ComRes poll boost for Lib Dems - but the rest are as bad as each other

I'm certainly not going to get excited about a brief 3% increase in our poll rating, even if 15% is nearer where we have been in mid term even in opposition in previous parliaments. The ComRes poll in the Independent published today, though, doesn't make happy reading for either Conservative or Labour leaders.

Ok, so only 22% of people trust Cameron and Osborne on the economy, but they don't see Balls and Miliband as the answer to their prayers either, with only 2% more trusting the Labour team. If they can't get any traction from the luxury of opposition, they're not doing at all well. Maybe people remember only too well that they didn't fix the roof when the sun was shining and didn't save for a rainy day.

What can the Liberal Democrats extrapolate from this poll? Well, it was taken after five days of coverage in which we were talking about how we made the tax system fairer. So we need to talk more and more about that. Given by the reaction from Labour folk on my Facebook when I put up a picture showing how Liberal Democrats had cut taxes for people on the minimum wage, they know fine we're right.

The Government has also put up the Minimum Wage by 11p per hour as of yesterday - although there's further to go on that issue as I'm not impressed that the rates for young people have firstly not gone up and secondly are so much lower than for over 21s. The different rate for 18-21 year olds is particularly iniquitous. Why should these adults be paid less than other adults? However, the increase in the adult rate is good.

But, anyway, fairer tax is where it's at. Labour's record is pretty shambolic. The top rate of income tax was less than it is now for all but 36 days of the 13 years Labour were in office and we have increased the Capital Gains Tax on the wealthiest and are looking to tax wealth more. Danny Alexander has directed more resources into scrutinising the tax affairs of the richest so they pay the tax that they are due.

If you agree with this approach, of cutting taxes for the poorest and raising them for the wealthiest to make the tax system fairer, please sign up here to the Fairer Tax campaign.

Nick Clegg talked about us getting out on the doorsteps to deliver 3 million leaflets on the Fairer Tax campaign by Christmas. This ComRes poll shows us that this would be a very good use of our time. Let's wear out some shoe leather. 

Vince on Marr: It's grown up to talk to Labour

Vince Cable went on the Andrew Marr show this morning to talk about his new industrial strategy. He was also asked about the story in the Mail on Sunday which touted the idea that Zac Goldsmith would resign his Commons seat over the third runway at Heathrow. This, by the way, is an idea that was touted by Richard Morris over at A View from Ham Common on Friday. Well, actually, to be more accurate, he suggested a job swap. It was I in the comments who suggested that Boris wouldn't resign as Mayor but might contest the by-election.

Vince also talked about his new ministerial team, with particular praise for Jo Swinson, and on how he had killed off the Beecroft proposals on making it easier to hire and fire.

On reports that he's talking regularly to Labour, he replied that he was happy being part of Nick Clegg's team, but it was also grown up to have amicable relations with people from other parties.

Ed Balls was on as well, spewing his usual poison on Nick Clegg, a Deputy Prime Minister who has done far more liberal things in 2 years than Labour managed in 13. At the end, Cable and Balls found themselves sitting next to each other on Marr's sofa. Balls adopted an almost predatory, slightly creepy position, facing Vince. Our guy, on the other hand, was very neutrally facing the front. If Paul Waugh thinks this looks cosy, he maybe needs to re-evaluate his understanding of interpersonal relations.

Anyway here's my Storify thingy. There are some gaps - partly because there was an almighty crash from upstairs which scared the life out of me. My husband had fallen over and banged his head and is currently coping with me panicking inside and checking him every few minutes while exuding a Stepford-like calm. Poor man.

Labour put down amendment which would have given Tories tax cut for richest they wanted - and which Lib Dems stopped

I realise that Parliamentary shenanigans and point scoring isn't everybody's cup of tea, but it's worth pointing out that Labour today squandered a relatively good position going into the first PMQs of the new Parliamentary term. Ed Miliband had an open goal ahead of him given controversy over the pensioners' tax allowance,  "pasty tax" and charity tax relief yet he and his strategists still managed to misunderstand parliamentary procedure to a ludicrous extent. He's just lucky that more excitable members of the Tory benches didn't take their chance to have some fun. 

Miliband looked not to Labour big hitters of the past for inspiration, but to a tv political satire. He could have pulled words from Barbara Castle or Michael Foot or Tony Blair. Instead, he pulled them from foul mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It, describing the Government's recent performance as an omnishambles. It's not been the best, for sure, but Labour have singularly failed to capitalise on the Coalition's woes.

Since the Budget, Labour have squealed long and loud about how wicked the Coalition is, particularly on cutting the 50p tax rate to 45p. They had the chance to vote against it in March, indeed Ed Balls promised they would, but, as Mark Pack's handy infographic shows, not one of them did. 

They had another go today, but they put in an amendment which, if it had passed, would have set the top rate of tax at 40p. This, bizarrely, would have been exactly what the Tories wanted all along, and which Liberal Democrat ministers stopped. In fact, Osborne only got to cut the rate to 45p because Liberal Democrats insisted  taxes were raised on the wealthy which would bring in 5 times the saving.

Let me explain. The Finance Bill clauses put forward by the Government were as follows:

Clause 1 – Income tax
Charge for 2012-13 and rates for 2012-13 and subsequent tax years
(1) Income tax is charged for the tax year 2012-13, and for that tax year.
(a) the basic rate is 20%,
(b) the higher rate is 40%, and
(c) the additional rate is 50%.

 (2) For the tax year 2013-14.
(a) the basic rate is 20%,
(b) the higher rate is 40%, and
(c) the additional rate is 45%.

The Labour amendment was to delete 2(c) which, if passed, would have left us with no additional rate. What they should have done was to put in an amendment deleting Paragraph 2 in its entirely meaning the tax rates for 2013-14 would have had to be discussed at a later date.

The Government won the vote comfortably, by 67 votes, but what would have happened if a few of our more mercurial right wing Tory friends had decided to vote with Labour to abolish the 45p rate?  The Labour front bench would have been drowning in egg yolk.

That wasn't Labour's only mistake of the day. Their promised amendment on tax reliefs didn't even make it into the debate.

If they can't get the basic parliamentary procedure right in opposition, what chance have they in Government? They've been calling the Government incompetent, but this display hardly inspires confidence.

The Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Treasury Committee, Stephen Williams, had this to say about the day's events:

“It is worrying that the two Eds don’t understand the fundamental principles of our tax system, despite having worked in the Treasury for many years as Gordon Brown’s backroom boys. 

“It took them 13 years to introduce a 50p rate and then they only did so shortly before a general election. Now that the local elections are coming up, suddenly they care about it again and put down ill-thought through amendments that remove the top rate altogether.

 “Labour’s biggest tax change was to remove the 10p tax rate hitting people on low and middle incomes while Liberal Democrats are giving nearly 25m basic-rate tax payers an Income Tax cut and have lifted more than a million people out of paying Income Tax altogether. At the same time, we’re making the rich pay their fair share by cracking down on loopholes and excessive tax relief.

Balls talking Balls - on fuel duty and prices

I've been wanting to write that headline for a while. It might be rude, but it's also accurate, so it may well  become an occasional series.

Today Ed Balls has been telling anyone who'll listen that the Government should have stopped the oil companies from charging so much, and should have reduced the rate of VAT on fuel.

We've become used to hearing Labour politicians talking outrageous nonsense in the last few months, but this takes the biscuit. First of all, our oil companies aren't state owned nationalised monoliths who do what the Government tells them and for Ed Balls to suggest that the Government could dictate what price they should charge is ridiculous.  I asked yesterday on here if there was a danger of oil companies passing on the tax increase to customers. What Danny Alexander has said on this, reported on the BBC, kind of makes sense to me:

"If the oil companies try to pass that on to retailers they will simply buy their fuel from elsewhere. You've got a global market for oil and you've got a competitive market for the supply of fuel, so there is no prospect of that being passed on."

Wouldn't it be a bit more constructive if Ed Balls had condemned any petrol retailer who would take advantage of this situation to profiteer?

And now let's come to the issue of just reducing VAT on petrol. Ed Balls spent long enough hanging around the Treasury to know perfectly well that no Government can do this. It's just illegal.  Balls has been going on about France doing so for restaurants - but as the Financial Times blog pointed out, it took them seven years. Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray has been touting this idea too, and he should know better. Funny thing is, fuel prices have spiked several times over the last few years and if it reducing VAT was so easy, why didn't Labour do it? The problem of rural fuel prices being cripplingly high in the highlands and islands of Scotland is not something that's appeared overnight - and the people who have been leading the campaign for years to do something about that that were George Lyon, Lib Dem MEP for Scotland, and Danny Alexander, Liberal Democrat now Chief Secretary to the Treasury. And funnily enough, now Danny's in office, the Government he's part of has done more than its predecessor ever did to tackle that. Shocking consistency on the part of a politician!

I didn't think that Labour's arguments could get any less credible. We've had 10 months of them going on about how much better life would be under them, when in reality they were planning to make cuts that were not a million miles away from those made by the current Government. They have never explained what they would do in any sort of detail. However, Balls takes it all to a new level by simply saying things that can be quickly and easily disproved, telling people that the Government should do things that he knows perfectly well can't be done. Yet again, Labour prove themselves to be supremely skilled in the art of unscrupulous hypocrisy.

Was Ed Balls responsible for our slippery roads?

Maybe it's just the way my mind works, but when I saw this tweet from the soon to be doomed to defeat Ed Balls' Cheerleader-in-Chief, my first thought was to speculate that that was why nobody could get any grit for the roads last Winter - because he had it all.

I'm not sure grit, or abrasiveness, is a quality I relish in a political leader. I don't want them too slick or smooth or insincere either. We had enough of that with Tony Blair to last a lifetime. I just want politicians to be open, honest, genuine and willing to listen. Surely that isn't too much to ask for?

Labour Leadership - who would you vote for?

Well, of course I don't have a vote, but if I did it would be emphatically cast for Diane Abbott. Not because I agree with everything she says. Far from it. But because she has earned my respect over many years for not conforming in a party that demands conformity and sheep like behaviour when in vicinity of voting lobbies.

Let's look at what she had to say on the issue of 42 days' detention - a speech that tugs at the heart strings of any Liberal Democrat, a speech so good that Liberty put it on their website.

This stuff is, well, wow!

I am a Londoner and I heard the last major IRA bomb, at Canary Wharf, from my kitchen in east London. Like thousands of Londoners, I waited for the early-morning call that assured me that friends and family on their way to work and school had not been caught up in those bombings. I will not take lectures from ministers about not taking terrorism seriously.

I do not believe, as ministers continue to insist, that there is some trade-off between our liberties and the safety of the realm. What makes us free is what makes us safe, and what makes us safe is what will make us free.

and then this:

I came into politics because of my concern about the relationship of the state to communities that are marginalised and suspected. It is easy to stand up for the civil liberties of our friends or of people in our trade union, but it is not easy to stand up for the civil liberties of people who are unpopular, suspected and look suspicious—people the tabloids print a horror story about every day.

However, it is a test of parliament that we are willing to stand up for the civil liberties of the marginalised, the suspect and the unpopular.

I came into politics about those issues, and I believe that if there is any content at all in ministers' constant speeches about community cohesion we must offer every part of our community not just the appearance but the reality of justice and equality before the law.

Seriously, read the whole thing.

And on top of all that, she even voted against the Digital Economy Act.
. She is good and if she won, she'd have some serious tanks to park on our lawn.

The chivalrous rush of rival candidates to get Diane Abbott on to the ballot would never have happened if any, of them thought she could win. And to be honest, from their point of view it's such tokenism that it's actually worse than our presenting our members with a choice of 2 middle class white males.

She's the only candidate, though, who represents a break with the past and who wasn't a part of the Government which has wreaked such havoc in the last 13 years. She's the only candidate who actually voted against the Iraq war. While the others have been swift to distance themselves from the worst of new Labour's excesses, and some have even sought out new depths to stoop to, Diane is the only one who can say on most of the issues that "it wisnae me".

There's a bit of me who wants to see her win, partly to puncture the smugness of the others, and partly because you'd hope that it would lead to a more mature politics, where genuine debate and discussion was the norm rather than the exception.

Among the rest we have Ed Balls, who Cameron completely skewered today, calling him the Alf Garnett of British politics. I mean, it's got to be bad if that comes from a Tory. David Miliband - the man who chickened out of challenging Brown in Summer 2008 and from then on had journalists camping on his doorstep every time there was a hint of rebellion in the air. He bottled it just like Brown did when it came down to it. I also just don't warm to him at all. His brother Ed - what's that all about - seems to be the more genuine and sympathetic a personality of the two brothers but tell me, what exactly did he achieve at Energy and Climate Change? As for Andy Burnham, well, ditto? If those four were a meal, they'd be polenta added with a side order of cous cous without any flavouring and no side salad.

I'm really disappointed that two people from the previous Cabinet have not bothered to enter the contest - Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson. I always used to look forward to PMQs when it was Harman, Hague and The Almighty Vince, it was always much more intelligent and lighter, I think. As for Johnson, well, Brown did well to put him in the graveyeard job of Home Secretary, but he could have injected some much needed personality and humour into the contest.

There's a long way to go, but I have yet to see anything that sounds like an original idea from any of the candidates. This is a party that thinks it can put its feet up for five years and point, laugh and be as destructive as possible. They think bucketloads of bile will win them the next election. We'll see, though, whether they can bring themselves back from the party that trashed the place and left everyone else to mop up the mess. How do they make themselves credible again?

It's a long time until the ballots are counted on 25th September. Let's see whether the campaign inspires or drags on. I'm not holding my breath.