Happy Birthday Milton Friedman

Today is Milton Friedman's 101st Birthday. He was one of the most influential economists in the world who doggedly advocated the introduction of free market capitalism across the world in order to make people better off. He noted that the best thing for the state to do was to retreat from public life as much as possible. With such economic arguments the holes in Communism and Socialism were easily pointed out.

Long live the Free Market Economy.

He also pointed out the one big killer in holding back economies and thus people's lives, inflation. His ideas were a great influence upon the thinking of President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Both of them followed a policy of monetarism which aimed to cut inflation by cutting the supply of money, a policy which saw Britain lead the world.

Here are a few of my favourite videos of him.    

Exclusive: #ThingsTomHuntSays

#ThingsElliottSays has got an exclusive interview with Cllr Tom Hunt who has been selected 5th on the list of Conservative MEPs in the East. Congratulations Tom and I hope he appreciates the support we gave him (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/vote-cllr-tom-hunt.html ).

Tom is "going to work very hard' over the next year to make sure the Conservatives come top in the region poll." His first campaigning stop will be UKIP Ramsey then Wisbech as he will be "on the offensive, winning back the voters that left us."

If elected to be an MEP Tom will firstly "relentlessly call for any association with ever closer union to be ended." He would also kick of the renegotiation process with Europe straight away and wants to focus on social employment law. Tom says "Blair got rid of our opt out in 1998, I want it back. Social employment regulations should flow from a national culture, debated nationally, not plunked down upon a country in an identikit way." On a separate note Tom also says "though not EU linked, because its drive by the same ideology, we should pull out of the European Convention of human rights, scrap the human right act, and have a new bill of rights in keeping with our national culture."

 Tom will be tirelessly working if elected to be an MEP to try stop the EU from interfering with our everyday lives.

Tom thinks that the referendum on the EU, only proposed by the Conservative Party, will be 'critical' in helping to win the EU elections. "Its not just about Europe, its about the political elite trusting the people. Our relationship with the EU goes right to the heart of the disconnect between peoples and politics. Ultimately, our relationship with the EU is about "who governs", surely the people should decide who governs
that's why we have elections after all."

On the vote itself Tom says that "unless, written in stone, there is a complete end to our association with ever closer union and further integration' with 'significant return of core competencies, I would vote to leave."

Make sure you vote Conservative during the EU elections so Tom gets a chance to make sure Britain comes first.

Conservative MEP Selection Results

Here is a list of people selected by the Conservative Party to fight the EU elections and their order on the ballot paper. This list is constantly updating so will have gaps.

North West

1. Jacqueline Foster MEP
2. Sajjad Karim MEP
3. Kevin Beaty
4. Deborah Dunleavy
5. Joe Barker
6. Daniel Hamilton
7. Chris Whiteside
8. James Walsh

North East

1. Martin Callanan MEP
2. Cllr Ben Houchen
3. Andrew Lee

Yorkshire

1. Timothy Kirkhope MEP
2. Alex Story
3. John Procter
4. Carolyn Abbott
5. Michael Naughton
6. [To be confirmed]

London

1. Syed Kamall MEP

2. Charles Tannock MEP

3. Marina Yannakoudakis MEP
4. Caroline Attfield
5. Lynne Hack
6. Sheila Lawlor
7. Glyn Chambers
8. Annesley Abercorn

South East

1. Daniel Hannan MEP (yay for Dann Hannan)
2. Nirj Deva MEP
3. RIchard Ashworth MEP
4. Marta Andreasen MEP
5. RIchard Robinson
6. Graham Knight
7. Julie Marson
8. George Jeffrey
9. Rory Love
10. Adrian Pepper

South West

1. Ashley Fox MEP

2. Julie Girling MEP

3. James Cracknell

4. Georgina Butler

5. Sophia Swire

6. Melissa Maynard

East 

1. Vicky Ford MEP

2. Geoffrey Van Orden MEP

3. David Campbell Bannerman MEP

4. John Flack

5. Cllr Tom Hunt (well done to Cllr Tom Hunt for making it on the ballot)

6. Margaret Simons

7. Jonathan Collett

West Midlands

1. Philip Bradbourne MEP
2. Anthea McIntyre MEP
3. Daniel Dalton
4. Michael Burnett
5. Sibby Buckle
6. David Price
7. Dan Sames

East Midlands

1. Emma McClarkin MEP (very well done Emma, looking forward to seeing you on the campaign trail)
2. Andrew Lewer
3. Rupert Matthews
4. Stephen Castens
5. Brendan Clarke-Smith

Wales 

1. Dr Kay Swinburne MEP
2. Aled Davies
3. Dr Dan Boucher
4. Richard Hopkin

Scotland

1. Ian Duncan
2. Belinda Don
3. Nosheena Mobarik
4. Jamie Gardiner
5. Iain McGill
6. Stuart McIntyre

 These are the people who, with the people's mandate, shall fight for the UKs interest against fools, ex-Euro Communists and over regulation.

Poor Old Chancellor

Poor old George Osborne he's taking a lot of rather irrelevant hate today. To be honest I'm not George Osborne's biggest fan. This is not because he is grinding the face of the poor but because he isn't helping them enough by cutting the deficit and growing the economy enough. People also hate the Chancellor always because he is one who is charge of taking half of a person's income only to waste it on some stupid project. Gideon is probably very much used to people hating him in a minor sort of way for being the Chancellor.

But today he is being linked by insinuation to the 'desolate' North East question that Lord Howell of Guildford made when talking about fracking. I don't agree with what Lord Howell said about the North East because it is not 'desolate'. All-right, it has a lower density of population and thus it may be easier to frack there without complaint but the North East is not devoid of human civilisation. He has rightly apologised for these remarks.

 Lord Howell just happens to be the a peer and George Osborne's father.

What I don't particularly get is why Osborne is so linked to this other than Lord Howell being his father in law. It's not like he is Osborne's mouth piece on earth or that Lord Howell isn't a public figure and should bare responsibility. But the media have been having a field day on it so that Osborne receives some association to these unthoughtful words. I'm all for blaming people but not for things they haven't done. All father in laws are embarrassing, maybe Lord Howell doesn't do dodgy dances at weddings but insults everybody being talked about.  

Breaking News From Sky, George Osborne has father in law because he is married. 

So don't take it out on the Chancellor irrelevantly.

New Design for 'Go Home Immigrants' Van

Romans Go Home

Students to Pay Bin Tax?

Students are always treated badly in general by local government. Take Nottingham for example. The Labour run council has slapped parking permit charges on Students and is trying to make us move from the Lenton area, where most Students live, to off campus halls like accommodation where the rent is near £120 a week. I always find this surprising considering how much money students bring to the local economy and that any tax loss is made up by Eric Pickles. But then again it is partially students fault as they are seen as less likely to vote than usual citizens.

 Nottingham Council, like many a inner-city council, treat their students badly.

But a new idea from local councils has come about to make money and abuse students and that is the bin tax. Local people in a city will still be charged nothing for rubbish collection but students will have to pay £11 for the use of a communal bin. This may be paid by students themselves but is more likely to be charged to landlords increasing rents. Bristol, Sheffield and Manchester are the main councils looking into this charge and have said that they have the power to do this. All of these are Labour run councils, is that a coincidence? 

 Some councils want us students to pay to get rid of our rubbish.

Students however owe a great deal to Eric Pickles, the Conservative Community Secretary. Eric Pickles says that this move is 'sneaky', could leave to a growth in fly tipping and bad for Community relations. Big Eric has also said "instead of using students as a revenue generator, local authorities should be working with them." The laws that allow councils to charge for a bin tax are going against the intention of the regulations of waste disposal. Any move against students could thus be legally challenged by Eric or victimised students.

Eric Pickles is going to make sure that students are treated fairly by councils wishing to extort money.

Labour despite all the hot air about caring for students actually tries to make their lives worse by slapping back door taxes on them. Don't vote for them in your local area. Lets just hope the Bin Tax doesn't become a reality. 

 Do you remember George Osborne's Byron Burger? Well this was Eric's response to it.

Weekly Poll Lowdown

First off you may have noticed I have been missing for a few days. If you are unhappy about this there are two people to blame. Firstly, Tony Robinson and Phil Harding as I've been cleaning and sorting my large collection of archaeological finds in the middle of the week. Second is Cllr Steve Tierney as I have been at his Madhouse Minicon for almost 48 hours non-stop playing board games, doing role play and having a party.

 These are the people to blame for my recent absence.

So what could be a better way to get back into #ThingsElliottSays than the weekly poll lowdown. This week I asked you about Police and Crime Commissioners and the debate going on in Parliament about how they are sacking Chief Constables, such a scandal when it is they have powers to do so. But most of you seemingly want them got rid of the PCCs, almost 3/4 of you back this.

Should the Role of Police and Crime Commissioners be restricted?

Yes, they should be abolished.	74%
Yes, there should be tougher rules on sacking Chief Constables.	0%
No, keep things the same.	22%
Unsure.	4%

Total votes: 23

Originally when I put this poll up I thought I would be commenting on the actual powers that should be given to police and crime commissioners. Instead it seems I have to defend the new institution itself. Brace yourself for a detailed explanation. 

Our public services in the UK are simply not serving the public. Let's take the police service for example. If you look at  the legislation (17 Acts of Parliament, countless directives and multiple statutory instruments) coupled with arrest and court figures it is clear to see that since 1997 the police have been focussing on minor traffic offences. This is an area perceived by most voters as a wrong focus especially when you consider the general trend over the last five years has been a shift to property crime, which is altogether more serious. Over time, although crime altogether has been consistently falling, the concentration on crime prevention has focussed on minor and not serious crimes. Not a good show. 

 The police have been concentrating on speeding and not more serious crimes. Good public service?

This can be explained in two ways really. The first is that the police, like other public services, are just laying back and doing what they want. If you get only the police to run the police they only serve themselves. Over time and with the growth in the service and the lack of accountability just lead to ballooning costs, easy work and doing less and less. The fattening of the police service is well shown in the new and highly internally argued plans to make sure the police actually have to have health tests to stop the ballooning size of the officers. 

 Porkie Policemen show how institutional and self serving the police have become.

But also is the idea of faux expertise. The last few decades have shown more of a lean to 'experts' taking over public services. All that is needed for heads of public services is knowledge on a topic achieved by having a degree in something related to the topic or spending a long time being a pen pusher. But this system has lead to many terrible decisions because they lack leadership, control of finances and use ideas that have no logical basis. For example, in another more high profile criminal area, does anyone try to pretend the ex-head of the UK border agency Brodie Clark had any idea of how stop criminals at the borders of the UK? This is all despite Mr Clark's expertise in the border agency and in prisons since 1972. Most Government services and QANGOs are mostly run on a scale from passable to dire, although as always there are exceptions that prove the rule. As with all public services this is the case with the police. 

Brodie Clark is an example of exactly what is wrong with the leadership of  our nations public services.

So how do you make sure the police is doing the right things for the public by not being wasteful, not doing less and less and being more competent. The obvious answer is to get an elected Police and Crime Commissioner who can direct the police. The Police and Crime Commissioner does not decide all the minor details of service so does not need to have a CV in policing as long as a wallpaper strip. What he or she does posses is just the sanity and leadership abilities that is often given in an unsung way by most politicians. But the power over the budget and to sack the Chief Constable means that the PCC has the ability make sure that the public's needs are first and not those of the police otherwise he or she is out.  

 The 15th November was a bad date to have the PCC elections, it should have been in May.

Mind you I think this system could have been better run. For example the Government made a big fuss about PCCs in 2011 and then forgot about them so nobody knew what they did. A booklet to every household should have been delivered, they did it for the awful AV. Putting them in November was also a poor choice as, because nobody knew anything about these elections, people not on the political pulse were confused. Another cock up was using the confusing system of AV which as you know been rejected by over 2/3rds of the public. Both these later problems were caused by those stupid Lib Dems who hate democracy.

 It may have been great to see Lord Prescott lose, but he should have won because AV is anti democratic and an awful voting system.

Most of all however was the choice of candidates. People thought, because they were not informed about the PCCs role, they needed the 'experts' in the police to be elected. At the time there was no debate about Police and Crime Commissioners because no information had come out of the government, they were stupidly silent. Voters were left to their own devices and so ex police independents swept the board because most believed it was a role of micro-management. The result was that there was some institutional police men not doing that much being a mouth piece for the police. This similarly happened in political parties where even members of parties didn't know what the role was about. The government failed to tell people what on Earth was going on. 

 Sir Graham Bright is Cambridgeshire and Peterborough's PCC.

PCCs are nowhere near failed. With more time people will realise they need someone to make the police accountable and elect those people who do, this is as much experience of a new level of democracy than governmental problems. Soon we will be asking how on Earth did we live with a non accountable representative running the police. I hope they try this with some other public services. 

Police and Crime Commissioner Elections are here to stay and here to make our police better.

Vote in the new poll on the sidebar.

Not So Lobbying Crosby

I think Labour's new scapegoat is Lynton Crosby, although arguably this isn't new looking back on how many times Ken Livingstone kept mentioning Lynton Crosby in the London Mayoral Elections. Labour are picking out policy moves from the government out of a hat and blaming Lynton Crosby for lobbying. Of course there is no evidence for this and thus in all likelihood isn't true.

Lynton Crosby's face is not yet known so he has to carry a caption around with him always.

This all started with the delays in government policy over plain cigarette packaging and minimum alcohol pricing. Labour said "aha, this is because Lynton Crosby also works for a tobacco company and is thus lobbying the Prime Minister." However, there is no evidence for that at all. The Labour Party are just finding casual links. Nick Clegg, the PM, Lynton Crosby, the Conservative Party and virtually everyone except Red Ed have said that there has been no lobbying. Indeed it is more likely, that if there was any lobbying it was from Ken Clarke who is actually in the government, works for tobacco firms and is well known to like a drink.

 Maybe Ken Clarke is the one lobbying the government, if that is happening at all.

There are many alternative ideas to Labour's ripping open a live kid goat thesis on plain packaging and alcohol pricing. Let's say Lynton Crosby is involved in the decision to ditch the cigarette and beer policies. It could be because as Lynton says "he is getting rid of the barnacles off the boat." These policies could be seen as negative to the electorate and not on beat with his proposed message for the Conservatives in 2015 and is thus ditching them. Personally I don't see this as very likely considering how awfully in favour Dave is in limiting people's choices of late.

The Government's reason for having the delays is to see the results of what is going on in Australia and in Scotland may be what is going on. This makes most logical sense considering all these new policies are so new in implementation we don't know yet if this actually is a benefit to health. It may not be and thus cheesing off ordinary people is not necessary.

And on cheesing off it could be that the Government have decided that they don't like this idea. This is actually consistent with what Labour say. For all their hot air over plain cigarette packaging and minimum alcohol pricing all previous Labour Health Secretaries think it would be a disaster (seefor the full details http://order-order.com/2013/07/13/labour-ministers-opposed-plain-packaging/ ). Andy Burnham, Labour Shadow Secretary State for Health,  has said "No studies have shown that introducing plain packaging of tobacco products would cut the number of young people smoking .... we would need strong and convincing evidence showing the health benefits of this policy before it would be acceptable."

Then we move into the manifest absurdities which make up the twisted logic of Labour Central Office. They're now saying Lynton Crosby was responsible for the 'privatisation of the NHS' in the early stages of the government. Just ignore for the moment the stupidity of not using facts, the NHS hasn't been privatised. Indeed Lynton after the general election did get employed by a health company but wasn't employed by the Conservatives till November 2012, not starting till January 2013. But the Health and Social Care Act received Royal Assent in March 2012 so Lynton couldn't possibly be lobbying for the non-'privatisation of the NHS' because he wasn't anywhere near the government till almost a year after it was passed. Unless Red Ed believes Lynton Crosby has invented a time machine then I think he should take a look at his brain and try reassemble the lobes to try form a coherent argument. 

I actually feel a bit for Lynton Crosby. The Labour Party say he is the most evil being since Satan himself, but even if that were true he is being wrongly targeted. It's quite clear Labour are either victims of their own poor policies on education, and thus have no logic, or are just causing trouble. And they are doing this probably because they are running around with arms waving in the air panicking about a diminishing poll lead. 

The logical lunatics have taken over the Asylum (other wise known as Red Ed's brain).

Hic

Celebrations over the Royal Baby led Mr Gove and Mr Johnson to go out and raise a glass or maybe five. They were caught out on the streets of London wandering home. Gove now protests that he was just hot at the time.

There is nothing wrong with a good drink and if it were not for Government Guidelines #ThingsElliottSays would come out fully in support of them. It is quite funny however. Of course the recent cut in beer duty will have helped.

Gap in the Market

Have you had a look at the Unite polling by Lord Ashcroft? Do, it makes good reading to see that only 12% of Trade Unionists want to be Labour party members and 53% of Trade Unionists would not opt into the political party fund. This is bad news for the Labour Party because funding will be cut off and it shows they are not really that in touch with what is their own stereotypical voter base.

 Everyday Ed Miliband becomes more out of touch with the public. No wonder not even Trade Unionists will back him.

But actually this poll is worse for the Conservatives because only 23% of Trade Unionists, who are a good representation of ordinary people, will vote for the Tories in 2015. How can this problem be overcome?

As a foreword nobody should expect a miracle sized amount of Trade Unionists to vote Conservative. The majority of unionists will be tribal or in the public sector who in no way are going to become Conservative voters. But considering that the Conservative Party needs to gain 3% in the polls an attempt should be made to try gain around 10% of trade unionist voters and importantly by doing this will become closer to getting real people in the country to vote for them. The idea at the moment of an 'aspiration nation' is good but the Tory Party must expand and toot three key areas greatly to win these voters and in 2015.  

We have got to keep proving as a party that we are an 'aspiration nation'. Everything needs to be centred round this and policies must be centred around ordinary people.

Education and Training is very important and has arguably been the most successful area of government policy. Parents are very keen children have a decent education and Academies and Free Schools have been improving this throughout the country. But what is also important is the alternatives to secondary school education and university. The lie of university for everyone has been well exposed and people are now looking towards apprenticeships and skill training for a future career. The Conservatives have achieved 63 per cent increase in apprenticeships because of investment. Such moves need to be made easier with greater benefits for firms, a tax cut for employing apprentices for example.

Taxes are down for the average family in the country but we could do more. Taking out of tax those who earn £10,000 or under is a good policy. Soon everyone hit but Gordon Browns 10p tax rate hike will be out of tax completely. But what about National Insurance for employer and employee which is taken off people's pay packet? There has been little change there and VAT has gone up to boot, not good. And what of those slightly above average? Middle earners are paying the most out of all the levels of tax in the country which is surely not good to inspire people to better their lives. Tax cuts for the average family are what is needed more than ever. We've made a good start but I'd like to see more in the 2014 budget. 

The price of basic commodities that everyone uses must come down too. The government has a large amount of control over the cost of items such as beer and petrol and it should be using this power to keep prices lower when too high. Take fuel duty, the government has already frozen and cut this to a small extent resulting in a motorist being 13p better off per litre than under Labour. However, there is still more to do as the average family still spends £1,700 in filling up their car. This turns out to be one tenth of a families salary so technically most families in the UK suffer from fuel poverty when driving. A sizeable cut in fuel duty and more robust measures to stop cartels would improve people's lives greatly.

The Conservative Party is starting to really get in touch with ordinary families but there is a long way to go before Britain truly is an 'aspiration nation'. There is a gap in the political market because the Unite Ashcroft poll shows Labour is failing on all these three areas. Only then will we win enough Trade Unionists and ordinary people's votes to form a government in 2015. 

Royal Baby

#ThingsElliottSays gives congratulations to the Duchess of Cambridge for safely delivering a Prince who will one day be the King of Great Britain.

Weekly Poll Lowdown

Well the boarding sign has appeared for the idea of building Boris Island. Boris Island has been given a go ahead by you in our weekly. Boris will be pleased. Notably it is only Heathrow or Boris Island in people's mind.

A Cheery Boris over backing from #ThingsElliottSays readers.

How do you solve the UK's airport problems?

More runways at Heathrow.	24%
More runways at Luton or Stanstead.	0%
Build Boris Island.	76%
Build another airport.	0%

Total votes: 17

This is a very tough question because the Conservative Party's current policy is not to build any more runways at Heathrow. We made this policy decision and we should stick to it till our next manifesto till 2015, we're not the Lib Dems. But such a policy is very costly to our country. With the indecision at the moment £14 Billion is being lost every year and by 2030 this will rise to £26 Billion, not good at all. Indeed we probably need 2 more runways in the country just to solve this economic black hole. 

 Boris Island may look like this.

Heathrow alternatives are simply not economically viable. Boris Island will cost £50 Billion compared to Heathrow's £12 billion extension. The same is the case for Gatwick, Luton or Stansted which will need massive transport investment as well. Boris admitted recently that the most effective of all the airport solutions is another runway at Heathrow and then redevelopment of Gatwick over building Boris Island. Boris Island is simply not going to happen.

Boris Island is just unworkable as an idea.

But by building again at Heathrow there would be the age old problem that nobody living there wants it to happen because of the noise levels. This is probably Boris Island's only asset because flight paths will be over the North Sea where only Mermaids live. A solution as proposed by the Economist is to have two more sites to the West of Heathrow that may reduce noise pollution levels. The big problem is this is a may. The residents around Heathrow are almost destined to have some sort of increased noise.

There will always be opposition to any more development at Heathrow so air noise will have to be minimized.

In 2015 the Conservative Party should back a policy to build at Heathrow because otherwise there is going to be a huge economic problem in the country. I think such an expansion should try and reduce the noise level issues by moving developments West rather than North. The reality is however no one will be happy with any decision made.

Vote in the new poll on the sidebar.

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.