority there as a witness. (The doctor was shocked at the earlier story and didn't believe it until the health worker confirmed it). The last visit was done by someone who came over as being helpful and pleasant enough. That surprised me. I did my prep work like all these well connected tax dodging bigshots so gave him the answers I wanted to give him. As far as I'm concerned if they put as much effort into finding the sort of job I'd like to do that paid an amount I could live on it would be a better use of their money. But they won't do that because they'd have to give up control and admit they're wrong. “

These are just a minute sample of the vast quantity of complaints customers have about the assessment process. So before Grayling sounds off about the number of people who are refused ESA he needs to look at two things. Firstly he needs to understand the process and acknowledge how many social care workers advocate clients make a claim for ESA, even if their chances of success are small. Secondly he needs to completely revamp the entire assessment process and make it far more client-friendly.

But then if he did that he wouldn’t get the kind of results he is getting at the moment and he would find the vast majority of claimants are genuinely in need.

National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts

The following article is a reprint from the benefitclaimantsfightback website.

The 3rd National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts has been called for April 14th 2011.

Millions are set to be affected by savage cuts to housing, disability, sickness and welfare benefits. People with disabilities, illness, the unemployed, single parents, carers the low waged, part time students, volunteers, homeless people and college students are all likely to see a devastating drop in disposable income with many slipping even further below the poverty line.

The poorest and most vulnerable are being asked to pay for the mistakes and extravagances of the richest. Meanwhile poverty pimps like Atos Origin and A4e are set to rake in hundreds of millions on government contracts to bully and intimidate people from claiming the pittance handed out in benefit payments. Many disabled people have threatened suicide if these cuts are allowed to continue. Some have tragically already carried out that threat.

The first two days of protest against benefit cuts have seen demonstrations, meetings, unemployed discos, public pantomimes and occupations in cities across the UK. Atos Origin have been forced to close offices, protesters have gathered inside and outside workfare sharks A4e and demonstrations have taken place from Downing Street to local town centres such as Lydney and Crawley.

This time we have two months to organise for the biggest day yet. We call on all claimants, as groups or individuals, to organise and take action around the country on April 14th.

If you are planning an event in your town or city please add details in the comments below to be added to this page and the facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=164277070288955

You can also send details to notowelfarecuts@yahoo.co.uk

If you would like to see action locally, set up a group, event page or ask below. We will do out best to promote and co-ordinate all activity.

We are fighting for our homes, our livelihoods, our very survival. It’s time to show these public school parasites and their poverty pimp collaborators we mean business.

Actions/events organised so far:

Brighton

Thursday April 14th 2-5pm

Churchill Square Brighton

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210782635605158

Bristol

Thursday April 14 · 12:00pm – 5:00pm

Benefit Cuts Hurt Protest – 3rd National Day of Protest

Government Buildings, Flowers Hill, Bristol, BS4 5LA

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=199413500079998

Leeds

Thursday, April 14 · 10:30am – 2:00pm

Meeting @ Leeds Train Station 10am before moving to picket ATOS from 10:30 for an hour then move onto A4e/BEST for a couple of hours. The last picket was a great success and we hope to have another good day. Bring banners, flags etc.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=155593464493862&

London

Thursday, April 14 – 2pm
Protest Outside The Daily Mail – Stop the Defamation – Stop the Lies

Daily Mail Headquarters, Young Street (off Kensington High Street), London W8 5TT

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161556473898500&

Protest Outside Westminster City Hall & Mass Food Give Away!

Thursday, April 14 · 5:00pm – 9:00pm

Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QP

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186039361439862

Poole

Outside the Jobcentre at noon. Everyone welcome!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161332900587762

Everywhere

National Troll A Tory Day 3 and Rat On A Rat!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=173026406078054

Supported by:

o Black Triangle Anti-Defamation Campaign
o Brighton Benefits Campaign
o Cardiff’s Unemployed Daytime Disco
o Carer Watch
o Carer Watch fb page
o Crippen – Disabled Cartoonist
o Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
o Disabled People Against Cuts
o Dundee Unemployed Workers
o Free London Listings
o Goldsmiths in Occupation
o Haringey Solidarity Group
o Ipswich Unemployed Action
0 Islington Poverty Action
o Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group
o Lancaster and Morecambe Against the Cuts
o London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP)
o London Foodbank
o Mad Pride
o Medway Against Cuts
0 Mental Health Resistance Network
o Norfolk Community Action Group
o Nottingham Claimants’ Union
o Nuneaton Against Benefit Cuts
o Oxford Save Our Services
o Squattastic
o Tyneside Claimants Union
o Welfare Action Hackney
o Welfare Rights 4 u (UK)
o Work Programme & Flexible New Deal Scandal
o World Homeless Day

Universally unfair credits: No justice for the poor

Well the day has finally come. Later today the government will set out how it intends to overhaul the welfare system to try to make work pay better and to tackle the "benefit culture". With it will come a new "universal credit", new sanctions for those turning down jobs and a cap on benefits paid to a single family.

According to Cameron, current rules "encourage people to act irresponsibly".
The reason behind all these changes? Is it because they want to make benefits fairer for all? No. Is it because they want to ensure those who are hurt hardest by the unfairness in society are protected? No.

According to ministers in the Department of Work and Pensions, five million people of working age are on out-of-work benefits, 1.4 million of those for nearly a decade, while unemployment has become entrenched in many communities. In the view of these Tories, many of whom are millionaires who have never been on benefit; this shows the current system is not working.

Ahead of the announcement, David Cameron said the "collective culture of responsibility" which had underpinned the benefits system for more than 50 years had eroded in recent years.

"The benefits system has created a benefit culture," he said. "It does not just allow people to act irresponsibly but often actively encourages them to do so."

As usual the Tories are determined to attack the small number (and even DWP are admitting the numbers are less than they have been saying) of people who abuse the benefit system. Nobody in the Tory party mentions anything about the number of companies or individuals who regularly abuse the tax system and, courtesy of clever accountants avoid paying millions in taxes.

Take for example Vodaphone, who have managed to save billions through effective use of tax havens. Oh it’s legal enough, but is it moral? Well there you have the $64,000 question.

Just as the Tories were coming into power a number of businesses saw the opportunity of a lifetime. In a study at that time, around one quarter of all self-employed people in the UK were considering moving themselves and their businesses abroad over the next five years. Is this how Cameron is going to promote business and help the unemployed find work?

It has been well documented that Philip Green has structured the ownership of the Arcadia group (which owns Topshop and Dorothy Perkins) so that neither he, nor his wife pay UK income tax on profits paid out by the group as dividends. Because Mrs Green lives in Monaco, she saves a packet. If dividends were instead paid to Mr Green as a UK tax resident, he would be subject to UK income tax at an effective rate of 36.1% (42.5% additional rate less 10% credit).

But you don’t hear the Tories whining on about these folk, and why? Because they and others like them bankroll the Tory party, Green is close buddies with Cameron – don’t forget he was asked by the prime minister to do an analysis of government spending and procurement. So we can’t expect these buddies to fall out too soon.

No, as usual it is the poor who will be beaten and bruised today. There will be no fairness, no equality and no justice for those needing welfare benefits.

Some things in life never change

Unemployment - Do the Con-Dems know what they're doing?

A Political Overview
As the Coalition government settle into their roles it is becoming increasingly unlikely the two parties will breech their agreement and bring about an early general election.

Several reasons help support this notion:

• Neither of the two major parties will be eager to enter into a new round of campaigning after having spent between £3 – 4m during the last campaign and with their financial backers hesitant to give more so soon.
• The electorate are unlikely to change their existing voting pattern for at least the next 12 – 18 months and by that time the budgetary restriction shortly to be imposed by George Osborne will have impacted, probably meaning the coalition will be at its lowest popularity.
• David Miliband is likely to be elected leader of the Labour Party in September, 2010 and the hierarchy are unlikely to want to push for an election until he has had a chance to develop and bring forward a new team (with Ed Balls a likely contender for Shadow Chancellor).
• The fixed-term parliament ties members of the coalition to being in government for 5- years and they might squabble during this time, there are no serious breaches imminent.
• It is now apparent many previous prospective parliamentary candidates would be willing to stand again if a snap election was called in the next two years, but would be unlikely to stand in May 2015. This option is likely to be favoured by the Miliband team as it will help to eradicate elements of the New Labour project and allow for a new influx of candidates more attuned to centre left values.

Over the last few months David Cameron has shown himself to be much more of a political heavyweight than was seen in the run up to the election. His presence at the dispatch box has been formidable and he has shown himself to be a hard-hitter when confronted by accusations from the opposition benches. Equally, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable have proven to be much stronger than first suggestions would have implied, although the Lib-Dem leader will need to play a cautious role now with Simon Hughes recently elected to the deputy leadership. Cable has a commanding presence and his knowledge of economic issues is unquestionable – what remains unclear is how he will emerge as he reinvents himself from being a Keynesian to a more traditional deficit hawk.

Economic factors
In their Pre-budget forecast, the Office for Budget Responsibility suggested the economy would expand 2.6% in 2011, down from the 3 – 3.5% estimate given by Alastair Darling in the March Budget. They also predicted that the public deficit would fall from 10.5% of GDP in 2010 – 2011, compared to the 11.1% estimate of the last government. Underlying these forecasts is a fundamental belief that World GDP is set to rise by 4% in 2010 and world trade will increase by 6% this year and 6.25% in 2011. These figures should be read cautiously, as the World Bank have indicated global GDP is projected to increase by 3.3 percent in 2010 and 2011, and by 3.5 percent in 2012.. However, should current uncertainty regarding developments in Europe persist, outturns could be weaker. A high probability alternative baseline, characterized by an accelerated tightening of fiscal policy across high-income countries, would see a more muted recovery, with global GDP expanding by 3.1 percent in 2010 and by 2.9 and 3.2 in 2011 and 2012.

Additionally, the OBR Report suggests CPI inflation is expected to fall to around 2.25% by the end of 2010 and then stabilizing at around 2% by the end of 2012. Alternatively, the Bank of England suggest inflation could drop to as low as 1.3% by 2012 (with a potential high of approximately 1.6%).

The Office for Budgetary Responsibility forecast the Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNB) is £3 billion less than in the March budget largely because of lower forecasts of social security spending. According to the London Stock Exchange, recent months have shown some signs of improvement in the public finances, with tax receipts picking up after a prolonged period of weakness. Analysts at the Stock Exchange expect these trends to continue, although both measures of public borrowing in May are still forecast to be higher than the same month last year.

Unemployment
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has an annual budget of approximately £139bn and account for 24.7% of all civil service staff, although this has been reduced recently by George Osborne by £535m (0.38% of the total budget) and further cuts will be implemented under the departmental spending review this autumn. Only 26.6% of DWP staff work in London, with the remainder scattered throughout the country. At the present time it is impossible to gauge the extent of future cuts, though analysts are estimating anything from 2.5% to 7.5%. One of the pressures faced by DWP is the fact that social security payments for the unemployed alone account for £12.5bn (assuming the existing level of approximately 2.51 million people unemployed). If you add to this the estimated 700,000 additional numbers out of work suggested by some economists and this is increased by a further £3.57bn. In effect this could result in a situation where the DWP budget is pruned to £128.5bn and the social security payment increased by anything up to 28.5%.

Evidence currently being utilized by the government is proposing that labour market indicators are stabilizing. This is based on the fact that the International Labour Organization (ILO) unemployment rate has been broadly stable for the past year at or below 8% and the claimant count has fallen in five of the past six months (the NAIRU rate adopted in the UK for ‘full employment is 5.3% unemployed). However, these assumptions ignore several critical issues that will emerge over the coming months:

• 2.6 million people, now on incapacity benefit will be reassessed and there is a belief that as many as 40% of these people could be added to the unemployment register, accounting for slightly over 1 million new claimants.
• Even without these additional claimants, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development has forecast an additional 450,000 new claimants by 2012 and this figure will remain until 2015. Other analysts have extended unemployment as rising up to 700,000 new claimants.

If these forecasts are accurate – and there is compelling evidence to support their conclusions – it mean the government prediction of achieving 1milion unemployed by the end of 2014 is ill-founded and unachievable.

All of this begs the question - have the government truly thought out their strategic plans to how they will deal with unemployment during this parliament. Existing evidence offers little to no assurance they have done their homework.

Conservatives, Liberals and the cuts

Cameron and his Con-Dem buddies would have us believe that this is a government 'for the people and by the people'.Yet, let's take a look at some of the facts. In the recent statement outlining the details of the £6bn worth of savings in government spending, Osborne emphasised there would be no effect on frontline services.

Now, socialists throughout the last election were constantly arguing that this was untrue, but regrettably we failed to convince the electorate. Now let's take a look at how these cuts will affect people - for example, if we look at the prime minister's own constituency of Witney. Here the cuts to the local authority will only account for approximately 1.7% of funding - no great loss and residents will see little effect on services for the elderly, for the vulnerable or for the jobless. However, if we look at Harriet Harman's (the acting Opposition leader) constituency, we see that these cuts will amount to no less than 16.3% of fuding, simply because in that area they have more vulnerable people, more elderly, great social need and more unemployed.

Similarly, today on the Andrew Marr show, Ian Duncan Smith outlined how he was going to get Britain 'back to work'. But this new programme will have a budget that has automatically been cut by £535m before the Prequalification Questionnaires and Invitation to Tenders for new welfare to work programmes have been published. Of course, IDS has said that with new efficiencies he will 'force' private contractors to improve on their performance. Perhaps now is a good time to point out to IDS that if 10 people go for 3 jobs, that still leaves 7 people unemployed. Currently in the UK we have 2.6m people unemployed and if his figures are correct, these numbers will soon be joined by a further 1m people who were on IB and will now be seen as available for work. Against this, DWP advise that there are currently only 600,000 vacancies. Even if private contractors fill every one of those posts, it will still leave 2.9m unemployed.

Evidence once again that the Tories are a party for the rich and never for the working class.