Ed Miliband's Manifesto

The big question at the moment on the lips of the nation, including Labour Party members, is what does Ed Miliband stand for? We just don't know.

Historically speaking, a successful opposition leader should not show all his cards and design all policies two years before an election. It would be unfair to demand Ed to do so. But voters need a broad idea of how Ed would govern if he were to be PM and thus Ed should decide upon tactical policies or give signals of what directions he will take. 

Does Red Ed even know what direction he is going?

Has Ed done this? Of course not. He is too weak and feeble to actually decide to decide. He is either not saying anything at all, which is his current strategy, or wobbling all over the place like a jelly only half set in the fridge. Indeed there is often so much wobbling we actually don't know what he stands for as he is seemingly pulling in every direction on the same policies. Red Ed will be pleased to know that 63% of voters are clueless about him and 2/3rds of Labour members don't want him as leader.

 Ed Miliband probably needs three more years to decide what to do. Shame he only has two.

Ed Miliband really needs to decide whether broadly his time as PM will take Labour leftward or to the common ground and the beliefs of the swing voters. Ed for example is getting the Labour Party to campaign against the 'savage benefit cuts' of this Coalition Government most notably on the 'bedroom tax'. But Ed has actually backed the removal of spare bedroom subsidy and says, tacitly, he will back all government cuts proposed for 2015/16. So where does he stand? Do you know?

 Is Ed Miliband going to make a promise, misquoting Tony Blair, to be 'Lefter, than Left'.

Because of this lack of clarity in Red Ed's own ideas it's up to senior left-wingers to decide what Labour stands for. Chris Bryant is bringing back 'British jobs for British Workers' and Poly Toynbee has even wrote Ed's next manifesto for him (see below).

But really who knows what Ed is up to. His manifesto at the moment can be bought only from the Conservative Party shop (see http://shop.conservatives.com/product97342/ed-milibands-policies-for-britain.aspx). Its full of all of Ed's policies and so contains 240 blank pages. It is a recommend buy from #ThingsElliottSays. 

Ed Miliband has policies???

I don't know how Ed excepts people to vote for him when no one has any real idea what he would do. He has till spring to do something however, that's what his senior Shadow Cabinet members say. 

 This is all we know about Ed Miliband.

On the Buses

The Liberal Democrats are obsessed with buses. I saw this first when I spent time at Cambridge County Council as the local party in the County spent 2/3rds of their allotted time talking about buses. Indeed from what I was told this was not unusual (see http://www.stevetierney.org/the-libs/ for a Blog Piece I did when I was at the County Council). So now the Lib Dems are proposing that under 16s have bus journeys for free despite the fact that we have a massive deficit caused by paying people extra benefits.

I say the Liberal Democrats are oddly attracted to buses because they could spend this money on other things. The reasoning behind this move is not a bad idea on the whole. Nick Clegg has said, although he is denying it now for some reason, that this will be good "to help families with their high cost of living." But surely Cleggers should be supporting those who are on the lowest wages in instead of spending money on something fairly niche. I find the choice of spending bizarre. 

The Lib Dems like a good bus. 

There is one big reason why this policy should not happen. It's very easy to say '"et's spend more on this to help out" but not realise that this will be piling on to the debt. Cleggers will thus not be helping families they will have to pay for this scheme when some are really struggling to pay bills. It would also be the case that a free bus scheme to the under 16s will cost more than if families paid for a bus pass because it would have to be subsidised by the government. A huge loss of money would occur from those who do not take advantage of scheme when offered it. Thus extra money will go to the bus companies despite their being spare capacity. In London where this takes place bus subsidy is the highest in the country at £690 million in 2010 or 56p per passenger. The costs for such a bus subsidy nationwide are going to be in the billions of pounds. I thought as a Coalition there was an agreement to cut benefits and subsidies, obviously not?

We still have a Big Debt and Deficit, we should not be looking to increase benefits.

Nick has said that this should be done as a counter act to the Conservatives Marriage Tax Break but this would be a better investment of money because there will be a greater tax return. I'm no big enthusiast of having tax breaks for married couples except for the fact it's a tax cut. Nick will also find that tax cuts pay for themselves. If you look at the recent cut to the 50p tax rate, which Nick Clegg did not like, the government took in more money to spend on public services. The less people pay the more tax money comes in because the economy grows. This would not be the same with benefits because, although there could be an extra passengers on the buses, the subsidies will cost more and thus there would be a net loss. As an added bonus tax cuts allow independence of spending; not everyone will want to buy a under 16 bus pass. People want different things.

 The reduction of the top rate of tax to 45p brought in more money that it ever did at 40p. More money to spend on helping people or pay of the debt the previous government shafted onto them.

It seems the Lib Dems are just launching this policy to come back at the Conservatives over the planned marriage tax cut and because they like buses so much it is only natural they would go into this area. But Nick should learn that extra benefits mean extra debt and that tax cuts give independence and more money for the government.

Mamma Mia

I'm quite interested in Sweden at the moment in light of the riots going on. I'd like to pull out some of the inconsistencies on this Scandinavia Country that the Left have spun and continue to spin.

Till very recently the only way has been Scandinavian for the Left. Sweden is apparently one of the few countries in the world where growth is high, the economy is always booming, everyone loves immigration and the government is so big that everyone receives a massive pile of cash in welfare. In short a Social Democratic utopia where everything is rosy. In Sweden this utopia is thanks mostly to the Swedish Social Democratic Party being in government since 1930 to 1991 and the Centre Right Party changing few policies when ever in power.  

Utopian riots in the Swedish Capital.

That above paragraph could have been written by a Guardian journalist. A Few Years ago the Guardian wrote this article saying how the 'Tories can learn from the centre right Swedish Government'. It said that "For three generations universal, efficient health care, access to education, child care, generous funding for arts and cultural activities have been simply assumed in the conduct of people's lives. The result has not been, as was once alleged, an ant-like conformity, but its opposite: a degree of individuality and autonomy that is becoming its major cultural challenge." (if you want to see even more recent Guardian Sweden love see the recent videos they published in February about how Sweden has bucked the economic trend).

Interesting stuff from the Guardian. Looks like a social utopia. But now they are saying "After decades of practising the Swedish model of generous welfare benefits, Stockholm has reduced the role of the state since the 1990s, spurring the fastest growth in inequality of any advanced OECD economy. […] successive governments have failed to substantially reduce long-term youth unemployment and poverty, which have affected immigrant communities worst." So a complete turnaround. Why is that?

I'm surprised the Guardian hasn't been recategorised in all Libraries as fiction rather than a newspaper.

Well it's because people would realise that what they had said before about Sweden was one massive Porkie. Sweden has never had this left wing utopia. The reason why it can spend so much on welfare is because it has one of the smallest states in the world. There is no minimum wage in Sweden, taxes are low and the people are free to do what they want. Welfare consequently is able to be very high in Sweden, they get in more tax with a bigger economy that has low tax than a small one with high tax. Thatcher did it in the 1980s, don't you know people from the Guardian.

So why is Stockholm on fire every night? Well the same reasons why there was problems in London, it's almost a copy. Unlike what the Guardian has said above its nothing to do with reducing the role of the state and how now there is no welfare and so everyone is in poverty. It's to do with the open door immigration policy and its effect on the Swedes jobs market.

Swedes have a big history of emigration as well as immigration.

As it stood in 2010, 14.3% of the population are immigrants more than 2/3rds of these were born outside of the EU.  In a country where the population is just shy of 10 million, that's a lot of people. Most of these immigrants as with the UK live in major cities so you get a large proportion of immigrants living in certain districts. The problem is probably as acute as a cultural divide as in Oldham, Luton or Tower Hamlets, to give a rough scale of what is going on.

The vast majority of immigrants have come over for jobs and most are employed. Sweden has a long history of migrations doing low skilled jobs and coming over to fill the positions. Thus they under cut most of the low skilled workers already living in Sweden. These workers then rely on a substantial welfare state to rely on, a classic situation of a large proportion trapped on welfare. The Swedes are stuck in catch 22 position of being unable to move socio-economically because welfare pays best but unable to leave because work pays worst. Thus the Swedes are not a happy bunch abandoned by their government on welfare and blaming immigrants for it.

So there you are. Sweden far from being a left wing Utopia is stuck in a benefits trap.

Service To Be Resumed Shortly

Today I am massively revising for my exams on Modern History. So I will resume proper service later this week. 

I will however leave you with this thought. Isn't no wonder that Left wing politics protects those on benefits when Karl Marx, who has some influence over all left wing philosophies, was a benefit scrounger. Marx never worked a day in his life and kept up his life style from money he got from his friend, and capitalist, Engels. 

Karl Marx- chief benefit scrounger