Patrick McIlheran, RCP Wisconsin is $3.6 billion worse than broke next budget, and unions don't much like Gov. Scott Walker's cure, a central part of which is cut their dreamy benefits and restrain their power to bargain them still higher.But the teachers largely went home this past week, leaving the Capitol protests to the harder left -- Madison's permanent party of retiree rads with heads full of Chomsky, and mohawked kids there to party against The Man. The Wobblies have a banner up; the "Revolutionary Communist Party" displays its manifesto. The politics were more distilled. Receive...
Charities divided over the Conservative council's plans for a bylaw targeting rough sleeping in Westminster cathedral piazza
Plans by Westminster council to ban soup runs and rough sleeping around Westminster cathedral have divided charities.
The Tory-controlled council, which has been trying to get rid of soup runs for a decade, wants to introduce a bylaw (pdf) targeting the area around Westminster cathedral piazza, where residents have complained for years about the impact.
"Of those homeless people who congregate in the area, there is a minority of hard drinkers and drug takers who cause residents and visitors distress, which I have witnessed and been told about," a Westminster cathedral representative told the council. "During the day they can often be seen in groups of up to 15, and this can dramatically increase in the evenings with the soup runs."
Between 100 and 150 people slept rough in Westminster each night on average over the past year, the council said, adding that between 25% and 35% came from new EU states in eastern Europe. Westminster council said the bylaw would not impede voluntary groups that deal with rough sleeping or reduce the level of services for vulnerable people in the borough.
The proposal has divided charities and volunteer groups. The Salvation Army said: "This could be the thin end of the wedge that leads to other no-sleep zones in Westminster and across the capital.
"This is a very dangerous and worrying prospect that will endanger people's health by forcing them to hide away in dangerous areas where they cannot be discovered or supported to change their situation.
"For the vast majority of people, sleeping rough is not a lifestyle choice. Rather than intimidating rough sleepers to retreat into back alleyways, to hide away in refuse containers, or to squat in derelict buildings, the answer is to give them somewhere to stay."
Housing Justice said the council's move was "over the top", would create further difficulties for the homeless and spread the problem elsewhere.
"I would be reluctant to reduce any services for the homeless with all these cuts to services and benefits that will have a huge impact on the vulnerable," said Alastair Murray, the group's deputy director. "This is the wrong time to say to volunteers that they should not be helping."
Murray predicted that people would defy such a bylaw if it came into force and be prepared to go to jail.
"This strikes at the heart of people trying to help others," he said, adding that it sat uneasily with David Cameron's notions of a "big society".
David Coombe of the Coombe Trust Fund rejected the notion that the group's soup run encouraged rough sleeping.
"Very, very few choose this life. It is simply that there is not enough done for them and that which is done is undertaken almost exclusively by the third sector," he said. "I choose to operate our soup run because there is a need. Some 15 of us attend our bi-monthly runs and we meet many new faces each trip. Approximately 25% of those we see are ex-army and 30-40% originating from eastern Europe."
While voicing sympathy for Westminster council and expressing scepticism about soup runs, Howard Sinclair, the chief executive of Broadway, a homeless charity, questioned the council's approach.
"A bylaw misses the point," he said. "Banning soup runs will not get people off the street and does not engage those people who are volunteering."
Other charities backed the move. Jeremy Swain, the chief executive of Thames Reach, said: "This is not a borough-wide ban, which I would oppose." He said rough sleeping in the area had a "detrimental impact on the lives of people living and working in the immediate vicinity".
Swain added: "It is reasonable that the council should seek to introduce a bylaw covering this specific area whilst at the same time continuing to commit resources towards ending rough sleeping in the borough."
Charles Fraser, St Mungo's chief executive, said: "While we recognise the compassion involved in providing food to vulnerable people, those in distress and rough sleeping need services that will support them off the streets for good, and give them the opportunity for longer-term better housing, health and work as they move on with their lives."
Westminster has three day centres offering heavily discounted food, washing and laundry facilities, clothes, doctors, dentists and mental health services, and one emergency night centre. It also commissions supported housing schemes for people moving from hostels towards independent living.
"We are pushing people towards building-based services, where they can access medical treatment, social care and the like. We don't want to see people living on our streets," said a council spokeswoman.
Westminster has cut its Supporting People budget for the vulnerable from �17m to �14.4m for the next financial year.
Daniel Astaire, Westminster council's cabinet member for society, families and adult services, said there was no need for anyone to sleep rough in Westminster "as we have a range of services that can help them off the streets to make the first steps towards getting their lives back on track".
The council has begun a consultation and hopes to have a bylaw in place by October. Westminster council last tried to ban soup runs in 2007, but the proposal was not included in the London bill, following a public outcry. The council's efforts to stop soup runs in Westminster date back to 2001.
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) appeared on "Face the Nation" yesterday. He turned in another gripping performance, following his recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute.He is -- no doubt a consequence of his years as a prosecutor -- entirely fluid in his delivery. He maintains good cheer even when dismantling the question. And he makes even the toughest position sound like nothing more than common sense.
If my friend Oliver Stutchbury, who has died aged 84, had had less integrity he would have achieved greater success in politics ? success that he hankered after, and that his abilities merited. But his integrity was non-negotiable. He believed people should say what they mean and mean what they say, as he did. He passionately believed people should live by their principles, eschewing expediency, as he did. His integrity moved him to support causes which were inconsistent and this, too, undermined his political career. But his inconsistencies were embedded in his moral principles, which he pursued with relentless logic. His PhD thesis, published as Use of Principle (1973), argued that all lying is unethical. This forced him to shun all "white lies" ? an obvious stumbling block in politics.
Oliver was born and brought up in the family home in rural Sussex where, aged 11, he saw his father ? a successful engineer ? die after being stung by a bee. Despite the financial difficulties his father's death must have engendered, he was sent to Radley college and went on to King's College, Cambridge. There he read philosophy and as a mature student gained his PhD.
In politics, he started out as a Tory, and stood as a parliamentary candidate for the unwinnable Rhondda seat in the 1951 general election. But his moral convictions soon compelled him to leave the Tories and join the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. A City high flyer, he became chief executive of Save and Prosper, then the largest unit trust group in Britain, and, in 1964, he wrote a leading textbook, The Management of Unit Trusts. But when he decided investment management was more luck than judgment, he quit the job.
Having joined the Labour party in the 1960s, before long he concluded Britain's highly centralised government was catastrophic, and later encapsulated his views in Too Much Government? A Political Aeneid (1977). By now a passionate champion of local government, in 1973 he became an alderman on the Greater London council ? only to decide after three years that the GLC was incompetent beyond repair. So he left and launched his own political party, simply named "Abolish the GLC".
Just about everyone who met Oliver was charmed although he was almost excessively blunt. He lacked, or could not be bothered with, guile. But he was never sombre or solemn. Limitlessly hospitable and immensely convivial, he had a subtle palate and enjoyed every kind of fine drink. (He once told me the happiest day of his life was the day he realised he had become rich enough to drink whatever he wished in whatever quantity he wanted. I think he was joking.) Above all he was a terrific conversationalist: clever, creative, controversial ? and unalloyed fun.
He married Helen Beloe in 1955, and they had four children: Emma, Catherine, Rosalind and Wycliffe. They all survive him.
Dennis Cozzalio stops and smells the gasoline fumes rolling off the DVD release of The Outfit, based on one of Donald Westlake's Parker novels (written under the pseudonym Richard Stark).
John Flynn?s The Outfit, a brutally efficient bit of business based glancingly on Richard Stark?s procedurally inquisitive and poetic crime novel, is a movie that feels like it?s never heard of a rounded corner; it?s blunt like a 1970 Dodge Monaco pinning a couple of killers against a Dumpster and a brick wall.
And not just any Dodge, but one driven by Karen Black in a Faye Dunaway Bonnie & Clyde beret!
Substituting headlong, arrogant force for the mapped-out strategies detailed in the book, Flynn pile-drives forward just like his protagonist, setting up one cast-iron set piece after another in clean, broad strokes, as cinematically equivalent to Stark?s lean, unfussy prose as one could imagine being without galloping forward into insufferable self-consciousness.
[snip]
It?s easy to wonder if those probable budgetary restrictions had anything to do with Flynn?s scrapping of the idea to film The Outfit as a full-on noir period piece set in the postwar ?40s. Personally, I think what we?ve got works just fine, probably better than any attempt to predate even the novel and recreate a shadowy atmosphere which would likely only call attention to its artificiality. As is, The Outfit, set in 1973, is only 10 years removed from the cars, the styles, the guns, the diners and the entire milieu of Stark?s novel, which was published in 1963. Not much in the way of adaptation in terms of production design was really needed to stay true to the cynicism-soaked atmosphere originating from Stark?s typewriter.
Maybe because right now I'm immersed in the 70's and watched the movie just this weekend, the result strikes me as better than fine--there's an authentic cruddiness to the interiors and exteriors (diners, motels, gas stations, back offices, poker rooms), all of the lower-echelon men sitting behind desks or loitering at the fringes are meaty and look as if they down a lot of antacids, the cars look like they've been driven hard, not wheeled off some studio backlot, and the cloudy skies clamp a glum, sulky lid over the action, making it look even meaner and more entrapping. It doesn't look all art-directed and anally lit to perfection, its functional utility more faithful to the Parker world than the attitudinizing of nearly all the other adaptations.
Cozzalio rightly pays tribute to Sheree North (seen "first in a knockout black turtleneck sweater and then in a clingy, pointedly thin bathrobe, as the brother?s shrewish"), who's like a dirty-blonde version of Julie London, but my eyes were equally agog at how gleaming and gorgeous Joanna Cassidy was in a small role as Robert Ryan's moll, dressed in classy white as if her expensive wardrobe had laundered his ill-gotten gains.
Robert Duvall, Joe Don Baker, Sheree North, Robert Ryan, Joanna Cassidy, Richard Jaeckel (love him), plus all of the noir familiars (Elisha Cook Jr., Jane Greer, Roy Roberts) studding the cast--it's one hell of a lineup, going about their business with no muss no muss expediency, a dead-ahead stance loosened only by Joe Don Baker's leering grin in every getaway.
The explosion of Stark/Parker reissues continues apace, and I've just knocked off Deadly Edge, which I recommend unreservedly. The novel that moves him into the lakeside hideaway he shares with Claire in a rural pocket of New Jersey where the state lines of Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania converge, Deadly Edge begins with a heist that goes without a hitch until the crew returns to the safe house where their stuff is stashed and discover--well, no spoilers here. This is one of the most scarifying of the Parker novels. Where most of the violence in the Parker series is meted out with thuggish blunt force on anyone who stands between the crooks and the money, here there's a sadistic psychopathological zeal to the lethal punishments inflicted on Parker's crew by their pursuers that looks backward to the Manson family and forward to Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, especially once the Jersey home comes under siege. Parker is used to dealing with tough-guy tactics--this is a whole different witches' brew. Everything about Deadly Edge is distinctive; only its title is generic.
David Ignatius, Washington Post To visit Hezbollah officials, you turn left off the airport road, just past a billboard that shows Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad coyly waving at motorists. You then enter a neighborhood known as the "southern suburbs," which is the dense street fortress of the Shiite militia.Here lies the headquarters of the group that now forms the strongest bloc in Lebanon's parliament.
Patrick McIlheran, RCP Wisconsin is $3.6 billion worse than broke next budget, and unions don't much like Gov. Scott Walker's cure, a central part of which is cut their dreamy benefits and restrain their power to bargain them still higher.But the teachers largely went home this past week, leaving the Capitol protests to the harder left -- Madison's permanent party of retiree rads with heads full of Chomsky, and mohawked kids there to party against The Man. The Wobblies have a banner up; the "Revolutionary Communist Party" displays its manifesto. The politics were more distilled. Receive...
Charities divided over the Conservative council's plans for a bylaw targeting rough sleeping in Westminster cathedral piazza
Plans by Westminster council to ban soup runs and rough sleeping around Westminster cathedral have divided charities.
The Tory-controlled council, which has been trying to get rid of soup runs for a decade, wants to introduce a bylaw (pdf) targeting the area around Westminster cathedral piazza, where residents have complained for years about the impact.
"Of those homeless people who congregate in the area, there is a minority of hard drinkers and drug takers who cause residents and visitors distress, which I have witnessed and been told about," a Westminster cathedral representative told the council. "During the day they can often be seen in groups of up to 15, and this can dramatically increase in the evenings with the soup runs."
Between 100 and 150 people slept rough in Westminster each night on average over the past year, the council said, adding that between 25% and 35% came from new EU states in eastern Europe. Westminster council said the bylaw would not impede voluntary groups that deal with rough sleeping or reduce the level of services for vulnerable people in the borough.
The proposal has divided charities and volunteer groups. The Salvation Army said: "This could be the thin end of the wedge that leads to other no-sleep zones in Westminster and across the capital.
"This is a very dangerous and worrying prospect that will endanger people's health by forcing them to hide away in dangerous areas where they cannot be discovered or supported to change their situation.
"For the vast majority of people, sleeping rough is not a lifestyle choice. Rather than intimidating rough sleepers to retreat into back alleyways, to hide away in refuse containers, or to squat in derelict buildings, the answer is to give them somewhere to stay."
Housing Justice said the council's move was "over the top", would create further difficulties for the homeless and spread the problem elsewhere.
"I would be reluctant to reduce any services for the homeless with all these cuts to services and benefits that will have a huge impact on the vulnerable," said Alastair Murray, the group's deputy director. "This is the wrong time to say to volunteers that they should not be helping."
Murray predicted that people would defy such a bylaw if it came into force and be prepared to go to jail.
"This strikes at the heart of people trying to help others," he said, adding that it sat uneasily with David Cameron's notions of a "big society".
David Coombe of the Coombe Trust Fund rejected the notion that the group's soup run encouraged rough sleeping.
"Very, very few choose this life. It is simply that there is not enough done for them and that which is done is undertaken almost exclusively by the third sector," he said. "I choose to operate our soup run because there is a need. Some 15 of us attend our bi-monthly runs and we meet many new faces each trip. Approximately 25% of those we see are ex-army and 30-40% originating from eastern Europe."
While voicing sympathy for Westminster council and expressing scepticism about soup runs, Howard Sinclair, the chief executive of Broadway, a homeless charity, questioned the council's approach.
"A bylaw misses the point," he said. "Banning soup runs will not get people off the street and does not engage those people who are volunteering."
Other charities backed the move. Jeremy Swain, the chief executive of Thames Reach, said: "This is not a borough-wide ban, which I would oppose." He said rough sleeping in the area had a "detrimental impact on the lives of people living and working in the immediate vicinity".
Swain added: "It is reasonable that the council should seek to introduce a bylaw covering this specific area whilst at the same time continuing to commit resources towards ending rough sleeping in the borough."
Charles Fraser, St Mungo's chief executive, said: "While we recognise the compassion involved in providing food to vulnerable people, those in distress and rough sleeping need services that will support them off the streets for good, and give them the opportunity for longer-term better housing, health and work as they move on with their lives."
Westminster has three day centres offering heavily discounted food, washing and laundry facilities, clothes, doctors, dentists and mental health services, and one emergency night centre. It also commissions supported housing schemes for people moving from hostels towards independent living.
"We are pushing people towards building-based services, where they can access medical treatment, social care and the like. We don't want to see people living on our streets," said a council spokeswoman.
Westminster has cut its Supporting People budget for the vulnerable from �17m to �14.4m for the next financial year.
Daniel Astaire, Westminster council's cabinet member for society, families and adult services, said there was no need for anyone to sleep rough in Westminster "as we have a range of services that can help them off the streets to make the first steps towards getting their lives back on track".
The council has begun a consultation and hopes to have a bylaw in place by October. Westminster council last tried to ban soup runs in 2007, but the proposal was not included in the London bill, following a public outcry. The council's efforts to stop soup runs in Westminster date back to 2001.
Here I was, having breakfast at the diner this very morning, reading an op-ed piece in the NY Post by John Podhoretz, whose current position as editor of Commentary has nothing whatsoever to do with his father having held the same position, nepotism playing no role in the plush career of this utterly mediocre mind and author.
So what was this soft-boiled egg so excited about in his column?
A manly new figure on the Republican stage who might be just the rock 'em sock 'em upper-cutter needed to knock Obama out of the ring in 2012.
Wis. Kid is GOP's sudden White House star
The "Wis.kid" whiz kid is, of course, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, the Tea Party union buster whose hardball tactics have conservative hearts aflutter, from Genghis Khan to Mickey Kaus.
"This is great political drama, and Walker is its star. To triumph, he will have to win it and seem magnanimous in victory -- and show that his victory had positive results."
As a Tea Party Republican, there is zero chance Walker will be "magnanimous" whatever happens, because that would be interpreted as squishy in the macho masquerade that is modern conservatism.
Just look at the photo of Walker accompanying the op-ed--that is the dumb, subservient-to-power junior executive look of a man who will never be more than a low-level prick on the national stage.
But Podhoretz, caught up in his own form of Bieber-fever, actually thinks this guy could stand toe to toe with Obama.
"Yes, Walker (like [NJ Governor Chris] Christie) would present himself for the presidency with a brief electoral resume. But it'd be hard for one-term Sen. Barack Obama to make that argument."
In 2012, Obama won't be running as a one-term senator, he'll be running as the current President of the United States, a datum Podhoretz might want to input into his genius brain.
I suspect it's all academic now, because in a matter of mere hours, from the time it took me to return from the diner and park at my desk, it appears that the rising son of GOP hopes has been caught Koch-sucking.
Wonkette has a lovely article about how the embattled governor to time out from his busy primping to take a call from a prankster pretending to be billionaire Tea Party funder David Koch. Walker wasn't playing along with a gag; he got pwned, as they say, and revealed himself a politician eager to strap on the dog collar and follow the tug of the leash.
Walker: Oh yeah, but who watches that? I went on ?Morning Joe? this morning. I like it because I just like being combative with those guys, but, uh. You know they?re off the deep end.
Koch: Joe?Joe?s a good guy. He?s one of us.
Walker: Yeah, he?s all right. He was fair to me�[bashes NY Senator Chuck Schumer, who was also on the program.]
Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. You gotta love that Mika Brzezinski; she?s a real piece of ass.
Walker: Oh yeah.
Here comes the tug.
Koch: [Laughs] Well, I tell you what, Scott: once you crush these bastards I?ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.
Walker: All right, that would be outstanding.
This is like a trick Eddie Haskell would have played on Lumpy Rutherford, if I may make a historical analogy.
It's an analogy John Podhoretz can easily grasp, his father and Fred Rutherford being so much alike in so many ways.
"Reagan Reagan Reagan"--that was the mantra of this year's CPAC convention, according to Roy Edroso, with "Jesus loves Israel and torture" serving as lyric refrain.
It is the centenary of Reagan's virgin birth in a manger back in the old West, where the bed of straw converted into pure gold upon his entrance into our fallen world.
That sentimental crooner, Alexander Cockburn, turns back the hands of time to those thrilling days of yesteryear.
Hearing all the cosy talk about the Gipper, young people spared the experience of his awful sojourn in office, probably imagine him as a kindly, avuncular figure. Not so. He was a callous man, with a breezy indifference to suffering and the consequences of his decisions. This indifference was so profound that Dante would surely have consigned him to one of the lowest circles of hell, to roast for all eternity in front of a tv set on the blink and a dinner tray swinging out of reach like the elusive fruits that tortured Tantalus.
It was startling, back in 2004 when he died, to see the lines of people sweating under a hot sun waiting to see Reagan's casket. How could any of them take the dreadful old faker seriously? The nearest thing to it I can think of is the hysteria over Princess Di.
And Di at least wanted to ban landmines, evincing an awareness of the real-life toll of war and lower intensity conflicts that for Reagan were fuddled together with the winning of WWII on the studio backlots.
Reagan had abolished any tiresome division of the world into fact or fiction in the early 1940s when his studio's PR department turned him into a war hero, courtesy of his labors in "Fort Wacky" in Culver City, where they made training films. The fanzines disclosed the loneliness of R.R.'s first wife, Jane Wyman, her absent man (a few miles away in Fort Wacky, home by suppertime) and her knowledge of R.R.'s hatred of the foe. "She'd seen Ronnie's sick face," Modern Screen reported in 1942, "bent over a picture of the small, swollen bodies of children starved to death in Poland. 'This,' said the war-hating Reagan between set lips, 'would make it a pleasure to kill.'" A photographer for Modern Screen recalled later that, unlike some stars who were reluctant to offer themselves to his lens in "hero's" garb, Reagan insisted on being photographed on his front step in full uniform, kissing his wife goodbye.
Of course the rhetorical steroid pump-up of Reagan as "the greatest president of the 20th century" by conservatives is winged to their primary mission to devalue and demote the legacy and reputation of the president truly deserving of that title, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Each time they shine the sun brighter on Reagan, their intent is to wheel FDR deeper into the Gipper's shadow. I await the day when Glenn Beck tells us how Reagan defeated Hitler, unless he already has documented that on his chalkboard--I'm a little behind in my lunatic viewing.
Robert Samuelson, Newsweek WASHINGTON -- What we are witnessing in Wisconsin and elsewhere is the death knell of Big Labor. Once upon a time, most Americans could identify the head of the AFL-CIO. He was George Meany, the cigar-chomping ex-plumber who ran the union federation from 1955 to 1979. He was one of the nation's great power brokers, much quoted and wooed by presidents. It's doubtful that as many Americans can name Meany's present successor. (Answer: Richard Trumka, ex-head of the mine workers' union.) The American labor movement has been in eclipse for decades, but public- sector unions...
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While at the meeting Alok spoke to astroseismologistBill Chaplin from the University of Birmingham (UK). Bill describes the 10-second recording he's made of the stars.
Former government drugs adviser professor David Nutt pops into the studio to tell us about the latest research his group, the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, is doing on the classification of drugs. He also anlayses the approach the British and US governments are taking towards drugs.
Rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen
More on Miliband v Mandelson. Reading the Press Association report, I see that Ed Miliband took aim at another famous Mandelson statement when he was taking questions after his speech today.
I don't think we can be intensely relaxed about the filthy rich getting richer, as [Mandelson] put it, if we are seeing people's living standards squeezed.
Miliband also said that he did not want to "get into an argie bargie" with the peer.
He's absolutely entitled to his views, he did great things for our party and he's got interesting things to say. I don't always agree with them.
The Electoral Commission has published a report on campaign spending in the 2010 general election (pdf). It says that 43 parties spent a total of �31.4m during the campaign. The Conservatives spent 53% of the entire amount spent by parties at a national level, Labour 35% and the Lib Dems 15%. Total campaign expenditure was �10.8m lower than in 2005. The news release is here.
? Ed Miliband has said that Labour did not do enough to reduce inequality. In a speech to the Resolution Foundation, he said that rising inequality over the last 30 years had created a "cost of living crisis" that meant people on low and middle incomes were struggling to get by. "We were wrong not to focus more on the type of economy we were building and what that meant for the widening gulf between those at the very top and the rest," he said. Answering questions after his speech, he also said that Labour had underestimated the number of migrants who would come to Britain and that immigration had had an impact on wage levels. "We've got to look at the interaction of migration with, for example, flexible labour markets, because when you have the interaction of Eastern European migration and flexible labour markets there was pressure created on people's wages," he said. "We were certainly wrong about the number of people who were going to come in, make no bones about it, because I think we underestimated significantly the number of people who were going to come in from Eastern Europe." (See 12.25pm.)
? William Hague, the foreign secretary, has warned Colonel Gaddafi's supporters that they will face a "day of reckoning" if they use violence to defend the Libyan dictatorship. He delivered his message, aimed at members of the Libyan security forces, at a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Today we have signalled that crimes will not be condoned, will not go unpunished and will not be forgotten. This is a warning to anyone contemplating the abuse of human rights in Libya or any other country - Stay your hand. There will be a day of reckoning and the reach of international justice can be long.
Hague also urged other countries to join Britain in backing a resolution, being debated by the UN General Assembly in New York tomorrow, which would make Libya the first nation ever to be suspended from membership of the Human Rights Council.
? Downing Street has said that there are just "a handful" of Britons left in Libya who are still trying to get out. David Cameron will update MPs on the situation in a Commons statement at 3.30pm.
? Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, has launched a consultation on his plans for a new high-speed rail network. Describing it as one of the biggest public consultations ever undertaken, he said: "We must invest in Britain's future. High speed rail offers us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way we travel in the 21st century and would help us build a modern economy fit for the future." (See 11.11am and 11.25am.)
I've just read the full text of Ed Miliband's speech at the commission on living standards launch - and it's more substantial than the previews (see 9.40am) suggested. Lord Mandelson has been complaining about Miliband not having a vision. Today Miliband produced one - and it seems to involve trying to reverse 30 years of growing inequality. What makes this bold is the implicit suggestion that Labour failed in this regard (although Miliband does credit Labour with doing a huge amount for the low paid).
Here are the main points. ? Miliband says inequality has grown under the Tories and Labour over the last 30 years.
Since the late 1970s wages have grown almost twice as fast for the top 10% as they have for those in the middle.
Since 1979, 22p of every extra pound earned has gone into the pockets of the best paid 1%.
This tiny fraction of the workforce now takes home more than 14% of all earnings.
Our economy has become progressively less fair and the losers have been those on middle and low incomes.
Now of course wealth creation, with the dynamism and jobs it brings, is the prerequisite of a successful economy.
But ordinary families in Britain are being increasingly locked out of the benefits of economic growth.
? He says growing inequality has created a "cost of living crisis". He describes this as "a quiet crisis that is unfolding day-by-day in kitchens and living rooms in every town, village and city up and down this country".
? He suggests this inequality contributed to the financial crisis. "Because wages weren't keeping up with the pressures on families too many were forced to borrow to finance their living standards," he says. This fed the demand for cheap credit and increased instability in the economy, he argues.
(I'm not sure that this argument is particularly sound - inequality doesn't always lead to banks lending recklessly; I thought people borrowed too much because cheap credit was available - but Miliband does make the point that "huge irresponsibility in the banking sector" was the main cause of the crash.)
? He predicts that the "cost of living crisis" will continue after the economy recovers.
? He says Labour was "wrong not to focus more on the type of economy we were building and what that meant for the widening gulf between those at the very top and the rest."
This is interesting because the government and Labour have both talked about the need to rebalance the economy. When David Cameron talks about rebalancing, he seems to mean more industry. Miliband is making it clear that, when he talks about rebalancing, he means more fairness.
? He suggests he would like to use tax incentives to reward firms that pay the living wage (currently �7.85 an hour in London).
We need to work with business to see how we can improve living standards while maintaining levels of employment and competitiveness. That's one reason why I have proposed we look at the potential for tax incentives to reward the adoption of the living wage: supporting higher skill, higher productivity, higher growth companies.
? He suggests he would like to do more to reward firms that train their employees.
It also means looking again at how investment in skills and technology can drive productivity growth, particularly in historically low-skill sectors of our economy. The scale of the challenge is this: eight in ten German retail employees have completed vocational qualifications lasting two-to-three years and are more likely to progress to managerial careers; whereas only three in ten of their British counterparts are trained at the equivalent level.
? He says "fairness is not just financial". He says he wants people to have "a better future in terms of working hours" as well as in terms of pay.
You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here.
As for the rest of the papers, here are some articles I found interesting.
? David Bennett, who as head of Monitor is going to be in charge of regulating the use of private providers in the NHS, tells the Financial Times in an interview (subscription) that competition on price should be introduced carefully, but not ruled out as Labour want.
The NHS bill ... gives the new regulator the power to set "maximum" prices ? implying that providers could undercut that, leading to price competition.
A series of health economists has warned that decision could mean a "race to the bottom" on price that would damage quality.
Mr Bennett acknowledges the possibility. "Especially in the early stages, competition will be on quality not on price," he says. "Because in a world where we cannot easily measure quality, if you allow price competition there is a very real risk that quality will fall. And there is even evidence that happens. But you can see it being used for simpler procedures where you can measure quality well. It will be very limited at first, and it will appear only slowly."
Mr Bennett was speaking just before Labour, last week, said it would seek to amend the NHS bill to outlaw price competition. He said: "I would not want to see price competition ruled out. So long as quality is assured, price competition is a way [to drive] productivity improvement."
Given NHS budget pressure, there needs to be improved productivity. To rule price competition out would be neither "necessary nor sensible", he said.
? Shirley Williams in the Times (paywall) says she is opposed to the government's NHS reforms.
Underlying the debate about health is another about values. For some of us, health care is a public service, strengthened by partnership and co-operation, the model in most Western European countries. For others, it is a market in which price determines quality, the US pattern. A June 2010 study of 11 health systems by the US-based Commonwealth Fund said of the US system: "Compared with ... Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, the US system ranks last or next to last on five dimensions ... quality, access, efficiency, equity and healthy lives." The NHS was the second least expensive per person after New Zealand, and came first on effective care, efficiency and cost-related access, and second on equity and in the overall ranking. Why we should dismember this remarkably successful public service for an untried and disruptive reorganisation amazes me. I remain unconvinced.
? James Kirkup in the Daily Telegraph says David Cameron and William Hague are unhappy with the way Liam Fox has been talking up Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Sources said Mr Cameron was worried that high-profile warnings about the Iranian nuclear programme could strengthen the domestic position of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime by lending it credibility.
Mr Cameron is understood to have asked officials to create a new strategy for statements on Iran, which will be seen as a rebuke to Dr Fox, the Government's most vocal critic of the country. Dr Fox told MPs at the end of last month that the West should plan on the basis that Tehran's weapons programme could be viable as soon as next year.
Officials said intelligence analysts did not support the claim. A senior diplomatic source told The Daily Telegraph that the Government's assessment was that the Iranians were still four years away from being able to construct a working nuclear device. Dr Fox's claim in the Commons was not approved by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
? Tony Blair tells the Times in an interview (paywall) that he spoke to Colonel Gaddafi twice on Friday and urged him to stand down.
I am not going to say any more than this ? that what I asked him to do is consistent with the message from the international community and his message was the message he has given publicly. He was in denial that these things are going on.
There is now one major strategic objective and the rest is a question of tactical decisions. The strategic objective is that there is a change in leadership in Libya with the minimum further bloodshed. Far too many people have died; there has been far too much violence.
? Boris Johnson in the Daily Telegraph says that he is opposed to the alternative vote - even though it is similar to the system used to elect him as London mayor.
Nick Clegg himself was right to oppose AV before the election, and he should stick to his guns. First-past-the-post has served this country well, and served dozens of other countries well. We would be mad to go to a great deal of trouble and expense to adopt a system that is less fair than the one we have.
When I started covering politics in the mid-1980s, that world was almost entirely male. I can pinpoint the year ? 1993 ? when I first had to queue for the loo at a Labour Party conference. That was because, for the first time, trade unions whose membership was, say, 60 per cent female had to make sure that 60 per cent of their conference delegates were women too. And constituency parties were asked to send one man and one woman.
Labour wants HS2 to extend to Leeds and Manchester. Here's a statement from Maria Eagle, the shadow transport secretary.
A national high speed network has the potential to bring our major cities closer together, boosting investment and economic growth in the north of England. That's why it was Labour that set out plans for a high speed line from London to Birmingham but importantly also on to Leeds and Manchester.
The Tory-led government is only planning to take powers to construct the line as far as Birmingham which casts real doubt on their long term commitment to delivering high speed rail in the north. They should think again and ensure the whole route is included in the forthcoming legislation.
Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, has launched the consultation on high-speed rail. You can find his written ministerial statement here, his press notice here and full details about the consultation process, including the HS2 "roadshows", here. Hammond claims HS2 could be as important as the arrival of rail travel in the 19th century.
I believe that a national high speed rail network from London to Birmingham, with onward legs to Leeds and Manchester, could transform Britain's competitiveness as profoundly as the coming of the railways in the 19th century. It would reshape Britain's economic geography, helping bridge the north-south divide though massive improvements in journey times and better connections between cities - slashing almost an hour off the trip from London to Manchester.
Does Labour support the Big Society? It is still not entirely clear, although Ed Miliband has said in a speech last year that his party should "take that term 'Big Society' back off David Cameron". But two Labour MPs, Jon Cruddas and Tristram Hunt, have signed the backbench motion being debated today expressing unequivocal support for the idea. Tabled by the Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, and signed mostly by other Tory MPs, it says that "this House supports the Big Society, seeking stronger communities where power is decentralised and social action is encouraged."
In his BBC interview, Ed Miliband also played down the prospect of Labour coming out in favour of imposing the 50p income tax rate on those earning more than �100,000, instead of more than �150,000 (as now). During the leadership contest Ed Balls said he was in favour of bringing the threshold down to �100,000 and, when he was asked in an interview published last week if that was still his position, the shadow chancellor said: "Those are discussions that we still have to have ... It depends very much on where we are in the future." Miliband did not contradict him, but he did his best to suggest that lowering the threshold is not a Labour priority.
Our position on the 50p rate is very clear. We have said it should remain at �150,000 for this parliament. We will look at our tax policies for the next parliament nearer the general election.
Even allowing for the tactical choices [Miliband] had made in his bid to become leader, however, I was struck by the fact that he had given no strong clue during the campaign as to what alternative to New Labour he envisaged. He was quick to say what he was against: essentially, Tory policies and Tony's policies. But he rarely said what he was for, apart from a belief in greater social mobility and equal chances in life for the young, more strategic government intervention in the economy, and primacy for individual rights in counter-terrorist law.
Miliband was asked about this in his interview with the BBC this morning. When challenged to define his vision, he gave this answer.
My vision most of all is that I believe in equal chances for people. I care about the gap between rich and poor. I believe in stronger communities, because I think many of the things we value are under threat, like the NHS. And I believe in a new approach to politics that does mean reaching out and not engaging in some of the yah-boo politics of the past.
(This does not go much further than Milibandism as defined by Mandelson, although it is hard to set out a compelling vision in just four sentences.)
According to PoliticsHome, in the interview Miliband also appeared to dismiss Mandelson's suggestion that he should retain the "essence" of the New Labour project.
New Labour was right for its time but if you look at the conversation we've been having about low and middle income families and the way they struggled, including in part under the last Labour government towards the end, we need new ideas for the future. We need things that are actually building on things that Peter Mandelson did to build an industrial policy for our country so we have those high quality manufacturing jobs in our country. But you need to look at new approaches and that's what I'm trying to do as leader of the Labour party.
Downing Street have rung to confirm that David Cameron is making a statement on "Libya and the Middle East" in the Commons at 3.30pm.
Here are some excerpts from the speech Ed Miliband will give this morning at the launch of the commission on living standards. (See 8.40am.)
There is now a very real risk that we will see the longer-term pressure on wages for those on middle and low incomes colliding with rising prices, tax and benefit changes introduced by this Tory-led government and public service cuts which all hit families with children the hardest. My fear for those on middle and low incomes is that more and more families will face a cost of living crisis that will see them left behind, even as the economy eventually recovers.
The failure of the government is two-fold: they are not taking steps to build a different kind of economy, and they are hitting lower and middle-income families hardest in the way they are cutting the deficit.
While those at the top have done well, middle and low earners are no longer guaranteed the proceeds of growth. Our economy is increasingly unfair not just for those at the bottom but for many of those in the middle as well. The Conservative-led government is making the situation worse by cutting tax credits, raising VAT, hitting ordinary families hardest.
The task for the future is to build a different sort of economy; a high-quality economy with quality jobs and a better quality of life. That means good jobs at good wages for middle and lower income families. And a tax and benefit system that supports families with children, not one which is increasingly skewed against them, as we see under this government.
When the prospects for families with children look so bleak, that is why the British Promise in which we once believed the next generation would always do better than the last, is now under threat like never before.
My colleague Nicholas Watt has sent me a paragraph about David Cameron's Commons statement this afternoon. (See 8.58am.)
The prime minister is expected to admit that the government's response was initially hesitant. But he will say that the evacuation of British citizens has been a success so far, with an exemplary military operation to pluck oil workers from the desert. The prime minister will also say that Britain has led the way in isolating the Libyan regime by freezing the assets of the Gaddafi family and stripping its members of their diplomatic immunity.
Liam Fox, the defence secretary, has been giving interviews about Libya this morning. He told the Today programme that around 800 Britons have left the country in recent days. Asked about the prospect of further rescue missions, he played down their likelihood, but did not rule them out entirely.
If we find that there are UK citizens who cannot get out any other way, that is always an option, but remember we are also being helped by - and helping - our international allies ... As far as we know, we don't have large numbers of British citizens who want to get out. However, there are British citizens still there - some who will be working in the security industry, some who will be working in the oil industry - who will want to be there for reasons of employment, but circumstances change and we will want to constantly monitor those.
David Cameron is likely to make a statement about Libya, Foreign Office sources are saying. There's no confirmation from Downing Street yet. ("They're all in a meeting", I'm told.) So, Douglas Alexander has got his wish. And my first prediction of the morning has fallen flat. (See 8.40am.)
Ed Miliband has been on BBC Breakfast this morning defending Tony Blair's decision to engage with Colonel Gaddafi's Libyan regime.
I think, at that time, given that there seemed no prospect of a popular uprising in Libya, and given that there was a danger of Libya acquiring nuclear weapons, what Tony Blair did was get the weapons inspectors into Libya. I think, actually, that was the right thing to do. I think we must be careful about second-guessing that decision, but I think now a lot of the old assumptions about the Middle East and that region turn out to be misplaced, because there is clearly a popular will, which we see on the streets of Libya, for change.
Miliband said Gaddafi should go. The Labour leader also called for Britain's policy on arms exports to be reviewed.
We do need to look at the policy on arms sales. We do need to look at how it is implemented, because we don't want to see British arms being used for internal repression.
Libya was dominating the news when I left Westminster for a half-term holiday. And, as I arrive back, it's still at the top of the news bulletins. MPs are also back today after their mini-recess and, although Downing Street and the Foreign Office aren't confirming anything yet, I'll be amazed if we don't get an oral statement about the events in north Africa.
Yesterday Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, said David Cameron should come to the Commons this afternoon "not just to explain why the Foreign Office got its evacuation plan so badly wrong at the start but how Britain can be a leader and not a follower in the efforts to increase the pressure on Gaddafi to stand down". Cameron's unlikely to oblige himself, but we'll probably hear from the Foreign Office.
Otherwise, it's relatively quiet. Here are the items in the diary.
2.30pm: Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: MPs debate the "big society" on a backbench motion.
At some point today Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, is launching the consultation on his plans for the high-speed rail project (HS2).
As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm, and an afternoon one at around 4pm.
As we report today, Philip Cottam, chairman of the Society of Headmasters and Headmistresses of Independent Schools, believes that privately educated children are the victims of university admissions systems skewed in favour of badly performing state pupils. He is right ? but, as he points out, children in run-of-the-mill comprehensives are also victims, as are their frustrated parents. The truth is that people who want their children to have a rigorous education have never enjoyed the liberation from statist mediocrity that they have experienced in other walks of life. The Thatcher government left millions of children at the mercy of educationalists who despise competition. That situation persists, as many parents will discover tomorrow. Put simply, there are not enough good schools; the obstacles to creating them must be cleared away as soon as possible.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph Which of the two is closer to the mark will determine whether the West hangs on, or disappears as a relevant voice in global affairs.For neo-Spenglerites - who believe the West is finished - Citigroup’s Willem Buiter offers some astonishing projections. The Muslim powerhouse of Indonesia will alone match the combined GDP of Germany, France, Italy, and Britain by mid-century.
Russia and China join west in UN war crimes ruling as Britain revokes immunity for leader and family
Muammar Gaddafi is running out of options and friends as international action to pressure him into surrendering gathers momentum, with Russia and China joining the west in backing calls to prosecute him for war crimes.
Britain said it was revoking the diplomatic immunity of the Libyan leader and his family, including his high-profile son Saif al-Islam, who has had close links with the UK. David Cameron echoed Barack Obama in calling on him to go. The PM said: "All of this sends a clear message to this regime: it is time for Colonel Gaddafi to go and to go now. There is no future for Libya that includes him."
Hillary Clinton said the US was reaching out to the Libyan opposition and was not negotiating with Gaddafi.
"We want him to leave and we want him to end his regime and call off the mercenaries and troops who remain loyal to him," the US secretary of state said. "How he manages that is up to him."
European Union governments will sign off on sanctions against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his government on Monday, including an arms embargo and travel bans, diplomats said.
The decision was expected to be made later in the week but has been brought forward to ensure the measures are enforced as soon as possible.
The gravity of the crisis was reflected in Saturday night's vote by the UN security council to impose travel and asset sanctions on Gaddafi and his entourage and a belated arms embargo on Libya ? even if these moves are now largely symbolic. Gaddafi also became the first sitting head of state to be referred to the international criminal court by unanimous vote of the often-divided UN security council. British officials also said his exclusion from the UK was an unprecedented act.
Italy, which has had an intimate relationship with Libya as the former colonial power and a major investor, said its treaty of friendship and co-operation with the north African country was now suspended.
"We have reached, I believe, a point of no return," the foreign minster, Franco Frattini, told Sky Italia TV. The EU said it was preparing to implement the UN decisions across its 27 member states.
The flurry of statements and diplomatic activity reflected a sense in Washington, London and many capitals that it is less risky to act now that emergency evacuations have sharply reduced the number of foreign nationals stranded in Libya. But the UN did not discuss imposing a no-fly zone, as some had urged.
UK officials have been contacting senior Libyan figures to persuade them to abandon the regime so it collapses rather than mounts a desperate fight to the finish.
Diplomats also said it was too early to consider recognition of the Libyan opposition in the eastern city of Benghazi as a government. "We have here a country descending into civil war with atrocious scenes of killing of protesters and a government actually making war on its own people so of course, it is time for Colonel Gaddafi to go," the foreign secretary told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.
"That is the best hope for Libya and last night I signed a directive revoking his diplomatic immunity in the United Kingdom but also the diplomatic immunity of his sons, his family, his household, so it's very clear where we stand on his status as a head of state," Hague added.
It is hoped the ICC referral will give Gaddafi pause for thought, and at least encourage restraint by his security forces as the confrontation with the opposition enters what looks like its final phase.
The UN secretary-general, Ban ki-Moon, told the security council: "I hope the message is heard, and heeded, by the regime in Libya. I hope it will also bring hope and relief to those still at risk.
"The sanctions are a necessary step to speed the transition to a new system of governance that will have the consent and participation of the people."
The 15-0 UN vote broke new ground. In 2005, Russia, the US and China abstained from a resolution ? thus letting it pass ? that referred the Darfur situation to the ICC and led ultimately to Bashir's indictment for genocide.
The breakthrough in New York was helped by strong support from the Arab League and the African Union and support from Libya's own UN mission, which has defected en masse to the rebel camp.
Hague will join Clinton in Geneva to get Libya removed from the UN's human rights council.
Italy's suddenly outspoken position reflected the rapidly evolving situation. Last week Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, drew fire from the opposition, saying that he did not want to "disturb" the Libyan leader in the middle of the revolt.
Libya supplies 25% of Italy's oil needs and 12% of its gas imports.
Its sovereign wealth fund has stakes in Italy's biggest bank UniCredit and other companies, and Italy's big oil and gas company ENI is the biggest operator in Libya.
Reports from Moscow said Russia stands to lose up to $4bn in sales due to the arms embargo.
ABC's Jonathan Karl reports: In a speech to the National Association of Religious Broadcasters Sunday night in Nashville, Speaker of the House John Boehner will address ?the moral responsibility? to cut spending, reduce the deficit, avoid a government shutdown and also�address spending on entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare.
The speech comes just two days after House Republicans have proposed a new spending bill that appeared more likely than�the previous bill�to garner support from Democrats in the Senate�and avoid a government shutdown. The government is set to shut down at the end of Friday March 4 if lawmakers cannot agree on a way to extend federal funding before then.
The Speaker?s press office has released excerpts of the speech Boehner will deliver tonight. There are two notable things here:� 1) Boehner promises the Republican budget for 2012 will ?specifically deal with entitlement reform? (something the Republican leadership, so far, has avoided); and, 2) unlike former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is now saying the 1995/96 shutdown was a good thing,�Boehner insists he wants to avoid one.�
?This is very simple:� Americans want the government to stay open, and they want it to spend less money,?� Boehner will say.
His�entitlement reform promise comes with a whack at the White House: ?To not address entitlement programs, as is the case with the budget the president has put forward, would be an economic and moral failure,? Boehner says. ?By acting now, we can fulfill the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans without making changes for those in or near retirement.� And we can keep the promises we have made to our children.?
Here are the rest of the excerpts: � On following the 'will of the people:' � ?We have a moral responsibility to address the problems we face.� That means working together to cut spending and rein in government ? NOT shutting it down.� The House has passed legislation ? reflecting the will of the people ? that would keep the government running through October while cutting spending.�� The leader of the United States Senate has refused to allow a vote on this legislation, so the House will pass a shorter-term bill that will also keep the government running while including reasonable spending cuts at the same time.� This is very simple: Americans want the government to stay open, and they want it to spend less money.� We don?t need to shut down the government to accomplish that.� We just need to do what the American people are asking of us.?
On the economic and moral implications of Washington spending:
?Now surpassing $14.1 trillion, our national debt is on track to eclipse the size of our entire economy this year.� In other words, we?re broke.� Broke, going on bankrupt.� Just as a bankrupt business has trouble creating jobs, so does a bankrupt country. ? Yes, this debt is a mortal threat to our country.� It is also a moral threat.� It is immoral to bind our children to as leeching and destructive a force as debt.� It is immoral to rob our children?s future and make them beholden to China.� No society is worthy that treats its children so shabbily.?
On entitlement spending:
?Our budget, under the leadership of our Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, will specifically deal with entitlement reform.� To not address entitlement programs, as is the case with the budget the president has put forward, would be an economic and moral failure.� By acting now, we can fulfill the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans without making changes for those in or near retirement.� And we can keep the promises we have made to our children.? � On Republican efforts in the House to address debt and size of government:
� ?We have a moral responsibility to deal with this threat to freedom and liberate our economy from the shackles of debt and unrestrained government.� Our new majority in the House began this work by humbling ourselves and finding ways to exercise frugality.� We banned earmarks, which had become a symbol of a broken Washington.� We replaced rules making it easy to increase spending with reforms making it easier to cut spending.� We cut our own budgets by five percent. ? Earlier this month, the House approved more than $100 billion in spending cuts compared to what President Obama requested for the current fiscal year.� ?� Next month, we will propose cutting or eliminating wasteful mandatory spending programs.� ?� And we?re fighting to end taxpayer funding for abortion once and for all ? we?re working to protect life.? � On government and internet:
?Our new majority in the House is committed to using every tool at our disposal to fight a government takeover of the Internet.� Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has pledged, in his words, to be ?a dog to the Frisbee on this issue.?� ? Congressman Greg Walden of Oregon, a former broadcaster himself, has introduced a congressional resolution of disapproval to reverse the FCC?s net neutrality rules.� I?m pleased to report the House will act on this measure as early as next month.?
At Movieline, Elvis Mitchell marvels at the transformative power that a pair of hair scissors and a wet comb can have on an actor's persona and impact.
Specifically, on Owen Wilson in the new Farrelly brothers comedy Hall Pass, where he looks as if he's ready to receive First Communion:
...the magic touch that redefines Wilson in Pass is that his shaggy hair has been pushed back. His forehead gives everything away ? as if it?s a screen where he?s compulsively texting exactly what he?s thinking and feeling. It?s the real surprise in Pass; suddenly Wilson?s transparent, so easy to read that you?d want to play poker for pink slips with him. He?s gone from being boyish to childlike. Savvy filmmakers know how to exploit this quality; in Brick, Rian Johnson gave Joseph Gordon-Levitt the sheepdog coif that Wilson usually sports, which made Gordon-Levitt furtive, while in A Single Man, Tom Ford?s slicking Colin Firth?s hair back had the opposite effect ? Firth?s forehead reveals nothing, a high-beamed implacability.
That's the inscrutable look I go for, too, forehead-wise, ever since I cut my russet bangs.
