Housing - getting the market moving

The National Housing Federation, which represents Housebuilders, has expressed concern about the rate at which new homes are being built.

 

This is an issue: Britain does need more homes.

 

The housing market which the present coalition government inherited from Labour in 2010 had house building at its lowest peacetime levels since the 1920s.

Three years later rents are falling in real terms, 360,000 homes have been built, and house building is growing at its fastest rates for 10 years. And the government's strategy to reduce the deficit has kept interest rates, and therefore mortgage rates, lower than they would otherwise have been. A rise of 1 per cent in interest rates would see typical mortgage bills rise by £1,000 a year, and adding that blow to the burdens which many hardworking families are facing at that time would not be a good idea. Yet another reason Britain cannot afford to let Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, whose policy of borrwing more would drive up market interest rates and therefore mortgages, anywhere near Downing Street.

We want to see an economy and housing market built on stability that works for all hardworking people and which encourages higher standards and investment.

Quote of the day 12th December 2013

“I realize that what happened in Bosnia could happen anywhere in the world, particularly in places that are diverse and have a history of conflict. It only takes bad leadership for a country to go up in flames, for people of different ethnicity, color, or religion to kill each other as if they had nothing in common whatsoever.

Having a democratic constitution, laws that secure human rights, police that maintain order, a judicial system, and freedom of speech don't ultimately guarantee long lasting peace. If greedy or bloodthirsty leaders come to power, it can all go down. It happened to us. It can happen to you.”


(  Savo Heleta, Not My Turn to Die: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia )

Tackling Dementia

The Prime Minister is due to announce today hundreds of millions of pounds of investment in life sciences as a special G8 summit in London agrees a landmark international deal on tackling dementia. He is also announcing that the UK has now attracted £2 billion of investment in life sciences since the launch of the Government’s strategy two years ago.

Building a more competitive, resilient economy with new industries and the jobs of the future is a key part of our long-term plan for Britain. Over the past two years we’ve seen £2 billion invested in this country’s life sciences industry. This will mean more jobs and growth, but also more research and greater progress on beating dementia. It’s a huge sign of confidence, but there is still more to do.

That’s why the Government will double its funding into dementia research by 2025, continue to attract more private sector investment – GlaxoSmithKline is set to announce £200 million of investments including creating a centre of excellence in pharma manufacturing technology – and is helping set up the world’s largest research collaboration into dementia by allowing teams across the UK to share and benefit from each other’s data.

It’s only by working globally, with nations, business and scientists from all over the world – working together as we did with cancer, and with HIV and AIDS – that we can beat dementia.

Quote of the day 11th December 2013

“When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact-checking, it becomes impossible for a democracy to think intelligently about big issues.”
 
( Thomas L. Friedman )

Keeping sport free of match-fixing.

The Government has today called together the five major sporting bodies and the Gambling Commission to discuss match fixing.

 

Match fixing undermines the integrity of sport across the world and the government is determined to do all it can to help stamp it out.

Today, the Culture Secretary Maria Miller met leaders from football, cricket, horse racing, rugby league and rugby union. The government has stated that it will continue to work hard alongside the police, betting operators, the Gambling Commission and the Financial Conduct Authority to deal with this unacceptable behaviour.

Britain has one of the best systems in the world to tackle sporting corruption – but we cannot and must not be complacent.

Quote of the Day 10th December 2013 from Nelson Mandela

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies."

(Nelson Mandela)

Possibly the most painful joke of 2013 ...

Just seen on twitter, retweeted by John Rentoul from Kevin Bland and possibly the worst joke of the year:

"I run the agency which supplies Santa Claus with all his seasonal workers.

I am the God of Elf Hire."

You probably have to be of a certain vintage to understand this one: anyone who wasn't around in 1968 can follow this link to a Youtube clip of the relevant song opening.

Gender segregation at Universities

When I was at University, as Student Union Treasurer I had various dealings both with the University Women's Groups and with various Islamic societies.

The latter sometimes seemed to celebrate being difficult to deal with - I remember one Christmas the University of Bristol Islamic Students Society completely spoilt what I had at first thought the rather nice gesture of sending Christmas cards to all the members of Union Council - until we realised that they had left out the two members of the council with Jewish names.

Women's groups, by comparison, thought of themselves as victims and were always trying to overset any example of what they saw as the oppression of "all women" - and yes, they did mean ALL women, including the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. I remember an attempt to remove the word "all" from a motion about the oppression of all women was voted down at NUS conference and the debate turned on the specific point of whether Margaret Thatcher was oppressed - they thought she was. But at the time feminists had an enormous moral ascendancy on campus and most student politicians were scared to death of crossing them.

I am trying to recall if I heard of a single instance in the 1980's in which Islamic societies at either of the Universities I attended or any other major institution of learning ever dared to propose gender segregation in any lecture or event, or even to get permission to operate in that way at their own meetings. (To be recognised as being entitled to operate at most Universities and colleges, societies had to enshrine in their constitution that their meetings were open to everyone regardless of gender, race, class, etc. You were likely to run into trouble with most Student Unions even if you wanted to call the person who presided at your meetings Chairman rather than Chairperson.)

It is hard to prove a negative but I do not recall the Islamic societies of the time trying any such thing. And part of the reason that I doubt if they did is that the reaction from Women's groups would have been so vocal that I would have heard of and remember it -  and their opposition would undoubtedly have been supported by most other students and by the college authorities.

I knew things have changed a bit, but unless Yasmin Alabhai-Brown has got completely the wrong end of the stick in this article in yesterday's Independent on Sunday the pendulum has swung back further than I would have thought possible.

If, and I repeat if, it is true that

"Muslim women in jeans or with hair uncovered have been asked to leave lecture rooms by clothes vigilantes."

then the people who made that request should be warned in no uncertain terms that if there is any repetition they are the ones who will be asked to leave the institutions of higher education concerned.

It is pretty rare for me to find myself lining up with either Yasmin Alabhai-Brown or Polly Toynbee, let alone both at the same time, but I find it as intolerable that in the 21st century British Universities should be condoning telling people where they can sit on the basis of their gender as I find it if they told people where to sit based on skin colour or what school they attended.

And that is what Universities UK's latest guidance on external speakers appear to do.

As Polly Toynbee puts it in the Guardian,

"Universities once barred women altogether. Now they strive to be emblems of enlightenment, temples to reason, equality, free speech and freedom of thought. But it's not easy to balance conflicting freedoms. Universities UK, their representative body, has just published 40 pages of guidelines on External Speakers in Higher Education Institutions, wriggling and writhing over competing freedoms for women versus not causing religious offence: it ends up with excruciating nonsense.

"Some students may want a 'no platform' policy for speakers they find obnoxious – the BNP or members of unsavoury governments. Demonstrating opposition is a freedom, but banning or yelling down free expression within the law is a denial of freedom. However, Universities UK's guidelines give the sexist eccentricities of some religions priority over women's rights, by allowing religious speakers the right to demand women and men are segregated in the lecture hall.

"Universities UK tells universities that 'concerns to accommodate the wishes or beliefs of those opposed to segregation should not result in a religious group being prevented from having a debate in accordance with its belief system'. If 'imposing an unsegregated seating area in addition to the segregated areas contravenes the genuinely held religious beliefs of the group hosting the event, or those of the speaker, the institution should be mindful to ensure that the freedom of speech of the religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully'.

"Good grief. The compromise is that women can't be put at the back"

Indeed.

Quote of the day 9th December 2013

“To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.”
 
( Aung San Suu Kyi, Letters from Burma )

Youtube footage of storm hitting Whitehaven Harbour

This footage was uploaded to Youtube by Sean Duffy and shows last week's Force 11 gale hitting the harbour walls at Whitehaven.

Hydraulic action is one of the strongest forces on the planet, and this shows why: I don't think anyone who watches this will have difficulty appreciating how the waves did considerable damage to our harbour.



Sean also put a comment on this blog with details of the petition for a referendum on an elected mayor for Copeland - you can find this at

http://mywhitehaven.net

Quote of the day 8th December 2013

“My people are going to learn the principles of democracy the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will, every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men.”
 
( Mustafa Kemal Atatürk )

Small Business Saturday continued

Out with Allan Mossop, chairman of West Cumbria FSB, and Graham Roberts this morning promoting "Keep trade local" campaign and supporting local business as part of "Small Business Saturday.

Comments policy

I do not allow partisan comments on obituary posts on this blog. That policy was introduced well before Margaret Thatcher died, after someone posted a partisan comment on the obit post of a local government officer in Copeland which caused offence and upset to his grieving family.

The ban affects criticism of the person who has died but I also consider it inappropriate to use someone's death to make an inaccurate attack on another person (especially if the person who has died was famous for promoting reconciliation.

For that reason I have removed a debate which was developing on the Nelson Mandela obit thread which included the untrue suggestion currently being spread by badly-informed people on Twitter that David Cameron was one of the small group of headbangers in the late and unlamented FCS who who thought it would be funny to wind up left-wing students in the mid 1980's by wearing "Hang Nelson Mandela" badges.

As a student at the time I had the misfortune to meet (and was strongly opposed to) the people concerned and I can personally confirm that David Cameron was not one of them. If you are not willing to take my word for it, this has been fact-checked by the New Statesman - not exactly friends of DC - and they refute it here. The people "responsible" - if you can use that word - for the anti-Mandela material were mostly at Warwick University, and none of the Conservative students from David Cameron's University, Oxford, would have touched it with the proverbial barge-pole.

I was not amused or impressed by the anti-Mandela stickers and badges at the time, any more than I would be now. Like the vast majority of British people including most Conservatives I thought Mandela's conviction was a travesty of justice and supported the campaign for his release.

The people who circulated the anti-Mandela stuff were so far out of the mainstream that they were among those who subsequently provoked Norman Tebbit into shutting down the Federation of Conservative Students for being too right wing.

Yes, it sounds like a joke, but that's really what happened.

All the main parties had problems with their student wings at the time - Labour had to suspend NOLS, the National Organisation of Labour Students, and don't get me started on ULS, the Union of Liberal Students ...

Quote of the Day 7th December 2013

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
 
( Martin Luther King Jr. )

Small Business Saturday

Tomorrow (Saturday 7th December) is Small Business Saturday when everyone in the UK is encouraged to support small businesses both on the day and beyond.  This is the first Small Business Saturday held in the UK and I shall be out and about with the Federation of Small Businesses visiting and supporting small businesses tomorrow.

Nelson Mandela RIP

Nelson Mandela has died at the age of 95.  He was one of the greatest statesmen of our age. 

He was an extraordinary man in so many ways, but the most extraordinary thing about him is how despite having suffered so much he seeed to have a complete absence of bitterness or anger, and was so effective at reaching out to those who had been his enemies in a spirit of reconciliation. There are many people who were once his opponents and critics who will genuinely mourn him today.

That spirit of reconciliation undoubtedly saved many thousands of lives during South Africa's path away from apartheid, and by stepping down as President after one term, Mandela sent a signal to states which had thrown off one form of oppression they should aim to become a functioning and continuing democracy rather than replace it with another form of oppression through having, as the saying goes, "one man, one vote, once."

I am sorry to have to add this paragraph. Please note that the rules of this blog do not allow partisan comments on obit posts, and I will not allow anything other than positive comments about Nelson Mandela. I also regard attempts to use Mandela's memory to make false allegations about anyone else as entirely inappropriate and any such posts will be removed.

I don't want to end this post on that note. As David Cameron said of Mandela's passing,

"One of the brightest lights of our world has gone out. Nelson Mandela was not just a hero of our time, but a hero of all time, the first president of a free South Africa, a man who suffered so much for freedom and justice."

The flag above Downing Street is flying at half-mast as a mark of respect, the BBC said.

Cameron said Britain shared with South Africa this moment of grief and recalled the strongest impression of meeting Mandelawas his "extraordinary compassion and generosity and forgiveness".

May he rest in peace.

Quote of the day 6th December 2013

"Every week a clever undergraduate, every quarter a dull American don, discovers for the first time what some Shakespeare play really meant.

 . . . The revolution in thought and sentiment which has occurred in my own lifetime is so great that I belong, mentally, to Shakespeare’s world far more than to that of these recent interpreters.

"I see--I feel it in my bones--I know beyond argument--that most of their interpretations are merely impossible; they involve a way of looking at things which was not known in 1914, much less in the Jacobean period. This daily confirms my suspicion of the same approach to Plato or the New Testament.

"The idea that any man or writer should be opaque to those who lived in the same culture, spoke the same language, shared the same habitual imagery and unconscious assumptions, and yet transparent to those who have none of these advantages, is in my opinion preposterous.”
( C.S. Lewis )

Thousands without power and Inkerman Terrace closed as storms hit Cumbria and UK

Foul weather throughout the UK has had serious consequences in many parts of the country including Cumbria. Take great care if you have to travel today or tomorrow.

Inkerman Terrace in Whitehaven (The B5094) has been closed off at one or both ends for much of today due to an unsafe building.

There have been lane closures on the M6 and a number of roads in higher altitudes in Cumbria have experienced icy conditions requiring extreme care.

Autumn statement: putting Britain on the right track

Britain’s economic plan is working, but the job is not yet done – we need to keep taking the difficult decisions to secure the economy for the long-term. The biggest risk to Britain comes from those who would abandon the plan – and borrow and spend more. Our long-term plan will secure a responsible recovery for all.

The Autumn Statement shows the plan is working:

· Growth upgraded. GDP forecasts are revised up from 0.6% to 1.4% in 2013 and from 1.8% to 2.4% in 2014.

· Employment up. Forecasts of employment growth have been revised up from staying flat to rising by 400,000 this year. Unemployment is predicted to fall to 7% in 2015 and 5.6% in 2018.

· Cutting the deficit. The deficit was 11% in 2009/10. It is projected to fall to 6.8% this year – lower than the 7.5% forecast in March. It will fall to 5.6% in 2014/15 and 4.4% in 2015/16. By 2018-19 the OBR expects to run a surplus.

· Debt falling faster. Debt this year will be 75.5% of GDP - £18 bn lower than forecast in March. It falls one year earlier in March 2016/17 than forecast in March.

The Autumn Statement sets out the next steps in our long-term economic plan to help hardworking people:

· Reducing the burden of business rates. This is help for the high street and will support businesses to create more jobs.

 

* Help for the high street: up to £1,000 allowance in 2014/15 for retail premises with a rateable value of up to £50,000 – including shops, pubs, cafes, and restaurants.

*  Capping the increase in bills to 2% in 2014-15 – businesses were expecting a 3.2 % rise.

*  Extending the doubling of the Small Business Rates Relief to April 2015.

*  A reoccupation relief for 18 months with a 50% discount for new occupants of retail premises empty for a year or more.

· Freezing fuel duty until 2015. Fuel duty will be frozen for the remainder of the Parliament. It will be 20p per litre lower by the end of the Parliament compared to plans inherited from Labour. This saves the average motorist £11 every time they fill up their tank.

Youth package:

* Scrapping employers’ National Insurance for under-21s. Up to earnings of £813 per week (equivalent to the higher tax rate).

*  Giving young people the skills they need to succeed. Jobcentre Plus will help 16 and 17 year olds not in work find an apprenticeship or a traineeship. There will also be a pilot so anyone aged 18 to 21, who does not have basic maths or English, has to undertake training immediately or lose benefits.

* A university place for anyone with the right grades. We will abolish the arbitrary cap on student numbers.

 

      Other Measures:

· Freezing rail fares. We are limiting the cap on average regulated rail fare increases to RPI for 2014.

· Recognising marriage in the tax system. In future the allowance will increase along with the personal allowance.

· £50 off energy bills. Households will save an average of £50 on their energy bills. It reduces the impact of government policies on energy bills, while maintaining support for the poorest families.

· Free school meals. We’ll provide funding for free school lunches for all state-funded pupils in reception, years 1 & 2, and disadvantaged students in 6^th form colleges from Sep 2014. We’ll provide capital funding to increase capacity in school kitchens.

· Clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion. This will raise over £6.8 billion across the next five years.

The Autumn Statement entrenches Britain’s commitment to sound public finances.

· Capping total welfare spending. This will not include the Basic State Pension or the most cyclical of jobseekers’ benefits.

· Running a surplus in the good years so we fix the roof while the sun is shining. MPs will vote on a new Charter for Budget Responsibility in December 2014. This will include plans to run a surplus in the good years, reduce the national debt, and look at a shorter and more binding fiscal mandate.

· Setting the principle for the state pension age. The Pensions Bill, currently in Parliament, will put in place reviews of the pension age every five years. The Autumn Statement sets out the principle of those reviews - that people should spend up to a third of their adult life in retirement. It suggests an increase to 68 in the mid 2030s. Future taxpayers will save around £500 bn.

· Controlling Whitehall spending. Contingency reserves will be reduced by £1 billion this year and departmental budgets by a similar amount in the next two years. Protections for the NHS, schools, security agencies and HMRC will apply. Local government will be exempt in return for freezing council tax.

Even the BBC has noticed that Britain's economy is starting to recover.

No room for complacency, but as the Chancellor prepares to deliver his autumn statement he can take some satisfaction from knowing that even the BBC has acknowledged that Britain is turning the corner.

An article by the Chief economics correspondent of BBC News, Hugh Pym, which you can read here, acknowledges that Britain has experiened a "rapid improvement in the economic climate."

As the article also points out,

"The triple dip did not happen. The double dip was even revised away after the ONS calculated that output was flat in early 2012 rather than falling, as had first been thought.

"As spring turned to summer, the UK economic climate brightened rapidly and independent analysts started revising up their growth forecasts for this year and next.

"In March, the average UK growth forecast, measured by Consensus Economics, was 0.9% for this year and 1.6% for 2014. By November, these had been pushed up sharply to 1.4% and 2.3% respectively.
 
"Bank of England governor Mark Carney was able to tell a media conference in November that the UK was growing faster than any other advanced economy."

However, the chancellor is right to avoid triumphalism. I gather from the BBC article that

"He will stress there is still a job to be done and that the task of ensuring a responsible recovery is not complete."

And rightly so.

Quotes of the day 5th December 2013

“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.”
 
( Bertrand Russell )

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' ”
 
( Isaac Asimov )

For the avoidance of doubt I am not repeating these quotes to suggest that either of these similar and rather foolish notions is a good thing to hold, or suggesting that everyone does hold them, I am agreeing with Russell and Asimov that too many people do.

When politics should stop at the water's edge

There used to be a convention in both this country and the US of A that politicians didn't criticise their political opponents when those opponents were representing the country abroad, and particularly refrained from partisan attacks on efforts being made to improve the security or trade position of the country.

The term often applied to this principle is "Politics stops at the water's edge" after the US Republican senator Arthur Vandenburg, Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations committee. Asserting that we must stop “partisan politics at the water's edge," he cooperated with Truman's Democrat administration in forging bipartisan support for the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO.

Sadly the Labour party lost sight of the principle that they should put the country's interests above their own partisan advantage a long time ago, as their attacks on David Cameron's trade mission to China demonstrate.

David Cameron has been on a three-day visit to China with a more than a hundred representatives of British Businesses. The main purpose of the visit is as a showcase for British business and to agree specific trade contracts such as a £120m agreement to give UK healthcare firms access to the Chinese market.

Discussing the agreements being reached during the trip, David Cameron said on Monday

"This is a visit that has delivered almost £6bn worth of deals. It is a visit that comes on the back of an eighteen month period where we have seen more Chinese investment into Britain in the last 18 months than in the previous 30 years."

Some of the discussions held this week may also help pave the way for a free trade deal between the EU and China, for which David Cameron has pledged strong support. Speaking after a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, he said:

"Some in Europe and elsewhere see the world changing and want to shut China off behind a bamboo curtain of trade barriers. Britain wants to tear those trade barriers down."

He added: "I've said to Premier Li that I will champion an EU-China trade deal with as much determination as I'm championing the EU-US trade deal."

As Dan Hodges, a former Labour member and Trade Union official pointed out in the Telegraph here - more of his excellent article later - those Labour and press spokesmen who criticise David Cameron's visit make a number of points, with most of their criticisms falling into one of four mutually incompatible positions which Hodges parodies as follows:

1) His trip is merely about making money for rich British businessman.
2) His trip will not make enough money for rich British businessman.
3) He should forget all about rich businessman, and instead spend his time berating his hosts for being beastly to the Dalai Lama.
4) He should not be going anywhere near his hosts because they’re beastly to the Dalai Lama.

Personally I think there is a time and place for expressing concern to the Chinese about their human rights record, and we have to accept that they have an equal right to criticise ours. David Cameron was right to meet the Dalai Lama. Simon Jenkins asked  “What would Cameron say if Beijing met Ed Miliband and issued stern injunctions against the bedroom tax?”

This is my response and not David Cameron's, but I suspect he would be entirely relaxed about the Chinese meeting Miliband - it is part of our system that opposition leaders do often meet world leaders, and Cameron himself met a large number including Barak Obama while he was opposition leader. And if the Chinese were so foolish as to display their ignorance of Britain by attacking the so called "bedroom tax" - actually we have no tax on bedrooms in this country - I don't think this would generate much additional support for critics of the government's housing benefit policy.

Simon Jenkins also suggests that politicians don't help businesses sell more abroad. I suspect there are some politicians of whom this is true. However as Hodges points out, if it is true as Jenkins complains in that business-friendly newspaper, the Guardian, that

“No one has ever shown that politicians' trade visits add one penny to the balance of payments that a good exporter could not have added unaided,”

then this "raises the question: why were so many good exporters so keen to be part of the Prime Minister’s delegation? Or is it just the crap exporters, two bit carpetbaggers like Jaguar, Airbus and BP – none of whom have never made a penny overseas – who go along for the ride?"

Labour ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for trying to sabotage a trip which helped British businesses sign deals worth £6 billion.

Let's give Dan Hodges the last word:

"Five years after the worst economic crisis for a generation, Britain is fighting for her economic life. We are finally clawing our way towards recovery, but as many of those criticising the PM’s visit love to point out, it is a perilous one. Another economic shock could tip us over the cliff.

"Leading a trade mission to one of the world’s economic powerhouses is precisely what the Prime Minister should be doing. Every competitive advantage – however minor – should be identified and exploited. It doesn’t matter whether David Cameron is taking his stepfather, his neighbour or his old aunt Matilda. We need to be scrapping for every contract, job and pound of investment we can lay our hands on.

"The world does not owe us a living. If we really do want to do something about this cost of living crisis everyone is banging on about, then we actually need to earn more by selling more things to more people. And that does actually mean getting off our backsides and meeting them, and explaining what it is that makes our products special.

"David Cameron isn’t on a junket. He’s doing his job, which involves trying to secure more business contacts, more orders and more inward investment. And if we’re going to compete in the Global Race it’s time we stopped trying to nobble our own Prime Minister before the gun goes."

Prepare to batten down

The Met Office has issued Amber “be prepared” warning for Cumbria, the north of England and west Scotland over the next 48 hours with possible wind gusts in excess of 80 mph expected for tomorrow.

The high winds are likely to have an impact on transport, ferry services and lead to speed restrictions on some bridges.

Icy conditions may also develop on some roads on Thursday night and Friday morning. This is expected to be a short-lived cold snap, with temperatures quickly recovering to near normal over the weekend.

Steve Willington, Chief Forecaster at the Met Office said:

“A rapidly deepening Atlantic depression is forecast to move east to the north of Scotland during Wednesday night and Thursday morning. This will bring westerly gales to northern and some central parts of the UK, which will veer northerly and temporarily bring much colder arctic air southwards across northern areas before easing into Friday.

“The public should be prepared for significant disruption to travel, especially across the Central Belt and western Scotland during Thursday morning’s rush hour and Northern England during the day on Thursday.”

Quote of the day 4th December 2013

"Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
( Thomas Jefferson )

Of Boris, clever buffoons and stupid intellectuals ...

Boris Johnson is part of a long English tradition of clever men who either try hard to avoid showing off their intelligence or actively pretend to be buffoons.

Anyone who listened to or read the whole of his speech the other day should have realised that it was far more inclusive and less extreme than you might think if you just caught the quote about IQ.

Which is just as well because the quote about IQ was in fact completely and utterly meaningless.

The people who created IQ tried to set it up as a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

On that basis BY DEFINITION about a sixth of the population have IQs below 85 and slightly over 2% have IQs above 130.

In his speech to the centre of Policy Studies Boris Johnson said that "Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16% of our species have an IQ below 85 while about 2% …"

and he then departed from the text of his speech to ask whether anyone in his City audience had a low IQ. To muted laughter he asked: "Over 16% anyone? Put up your hands." He then resumed his speech to continue about the 2% who have an IQ above 130.

Unfortunately, and just going on the published text of the speech, it was logically equivalent to

Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that approximately 16% of our species have an IQ score in the bottom sixth while about 2% have an IQ in the top fiftieth."

Sorry Boris, much of the rest of your speech was brilliant but that point is equivalent to the boss who complained that 40% of the sick days taken by his employees were on Mondays or Fridays. It isn't relevant to anything at all except possibly an academic discussion on testing the spread of characteristics in human populations.

And actually, although intelligence is important, effort and what you do with your intelligence are, if anything, even more important.

In the comedy film "A Fish called Wanda" there is a character called Otto who is what at first sounds like an oxymoron, a stupid intellectual. This character is not very bright but he is fascinated by using his brain, reads very challenging books, has clearly remembered much of what he read in them, and even understood a small portion of it.

Otto is a figure of fun to the viewer and some of the other characters in the film because, and only because, he does not realise that he isn't nearly as bright as the person he aspires to be.

But this humour misses an important point.  A person who has been gifted with mediocre or poor intellectual talents but is fascinated by intelligence and by using and improving it, and thereby makes the very best of the intelligence he has, will almost certainly achieve a far higher level of intelligence than someone who does not make that effort. He might even achieve more than someone whose native gifts were far greater but who does not use them. Otto may be a joke, but he is far smarter than he would be were he not fascinated by using what intellect he has.

I'm not holding Otto up as a role model - he is a figure of fun from a comedy film and has certain other serious problems on the role model front (like being a hit-man, for instance.)

But we should and must recognise that there are many people who can achieve a lot by working hard and by using what intellect they have to the very top of their potential. That potential is in everyone,  whatever their IQ score.

Quote of the day 3rd December 2013

"In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself.”

(C.S. Lewis)

Energy companies to pass on reductions on tax to consumers.

Energy will continue to be expensive and will still be a substantial part both of the cost of living for households and of the costs of running a small business.

However, with the news that the government is to reconfigure green taxes so as to reduce their impact, and that Energy companies will pass this reduction on to consumers, energy bills will go up by less than would otherwise have been the case.

Major energy firms have started to announce plans to pass on savings to customers following a new package of measures from the government.

British Gas owner Centrica said it would cut bills by £53 in January, two months after a £123 price rise for the average dual-fuel customer. SSE also said it would pass on savings of around £50 and Npower plans a conditional price freeze until 2015.

The moves come after the government said it would make changes to bills.

Some subsidies for those in fuel poverty will be moved into general taxation and some green policy targets will be slowed down. The government said this would cut energy bills by a total of £50 a year for the average household.

Homebuyers could instead be granted £1,000 to spend on energy-saving measures.

The government's policy might not sound as good as Labour's promise of a price freeze but it has this crucial difference - it will actually work.

The total insanity of Labour's policy on energy can be summed up in one quote from Labour energy spokeswoman Caroline Flint.

The difference between the parties is that where the Coalition wants to help the energy consumer, Labour wants to hurt the energy supplier. Caroline Flint attacked the governments proposals on the grounds that they contain "Not a single measure that will cost the energy companies a single penny."

I suspect that most people don't give two hoots whether a policy costs the energy companies, they want to know whether it will help them.

Britain needs billions of pounds of investment in new generating capacity, preferably as part of a mix which also includes energy saving, to replace the power plants which are reaching the end of their useful life. The only way that investors will put money into building those plants is if they can expect to make a fair profit.

In the long run taking some kind of sadistic pleasure in preventing energy companies from earning a profit will harm, not help, their customers. It is likely to lead to power cuts - which is what happened in California when that state adopted an energy policy not entirely unlike Ed Miliband's.

To paraphrase the "Ten cannots,"

You cannot help the energy customer by destroying the energy supplier.

In contrast the government's policy to help customers is paid for and sustainable.

Currently, the average dual fuel bill for households is £1,385.

Some of the saving will come in the form of a reduction in the Energy Companies Obligation (ECO), which requires energy companies to provide insulation or other energy-saving measures to 400,000 homes a year. In future, these measures will be paid for by a tax-funded programme of £500m, and will be granted via an average £1,000 stamp duty rebate for home buyers who need to improve energy efficiency at their new property.

The total £50 cut in the average household bill is made up of:

• A reduction of about £30 to £35 as a result of changes to ECO
• A rebate of £12 on electricity bills for customers in each of the next two years, owing to changes to the Warm Home Discount
• A one-off £5 cut in electricity bills by cutting network costs, which represent close to a quarter of a typical bill

Richard Lloyd, executive director of consumer group Which?, said: "It is about time the government started getting the cost of energy under control and this will be a welcome step in the right direction for consumers who are struggling with the increased cost of living.

"It is right to refocus the Energy Company Obligation so that it gives greater priority to those most in need of help, with lower-cost measures such as loft and cavity wall insulation. But in return for more time to get this right, the suppliers must now commit to greater transparency and to getting their costs down, fast."

Quote of the day 2nd December 2013

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
 
( Aldous Huxley, Brave New World )

Keswick Christmas Fayre

I attended the launch of the Keswick Christmas Fayre with my family this morning.

It was a very good event. Congratulations to all those involved, including Keswick Lions, all the stallholders, Keswick School Jazz Club who provided the band, and the choir of St Herbert's school

Remembering the victims of the Glasgow helicopter crash

The thoughts of all the peoples of the British Isles today will be with the victims of the tragic accident in Glasgow on Friday night when a police helicopter crashed into The Clutha Bar, a popular pub where about 120 people were drinking.

We remember particularly the eight people who have died in the incident, and their families, and those who were injured and their families.

Quote of the day 1st December 2013

“Our faith in freedom does not rest on the foreseeable results in particular circumstances but on the belief that it will, on balance, release more forces for the good than for the bad.”
 
( Friedrich A. von Hayek )

Referendum Bill clears House of Commons

Legislation which would give the British public a vote on the country's membership of the European Union cleared the House of Commons today.

The European Union (Referendum) Bill, which would introduce an in/out vote in 2017 on the UK's membership of the EU, received an unopposed Third Reading in the House of Commons.

Despite attempts by Labour backbenchers to frustrate the progress of the Private Member's Bill put forward by James Wharton, Conservative MP for Stockton South, it was approved by MPs and will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.

Mr Wharton praised his Tory colleagues in getting the Bill through the Commons.

"I am grateful to all colleagues who have supported on this side with a showing of discipline and resolute determination to get this important Bill through, and on the Opposition's side of the House and our colleagues on the Liberal Democrat benches who have made their contributions, albeit sometimes in a rather long-winded way," he said.

"I think that we have had a very good and thorough debate. I think it is time that we let Britain decide and I commend the Bill to the House.

"We have had extensive debate, discussion and scrutiny for what is a short Bill with but a handful of clauses, but the significance of which should not be underestimated.

"This is a commitment from these benches to give the British people a say on that most important of matters: our membership of the European Union.

"We looked at the wording of the question and it is clear that it is fair and it is clear and it is the right question for the British people to give their own answer."

He added: "We looked at the timing and it is clear that this House believes that it is the right thing to do, to go back to Europe to try to get the best possible deal that we can but whatever that deal looks like, to put it to the British people in an in/out vote."

Earlier, Labour MP Mike Gapes, a former chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, spoke for almost 40 minutes while trying to "talk the bill out" e.g. filibuster the legislation. The MP for Ilford South tabled a series of amendments which would prevent the referendum being valid if voter turnout was low.

Mr Gapes's Labour colleague, Chris Williamson (Derby North), spoke for 28 minutes as he called for members of the electorate who did not vote to be fined £50.

These attempts to block the bill without voting against it failed.

Now we have to see what happens in the House of Lords ...

Quote of the day 30th November 2013

"If we are to ensure all our children have the chance to succeed, then we need to rediscover the spirit that animated us in our best years — the spirit that is in the rising nations of the East.

We need to relearn respect for teachers, reward them more handsomely, make heroes out of those who live the life of the mind, expect our children to respect adult authority, encourage them to read about the great men and women of the past, breathe a new spirit of intellectual adventure — and value education above all things."
 
(Michael Gove, from article in the Daily Mail here.)

Dealing with Nuclear Waste

Huxley wrote all those years ago that "facts do not go away because they are ignored" and neither will the hundreds of tons of nuclear by-products which are already stored in West Cumbria.

I respect the views of those who voted to terminate the previous MRWS process, even though I disagree with them. I have no respect at all for the intellect of those who would interpret the vote on that process as a democratic mandate for ignoring the issue.

We still have to consider the best and safest long-term solution for all those tons of nuclear material which are already here in Cumbria. By all means let us make sure the geology is right, that any solution has the support of the host community, let us continue to explore all the options.

But whether or not there is a new generation of nuclear power plants, don't kid yourself that sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich and ignoring the fact that we already have hundreds of tons of nuclear waste to deal with is one of those options.

Quote of the Day 29th November 2013

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
 
― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays 2, 1926-29

Huxley, died within an hour of C.S. Lewis and JFK, 30 years ago this month.

Local government in Whitehaven - petition for an elected Mayor.

There has been some discussion on local press and internet sites in Whitehaven and Copeland about the possibility of changes to the system of local government.

One old chestnut which was originally floated yet again by Copeland Council, but has now been taken up by some local campaigners, is the idea of a Town Council for Whitehaven.

Another idea for which there is also a rather wider campaign is to replace the present "Leader and Cabinet" system on Copeland Borough Council by a directly elected mayor.

I have my doubts about whether a fifth tier of government for Whitehaven, which is what a Town council would be, would do much more than cost local taxpayers more money, for yet another layer of politicians.

However, I would support a referendum on a directly elected mayor for Copeland because at the very least it would spark off a debate about how Copeland Council can provide a more democratic and efficient service to local people.

My four years as a member of Copeland Borough Council were four of the most frustrating of my life, because getting anything positive done in the present structures of the council was like wading through treacle. At one stage the "choosing to change" process appeared to be showing signs of genuine reform, but I am told by some of the few sensible people who are still on the council that after the 2011 local elections this has largely stalled.

My preferred route to a more democratic Copeland would have been a return to the Committee System but unfortunately the Labour group who currently have a majority on CBC have no interest in this. The only alternative to the status quo is the possibility of a referendum for a directly elected mayor to replace the current leader of the council.

This should not be a party political argument. The option of directly elected mayors was brought in by the last Labour government and was endorsed by the present Conservative & Lib/Dem coalition, so there is support at national level from all three parties for this option. It should be a matter of local choice.

There is a lot of scaremongering from supporters of the status quo about the supposed extra cost, which I take with a bucketful of salt. It could be done in an expensive way, but if implemented intelligently it could also save money.

And I hope those who are currently collecting signatures for an elected mayor referendum get them, because Copeland needs that debate and local residents should be given that choice.

Quote of the day 28th November 2013

"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't use 'infinitely' when you mean 'very,' otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."

( C. S. Lewis )

Happy Hanukkah

Wishing all members of the Jewish community in the UK, and any member of the worldwide Jewish community who might happen to access this blog, a happy Hanukkah.

David Cameron tweeted today,

Happy #Hanukkah! The Jewish community makes a great contribution to the UK. Looking forward to lighting the candles in No10 tonight.
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) November 27, 2013

For those unfamiliar with Jewish festivals, there is an explanation on the Economist website here. It celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple in 165 BC after a successful rebellion against external powers which had tried to prevent the Jews from practicing their religion as they wished.

I particularly liked the first comment explaining why this celebration should be important to Christians too, as if the Maccabbees who led the rebellion had lost there would have been no first century Jews such as Jesus.

More Images of the North West

Another gorgeous picture on twitter, this time of Derwentwater taken from near Keswick, posted by Bruce @Brucehardy2 which you can see here.

And Liam Nichols (@Liam_nicholls) posted some lovely views of Whitehaven harbour here.

Quote of the day 27th November 2013

"If God had granted all the silly prayers I've made in my life, where should I be now?"

( C.S. Lewis )

Trending Central's take on who is smearing who

Alex Wickham at the "Trending Central" blog (www.Trendingcentral.com) has a good article here on the breathtaking hypocrisy of labour's smear counter-attack.

As Alex points out, it isn't a smear to repeat an unpleasant truth about someone, it is a smear to make up lies about them (as Damian McBride was proved to be plotting to do against the Conservatives on behalf of Labour.)

Quote of the day 26th November 2013

"Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."

( C. S. Lewis: “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” )

Images of the North West

There are some gorgeous pictures of Wastwater and Scawfell being posted on Twitter this morning.

Discover Cumbria @Cumbria_Lakes posted a picture here of Wastwater looking like a mirror.

And an equally beautiful image here from Mark Gillian @Wastwater1.

Or the top of Scawfell range from Alex Atkinson @atkypne here.

Wow.

On blaming others and excusing oneself ...

Three closely related thoughts today.

The first is today's quote from C.S. Lewis to the effect that we are all liable to be too ready to make excuses for ourslves and not ready enough to accept them for others.

The second is a piece on Conservative Home by Charlotte Leslie, MP for Bristol North West,  which you can read  here, about "false victims" and how those at the centre of a scandal are often quick to present themselves as the victims.

The third is a quote I saw on twitter yesterday attributed to from Trevor Kavanagh, columnist and former political editor of The Sun:

"Politicians of all parties have seedy secrets, but Labour cry loudest when theirs are exposed."

I think Ed Miliband's actions yesterday, when he was interviewed in The Independent on Sunday accusing the Tories on the front page of that newspaper as being "In the gutter" and David Cameron of demeaning his office over the facts which have recently been published concerning  former Labour councillor and Co-op bank chairman Paul Flowers, is a good illustration of all three of those things.

Quote of the Day 25th November 2013

"In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people's, we do not accept them easily enough."
( C. S. Lewis )

Gettysburg 150 years on

This has been a remarkable week for anniversaries.

Friday was the 50th anniversary of the deaths within an hour of each other, of two of the 20th century's greatest writers, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Hudley, and of U.S. President John F Kennedy.

Also this week was the 150th anniversary of the day when another U.S. President and one of my personal heroes, Abraham Lincoln, gave one of the greatest speeches of all time, known as the Gettysburg Address.

That speech lasted less than four minutes and contains fewer than three hundred words, but it is truly inspirational. With characteristic modesty Lincoln was wrong when he predicted that the words he was saying would not long be remembered: his words are still worth remembering in the second decade of a new millenium, and I believe they will still mean something to future generations long after everyone alive today has passed into history.

This is the text of the "Bliss Copy" which is believed to be the most accurate record of what Lincoln said at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg on 19th November 1863.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Aussies get the last laugh at the Gabba

During the first day of the first Ashes test at Brisbane,  the Aussies tried taunting and insulting Stuart Broad and he responded by taking five of their wickets.

Unfortunately from an England perspective, though not perhaps from that of a true cricket lover, the Aussies then wised up and realised that the best way to get revenge would be to play really good cricket.

All credit to the Austalian side, and to Mitchell Johnson (9 wickets for 103 runs) in particular, for some really great play. They won convincingly.

Better luck to the England squad for the rest of the tour: they have been written off before and come back to win!

150,000 not out

Today this blog passed 150,000 pageviews since the traffic counters were put on six years ago.

Thanks to everyone, wherever in the world you are, who has visited the blog in that time.

The three most read posts on this blog since 2007 were all posted this year. They were as follows

1) Letter from the Falkland islanders to the U.N.

2) Equal Citizenship: a fair deal for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England

3) The EU wasted £6 billion of taxpayers' money last year: official

Quote of the Day 24th November 2013

“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”
( C. S. Lewis )

Memo to Jonathan Freedland: who is smearing who?

Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian yesterday here that the 2015 election will be a very dirty election, an opinion which I regret to say is probably right, but for which he gives precisely the wrong reason: that "The Tory smear machine is operating at full throttle."

Freedland bases this on what he calls "The Paul Flowers affair."

The most irritating characteristic of a large chunk of the left, whether we are talking about Labour activists or their fellow travellers in the press, is is the way they manage to generate a santimonious  tone of moral superiority about things when done by the right while having an extraordinarily short memory when similar, or worse, things are done by the left.

Let's not forget that the last Labour government employed Damian McBride, using money which was paid by all of us as taxpayers,  to act as Gordon Brown's personal attack dog - and making up the most horrible smears against anyone who got in Gordon's way. Including other members of the Labour party. And against the families of such people. And McBride was caught planning to plant smears which had been made up and bore no resemblance to the truth. When he was caught one Labour figure was quoted in the press as saying that the only surprising thing about it was this time it was Tories rather than other members of the Labour party he was planning to smear.

With a story as incredible as what has happened with Paul Flowers, nobody had to make up anything.

Indeed, you probably wouldn't risk making it up. As Guido Fawkes points out here, if someone decided to fabricate the most damaging possible smear against Labour, would they really dare put out what appears to have actually happened?

POSTSCRIPT - I am told here that the front page of tomorrow's "Independent on Sunday" will include an item with the headline "Miliband: Tories are 'In the gutter.'"

I repeat: who is smearing who?

Watch out for ice and snow today

I had to clear a lawer of ice from the windscreen before driving off today for the second time this week.

But what was all the more alarming, when pouring away a quantity of water which had collected on a tarpaulin covering an item beside my house, was to find a sheet of ice on the surface which still had not melted by late afternoon.

If ice can be solid in those circumstances, there may still be ice on roads and pavements, particularly where it has been in shadow, do do take care if you are out and about today. 

Quote of the day 23rd November 2013

"If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed."

( C. S. Lewis )

James Wharton MP writes on the Referendum Bill

"Today my Bill to legislate for a referendum on our EU membership came back to the House of Commons.

Many amendments have been tabled by Labour and Lib Dem MPs in an effort to drag the debate out and cause it to run out of time, many of them rather spurious and lacking any real support.

These amendments have been placed into four groups, and the Commons has to debate each group before we can decide whether to give the Bill its Third Reading.

Last week we finished the first (Franchise) and just after 11am this morning we completed debate on the second (Timing). In the afternoon we debated the text of the question, just managing to get through it in time, though with the possibility of a few votes having to be taken at the beginning of the next session.

This leaves one group to go (Conduct of the referendum) and the Third Reading debate itself.
Labour’s tactics throughout have been to talk long, supported by the Lib Dems, and today was no different. There were multiple, lengthy speeches, often drifting into a discussion of the merits of EU membership, instead of focusing on the specific point at issue.

We have one more sitting Friday before Christmas (29th November) and in the normal course of things we should have a decent chance of finishing the Bill’s Commons stages then. If not, we still have the option of returning in January, though it would be nice not to have to.

We saw again this Friday that Conservative MPs are determined to deliver this Bill. My colleagues were focused and disciplined in the face of much provocation by those who want to slow its progress.

I want this Bill to become law, and I think it has a good chance of doing so.

Whatever happens, it now seems inevitable there will be a referendum on our EU membership at some stage. The debate has moved on, it is surely only a matter of time before Labour and the Liberal Democrats catch up."

(James Wharton is the Conservative MP for Stockton South and proposer of the bill which would provide for a referendum on Britain's EU membership. Hat tip to  Conservative Home on which this article first appeared.)

The Tories and the North: Fisking Owen Jones

I wrote here a few weeks ago about an intelligent article by Peter Kellner which was called Why northerners don't vote tory but actually used polling evidence to successfully retute almost every possible explanation for the challenges facing the Conservatives in the North. Kellner had concluded that

"In the end, the Tories’ problem is not what they do; it’s what they are. Their trouble is their brand. They lost Scotland because they lost their reputation as a unionist party and came to be seen as an English party. They are losing the North because they are seen increasingly as a Southern party. This need not stop them winning a future election: there are enough constituencies in the Midlands and the South which, when added to the Tories’ isolated seats in the North, can give them a parliamentary majority. But few, even on the Conservative benches, would regard that as a wholly healthy prospect."

Yesterday in the Independent, updated today here there was another article, similar to Kellner's in some ways but enormously different in quality, written by Owen Jones in response to Sir Bernard Ingham's recent comments.

Now Sir Bernard's remarks about people from the North who don't like the Tories were, for me, an absolutely classic case where you know exactly what someone meant but really wish they hadn't put it in the words they chose.

Personally I am still so angry about the way the last Labour government comprehensively trashed Britain's financial and economic position, particularly in their last few years in office, that I have to make a considerable effort to make myself treat those who persist in voting for them with a modicum of respect and courtesy. I would find it extremly easy to speak about those who support Labour, whether in the North or the South, in even less flattering terms than Sir Bernard Ingham used about Northerners who don't like the tories.

I try not to do so for the very pragmatic reason that it really doesn't get us anywhere. Democracy has the consequence that an individual who might consider voting Labour has the same number of votes as me - one - and I'm not going to persuade him or her not to make such a disastrous mistake by calling him or her "demented" or hurling similar insults, no matter what the temptation.

Now the interesting thing about the Peter Kellner and Owen Jones articles about the Conservatives and the North is that when you read them side by side, they are an object lesson in the right and wrong way to approach an issue.

Peter Kellner and Owen Jones are not too far apart politically. Owen Jones openly describes himself as being on the left: as a pollster Kellner always been careful not to do or say anything which would fatally compromise his independence but he has been close to prominent figures in the Labour party. Both are articulate and well informed.
 
But the difference between the way Kellner and Jones approach the issue is highly instructive. Kellner does something which is far too rare on the right, left and centre: he considers possible explanations for the issue he is addressing - why the Conservatives do not have more support in the North - and tests them as open-mindedly as he can against objective evidence. (And ends up by concluding that almost all of them are disproved by the polling evidence.)

Jones, on the other hand, just offers a list of his own prejudices as an explanation of why the Conservatives are not more popular in the North. And this is the real kicker - practically EVERY ONE of his statements about why the Tories are unpopular in the North is as true, or even more true, of Labour.

Let's fisk a few of them.

Jones: "As the old industrial communities disintegrated at an unprecedented rate under Tory rule, the anger and bitterness was passed from generation to generation."

In the working class Northern borough where I live, what remained of traditional local industry, with the sole exception of the nuclear industry, closed every bit as fast under Blair and Brown as it did under Thatcher and Major.

Jones:    "today’s unprecedented fall in living standards conjures up what is – in large swathes of the country – almost an anti-Tory folklore."

Which is very odd, because that fall in living standards has been going on for about seven years. It started, and for the majority of people in the North as well as in the South the majority of that fall took place, while Gordon Brown was Prime Minister. I might not want to repeat his language, but do you really not see why Sir Bernard Ingham found it strange that people should blame the Tories for what was mostly done to them under Labour?"

Jones: "The Tories obsessively bait Labour over its links with trade unions, the biggest democratic movement in the country."

Insofar as the trade unions are genuinely democratic, a significant amount of the reason has a great deal to do with Norman Tebbit's laws requiring secret ballots.

Jones: "It is alarming how little scrutiny the Tories’ own funders get."

Absolute, complete and utter rubbish. These days, as was not the case a few years ago, all major donations to all political parties have to be registered with the electoral commission and are published, and media outlets and opponents of all parties go through them with a fine tooth comb.

Jones: "They are, after all, bankrolled by bankers, hedge funds and legal loan sharks."

If anyone reading the article had still retained had the impression to this point that Owen Jones had the least interest in presenting a balanced, objective and accurate assessment of the Conservative position, they know better now.

All the political parties draw income from a wide range of sources. Insofar as it is true that a substantial part of Conservative income comes from wealthy individuals and companies, the same is true of New Labour. For example, Electoral Commission figures show that while it was still legal for non-domestic taxpayers to support political parties, Labour accepted more money from millionaire non-doms than the Tories did - £8.9 million compared with £5.1 million between 2001 and 2008.

Jones: "Andrew Lansley, who set in motion the wholesale privatisation of the NHS"

The NHS is still free at the point of delivery and funded largely from general taxation. But if you regard the greatly increased use of private suppliers as over the past few years as "wholesale privatisation" then the person who set this in motion was NOT Andrew Lansley but his Labour predecessor as Health secretary, Andy Burnham.

Jones: "Forget which schools the Tory frontbench attended: it is their donors’ list that reveal the Tories’ historic mission as the political wing of wealth and power, or Boles “party of the rich”.

Remind me which cabinet minister, of which party, and representing a seat in which part of the country, said that the government in which he served was completely "relaxed" about people getting "filthy rich," as long as they pay their taxes?

Here's a clue: Peter Mandelson, Labour, then MP for Hartlepool in the North East. Oh, and George Osborne also thinks rich people should pay their taxes and has been trying to close down loopholes which allow them to escape doing so. 

Jones: "It is an age-old Tory strategy: at the start of the last century, the party assiduously courted fear of Jewish and Irish immigrants. There is always a rich vein of prejudice to tap."

You're going back to the early 1900s? I don't even need to go back ten years to respond.

What did you think of the poster Labour prepared depicting the then Conservative leader Michael Howard, who is Jewish, as Fagin? Or of their poster depicting the heads of Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin (who is also Jewish) on pigs? Put these and some of the other things Labour put out in the run up to the 2005 election together, and it wasn't a nice picture. 

I think Mr Jones needs to do better than this. He could start by taking lessons from Peter Kellner.