No surprises

Yesterday's student protest marked the end of public acquiescence to the coalition's programme of spending cuts - cuts that have been condemned as unfair in independent analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Comparisons with the Poll Tax protests have been made, and they hold some weight. The anger of ordinary people has bubbled to the surface in dramatic fashion. People are realising that we are not all in this together.

There is a huge difference between advocating the destruction of property, and accepting the inevitability that it will occur. Yesterday's violence was predictable given the public anger over the Lib Dems' cynical U-turn on an explicit pre-election pledge.

We must not allow the government to turn this into a debate about public disorder. This is a debate about a government reversing some of the twentieth century's hardest-won gains in social mobility. It is a debate about a rich political aristocracy entrenching the already shameful record of inequality in the United Kingdom.

Tories declare war on the poor

No rowing back on the housing benefit cut, says David Cameron. No rowing back on pricing the poor out of university either, I'll bet.

And no rowing back on any of the other tax and benefit changes in the comprehensive spending review, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies said were "regressive rather than progressive across most of the income distribution."

For those who said there was no difference between New Labour and a Tory administration, this is a harsh lesson in political ideology. These policies, when taken as a whole, represent nothing less than a war on the poor.

Depending on which Conservative you speak to, barring the poor from universities and causing a mass migration of working class families from our cities are either necessary evils, or positively desirable.

And however bad it is, they say, it simply has to be done to tackle the deficit.

So where are the 'painful but necessary' tax rises? Why are the CBI, the Insitute of Directors and the British Bankers' Association not up in arms at being asked to make their contribution?

Because they know they are getting off lightly. They are keeping busy keeping their heads down.

Standing up to vested interests is hard work, and this government simply does not have the political will to do it. Instead, they have declared war on the poorest and most vulnerable in our society in the laziest most despicable way imaginable.

First thoughts on the CSR

As analysts start number-crunching the Comprehensive Spending Review to see who really suffers, it is worth noting which departments the coalition has chosen to target for cuts - and which have been spared the worst.

Osborne gave road building schemes the go-ahead, but revealed that the cap on rail fares is to rise by 3% above inflation. Good news for the motoring lobby, bad for the rest of us.

Following terse negotiations with Liam Fox, defence spending is to be cut by a comparatively low 8%. If only Iain Duncan-Smith had fought as hard. The welfare budget, on which thousands of poor families depend, is to be cut by a huge £7bn.

And social housing rents will rise to 80-90% of the market rate, which comes very close to defeating the object of social housing entirely.

The Conservatives simply do not have the political will to conduct these difficult cuts in a fair way, and the Lib Dems simply do not have the clout to put the brakes on. These are Tory economic plans pure and simple.

The Osborne Book of Economics

Yesterday George Osborne addressed the Tory party conference, asking delegates to imagine what the reaction would be from financial markets to a change of course on the economy - and to a sudden adoption of Ed Miliband's economic strategy.

He painted a picture of a doomed society. A post-apocalyptic nightmare world, where a debt-jackboot repeatedly stamps on the face of the British people forever.

Osborne mocked Labour's economic record with a tone that suggests he thinks the public respects his opinion. Does he assume his appointment as chancellor has in some way imbued him with a reputation for economic competence?

In reality he has an impeccable record of making exactly the wrong calls on the economy.

During the boom years, with Blair in Number 10 and Brown next door, Osborne fell in line with the then current economic thinking. Along with Cameron, he was a cheerleader for New Labour's programme of deregulation and light-touch governance. And look where that got us.

When the credit crunch took hold, the Conservatives were practically alone on the world stage in opposing government intervention to shore up the global economy. While Gordon Brown was being celebrated internationally for his pragmatism, Osborne was handicapped by ideology and offered no coherent alternative strategy.

And now he is chancellor. Why, nobody really knows. Perhaps in trying to ape New Labour's electoral success, Cameron felt he needed his very own unelectable liability in No 11.

So as the battle to set the terms of the debate gets nastier, and the 'Red Ed' slurs are deployed to paper over the gaping cracks in the coalition's economic strategy, don't forget to check the historical record. Ask yourself exactly what qualifies this former speech writer for William Hague to be the mastermind of the UK's economic programme for the next five years. And be afraid. Be absolutely terrified.

The new green politics

Remember David Cameron's attempt to re-invent the Tories as a modern party of the environment when he first became Conservative leader in 2005? Well, he's in government now.

The coalition is set to dismantle the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), the body charged with advising government on how they can save energy.

As well as reducing waste and pollution, the SDC actually saves the government money. However, this has not been enough to protect it from the bacchanalian social bonfire which is giving Tory backbenchers such joy at the moment.

But there's no need to worry, because Tories care about the environment really. Look, they've got a tree as their logo!

Big Society

The “Big Society” cropped up again at Prime Minister’s Questions today, and Cameron attacked Labour for their dismissive attitude towards what passes for the coalition government's new overarching philosophy.

The State ‘crowds out’ social participation, say the Tories and Lib Dems. Remove the State, and business and the voluntary sector will fill the void – and encourage social cohesion and a sense of community into the bargain.

“We will do everything we can to help what used to be called the ‘third sector’, rather condescendingly, but I believe is the ‘first sector’ – and that is the excellent charities, voluntary organisations, and social enterprises that do so much for our country,” said Cameron.

The trouble with the “Big Society” philosophy is this: most voluntary sector workers will tell you that charity often represents a last ditch effort to plug the gap where government and markets have failed – and that the State should be providing these services, funded from general taxation.

How does the coalition expect to convince voluntary organisations to take up the slack as government retreats, when most charity workers want government to do more not less?

The coalition has offered no evidence to show that voluntary organisations will fill the void. They are already taking what most economists agree is a massive gamble by saying that the private sector will make up for lost jobs in the public sector. Now we are seeing a similar leap of faith in social policy.

Their economic programme is likely to leave millions unemployed, and their social programme will leave a new underclass with nowhere to turn. Love-bombing the voluntary sector is merely a strategy to create cover while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats turn their backs on the poorest.

Vote for Christmas!

The coalition government is to write to public sector workers asking for ways to save public money. Here's a suggestion to get us started: Why not write a handful of letters to their elected representatives in the trade unions, instead of six million letters to each individual member?

The government is borrowing a tactic from public sector managers. Consulting directly with staff can be justified as a means to really engage with workers - it just so happens to exclude the trade unions, who are nominated by public sector staff to represent them in discussions.

Why do some people find the concept of collective bargaining so difficult to understand? In law, and in parliamentary democracy, we have no difficulty in understanding the idea that people can nominate another to speak on their behalf. When it comes to industrial relations, however, public sector managers – and now the government – reserve the right to speak to whoever is convenient.

And consulting staff directly will be very convenient indeed for the coalition government. It will allow them to pick and choose anecdotal examples to justify their strategy of cuts, using different views scattered across the workforce to validate a massive programme of cuts and redundancies. It is very similar to the strategy they are already using in welfare, where they are using the complaints of working families about unfairness in the benefit system to justify cutting their entitlements.

They will try to avoid consulting the unions about cuts because they know they will get a response they don’t want to hear: Why don’t you address the deficit with a greater emphasis on taxation, and why are you gambling with the economy and our members’ lives by cutting so quickly and deeply?

I suspect this is what the majority of public sector workers will really think. So if it is genuinely interested in consultation, the government can save itself a lot of time - and money.

New politics

So the big headline from the Tory "emergency budget" is that VAT is to rise, and it's time for the Lib Dems to look very sheepish indeed. They campaigned against a Tory VAT rise, and now they are facilitating it.

As anticipated, it appears savings will be made almost entirely through public spending cuts. This is in spite of Osborne's very rare admission during the budget speech that this crisis was created in the banking sector.

Conservatives don't know any better. But many Lib Dems will be asking how a budget can be called fair when poor people who are dependent on public services appear to be paying for a crisis caused by irresponsibility in the banking sector.

Nick Clegg promised us a new politics. I suspect many of his supporters will now be wishing for a return to the old.

Nick Clegg's welfare safety net

The Tories say that spending on public services for people who don't depend on them is unsustainable, and that we need to change our expectations of what the State is supposed to do.

Now the Conservatives and Lib Dems are shackled together in coalition, how will this Tory philosophy square with the Liberal Democrats' stated commitment to public services for all? Here are a few extracts from the preamble to the Lib Dem Federal Constitution:

"We promote human rights and open government, a sustainable economy which serves genuine need, public services of the highest quality."

"We support the widest possible distribution of wealth and promote the rights of all citizens to social provision."

"We seek to make public services responsive to the people they serve, to encourage variety and innovation within them and to make them available on equal terms to all."

It is difficult to see how grassroots Lib Dems will swallow public service cuts in the longer term, and party activists should question whether they entered politics to assist the Tories in permanently reducing the size and function of the welfare state.

Some party grandees are rumoured to be very unhappy with today's announcements, including former leader Charles Kennedy. Kennedy remains very popular with party members, and his unease will be echoed by the Lib Dem grassroots.

They are not in denial about the need for cuts. Nor are they frightened of making difficult decisions. What concerns them is the suspicion that they are aiding and abetting a Tory assault on the long-term prospects for social democracy in the United Kingdom.

Excuses, excuses...

In the last fortnight it's become obvious that the Lib-Con coalition, led by the Tories, are using the deficit as an excuse to radically re-balance the economy. For this they have no mandate, and in doing so they are flying in the face of the settled public will for an interventionist state and well-funded public services.

The election result was a public expression of dissatisfaction with a stale 13-year-old Labour government. It was not in any sense a mandate for the Tories - who failed to secure a majority - to dismantle the welfare state.

To successfully blame this economic crisis on public service spending has been an act of breathtaking political sleight-of-hand on the part of Cameron's PR team - led by the controversial Andy Coulson, who makes Alistair Campbell look like some kind of moral sage.

Furthermore, we are not "in this together" if the deficit is being tackled almost entirely through public service cuts, which disproportionately target the poor and regions outside of the South East.

To summarise: the economic situation was caused by irresponsibility in the city, not profligacy in public spending; this government has no mandate to re-balance the economy; and David Cameron looks like the comedy theatre mask.