Gordon Brown’s U-turn shows how little Labour understands the TA

I've written a post for the Conservative party's in house blog about the TA funding announcement and subsequent U-turn.

You can read it here

Brown jinxes Blair

Guido Fawkes has a long running series of posts about Gordon Brown's unnerving ability to jinx the things he supports. From football teams to small businesses a Gordon Brown indorsement is like the black spot from Treasure Island.

Tony Blair must have held his head in his hand when he heard Gordon lavish praise on him, and rightly so. With regard to the presidency of the European Council Tony has gone from "front runner" to "also ran" in less than 24 hours.

Then again, maybe that was Gordon's plan!

The Kelly report

I've not seen the report in full, just the information currently doing the rounds in the media. As someone outside parliament but close enough to understand it, I'd like to put my reactions and ideas forward.

Here are the main proposals and my reactions to them:

* MPs to rent second homes only.
I think that the current system is untenable. MPs who represent constituencies outside central London can make a fortune when they sell their publicly funded second home, this has to stop. There must be provision for MPs who want to have their families with them in London during the week to rent larger properties. (I have written about MPs accommodation here)

* Ban on MPs employing family members on Commons payroll.
I think this proposal is misguided. I see nothing wrong with MPs having family working for them, MPs work funny hours and need staff that they can completely trust. Having family on the team helps in both these areas.

The abuse comes when those family members are not doing a proper job, this
could be dealt with by ensuring that all parliamentary staff are employed by
parliament rather than the MP. All the issues about remuneration, hours,
qualifications etc would be independently verified. Easy!

*Ban on MPs close to London claiming second home allowance.
This makes complete sense, the challenge will be defining who is "close to
London".

*Allowances for inner London MPs to be reduced.
I have always assumed that this allowance was to part compensate inner
London MPs for not making money on their second home, as this perk will be going
there is less (no) need for this allowance.

*Scrapping the communications allowance
I think this should go, indeed I never agreed with it coming in, as you can see here.

*Scrapping of the resettlement allowance.
I think this would be rather unfair. There should be a discussion about the size of this payment but a couple of month's salary wouldn't bee seen as a fair redundancy payment elsewhere.

There are a number of points which I have a great deal of sympathy with, there are other elements which I feel miss the mark. The problem that MPs have is that the current public mood makes it almost impossible for them to have a sensible discussion about these recommendations.

Order, counter-order, disorder

"Order, counter-order, disorder" is an old saying in the army, you only really understand its significance when you are put into a position of command are are trying to get soldiers to the right place, at the right time, with the right kit. If you keep changing their instructions chaos will ensue.

This is a lesson the current government could do with learning. The TA have been told to train more and support the regular army. They did just that. Then they were told to stop training for six months. Then just as that order was being disseminated they were told to start training again but not as much as before.

Talking to TA soldiers and their officers there is a great deal of confusion. Are they valued? Are they needed? Will the TA continue? What should we tell the soldiers?

I was at a briefing of London's reserve forces last week. The General commanding London explained the problem, the limitations that he was working within and his plan to make the best of the situation. By the start of this week the government's U-turn made all his plans obsolete.

Labour's ineptitude is undermining soldiers, both regular and TA, at every level. It has to stop.

BNP and Question Time

The BBC had a golden opportunity with tonight's Question Time, and they blew it.

The BNP thrive on being vilified, being picked on, being treated as a special case. I sit next to a member of the BNP on the London Assembly and I can assure you they are nothing to be scared of.

When they are given the opportunity to act like real politicians they struggle and then they fail. This can be seen in council chambers across the country and in any video of Mayor's Question Time you might want to watch. Elected BNP members quickly move from being a mild irritation to becoming a complete irrelevance.

Question Time provided the perfect vehicle to show this incompetence, but the BBC did what so many on the left do, obsess about the BNP and feed their inflated sense of self importance. It was clear that Almost the whole of tonight's programme focussed on Nick Griffin and the BNP. Where were the questions on the postal strike, the funding cuts for the TA, swine flu, recording of crime figures etc. etc. etc?

The BBC treated Nick Griffin and the BNP as a special case, they are not special they're just crap.

The end of the London Assembly

Over the last few days there has been speculation about the London Assembly being scrapped and the £8 million of savings that it could bring. I am a low tax, smaller state Tory and as such I have given the idea some serious thought. It is right that we question the effectiveness of public expenditure not just because of Brown's recession but because it is the right thing to do.

The general thrust of what I have read advocates the scrapping of the Assembly and it's members, the retention of the Mayor and the scrutiny being done by borough leaders or a nominees drawn from the council.

As a member of the London Assembly I see the workings of London Government up close and personal so I'm not going to pretend that it is a good system or that Assembly Members are as effectively utilised as they could be. But neither am am going to accept that all we do is ask a few awkward questions once a month and wave through the Mayor's budget once a year.

London's governance and scrutiny system was devised by Labour with the intention of having an all powerful Labour Mayor, the weakness of the Assembly in holding the Mayor to account is no accident. It so happens that Boris is far more collegiate and open than Livingstone was, but that is down to his personality. The system would allow him to be just as dictatorial and extreme as Livingstone if he so desired.

I would argue that the Mayoralty needs more and better scrutiny, not less. I have no doubt that borough leaders would be just as effective as Assembly Members in asking searching questions of the Mayor but they would still need a team, however modest, to support them in that function. Either that support would be from GLA staff, which would significantly reduce the saving, or it would have to be provided by local authority staff which would just shift the financial burden down to the boroughs.

As the Mayor would no longer be responsible for the budget of the scrutiny function it would be in their interest to flood the borough representatives with work. They would either have to beef up their scrutiny support (at the borough's expense) or just accept that stuff will be missed, reducing their scrutiny of the Mayor.

There are plenty of savings to be found in London's governance, the £14million plus spent each year on the Government Office for London and the unknown millions on a London Select Committee would be a good start. There are many things that the GLA does which should be done by the boroughs and things which central government does which could and should be done at a London level.

It is good that London's governance is re-evaluated because duplication and waste were build into the system by Labour when the Mayor and Assembly were created. The change of national government would be the right time to have a complete overhaul of London government and institutions, scrapping the Assembly might look a quick and simple cost saving measure but not completing wider reform of London government and it's relationship with national and local government would be a job only half done.

I believe that the Conservatives can create a fairer and more effective model for Mayoral scrutiny and London government and if that means my post get scrapped, fair enough. But we need to ensure we take reform seriously and understand that if there is going to be a Mayor they will need to be scrutinised, and scrutinised properly.

Huge congratulations to Jenson Button

After seeing the qualification results from yesterday I thought that this season would go to the wire but Button pulled it out of the bag. Another British F1 champion.

I have long felt that he was overlooked as a driver and I feel vindicated and the story behind the Brawn team this year is straight out of a Boys' Own book. Pats on back all round.

Sorry for the lack of posts

I have been feeling pretty ill over the last few days so I've been coming home and getting early nights.

I'm feeling better now so I'll get more of my thoughts on-line from now on.

John Horam to retire

I was at the executive meeting of the Orpington Conservative Association on Friday of last week when John Horam dropped a bit of a bombshell. He has decided not to stand again at the next General Election.

I decided not to blog about it until John made his intentions public (aren't I disciplined). John has been hugely supportive to me for a number of years and he will be a loss to the House. I wish him all the best for the future.

Politicization of the police

Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary has concluded that the arrest of Damian Green MP was not proportionate.

All those people who accused the Conservatives of political interference in policing should look at this incident because I have little doubt that one or more people in the Home Office misled the police and in doing so put them on a collision course with party politics.

Territorial Army told to stop training for six months?

I have put a question mark at the end of the title because I want to get a few more details about this story in the Times before going off on one.

If there really has been a moratorium on TA training I would be horrified. The TA have proven their utility in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few years and the experience/training gap between the TA and regular army has never been smaller. It would damage the credibility of the TA enormously if this plan is put in place.

People join the TA because they want to train, develop and are more than willing to fight along side their regular counterparts, regular exercises keeps a degree of momentum which aids retention. If the training is stopped for a significant period there will be a number soldiers who will just not come back after the six months is over.

This government has seen the TA almost halve in size just at a time when it has been most busy, I am genuinely worried that this could be the final nail in the coffin.

Selling off the family silver

The news that Gordon Brown will announce the sale of £16bn worth of national assets is sad but unsurprising. We are up to our gills in debt and have to look at every possible way to get out of it.

By attempting to make a big PR event out of these sales will Brown risks driving down the asset values just like he did when he announced the sale of UK gold? This sale also undermines his attempts to convince us that things aren't as bad as everyone thinks.

Selling off the family silver is never a great idea but if it's that or having the bailiffs turn up there really isn't much of a choice. This sale is a huge admission of failure on Brown's part but watch him try to spin it as part of his great plan to sale the world.

Your canvassing anecdotes please

I need your help, I have a plan for a fun little project and as part of it I want to collate a decent sized collection of canvassing/campaigning based anecdotes.

So if you have had someone come to the door naked, with a gun, with a python etc. please let me know. I want to hear about your mistakes, their misunderstandings or funny mishaps. Have you been locked in a stair-well, trapped by a dog or snared by a barbed wire fence?

The anecdotes can be anything from a few line long to a few hundred words. Please send them to me at the email below:

hello.mr.friedland(at)googlemail.com

My intention is to use these anecdotes publicly so if there is a need for anonymity please let me know when you send them in, I promise to be discreet.

Thanks in advance.

This is just getting silly!

I'm now back from party conference and I'm catching up on the political news that I've missed. This may sound funny but conference is about the worst place to be if you want to keep up to date with what is going on in the world.

One of the first stories to hit me is that Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh come on! The man won a historic election in the USA, fair enough, and he has started out on a pretty radical plan of action, fair enough. But what he has not done, in any demonstrable way, is actually achieve any significant improvement in world peace.

That may come, but it is not here yet. The man may be in office for eight years, if they're chucking Nobel Prizes at him less than a year in what will thy do if he actually delivers, canonize him?

What the Lisbon yes vote could mean for Labour

This piece of footage is well worth a look.

Boris on Eastenders

Thanks to the miracle of BBC IPlayer I was able to watch Boris' cameo on Eastenders last night.

I don't think that there will be too much danger of tripping over a BAFTA in his office next time I have a meeting with him!