The five issues that Liz and Rishi should be talking about

 

No plan, just an empty shell

Am I alone in despairing of the sheer inanity of the level of debate between the two contenders to be our next Prime Minister. If I was a Tory member, I'd be very tempted to write none of the above on my ballot form. I find the concept that around 130,000 people who are members of the Conservative Party get to elect our new Prime Minister, when the rest of us have to wait a couple of years totally anti democratic. We are a Parliamentary democracy (allegedly) and I'd have no problem with Tory MP's electing one of their own to lead as that is how it's suppose to work. But gripes aside, there are huge issues facing us. All we are getting is waffle and U-Turns and that's before they've even started.

So what are the five big issues that they should be talking about

1. An energy security strategy. The main driver for the cost of living crisis is enegry costs. Before Margaret Thatcher, coal, electricity and gas were in public ownership. The UK was self sufficeint and we were not beholden to market fluctations in these commodities. The OPEC oil crisis of the early 1970's made us develop North Sea Oil and that gave us a degree of independence from oil price fluctations. Margaret Thatcher deemed Nationalised industries to be inefficient and provatised them all. She said that the only way to get modern infrastructure was to let the market forces decide. That was her strategy, It has failed. The UK is paying the price, quite literally for this failed ideology. We import coal. We import gas. We have minimal gas storage facilities, meaning that if there are problems with supply we have no backup.  The reason for this is that the private companies do not want to invest, they just want profits. They exist to service the financial requirements of their shareholders. This is the reason why we are all seeing huge hikes in prices. A sensible campaign would address this. Many of our power companies are nationalised. They are owned by foreign governments. This makes us insecure. I find it hard to understand how the same people who want to 'take back sovereignty' are happy to have the real levers of power in the hands of foreign governments. I'd renationalise the lot. That way the profits would stay in the UK.

2. A pollution strategy. The UK is awash with pollution. Our north sea fisheries in the North of England have seen their industry devastated by pollution this year. Our rivers and streams are full of sewage. This is all down to private water companies cutting corners and not investing. We need to have proper enforcement to ensure our streams and rivers are clean and our beaches are safe. We also need a proper strategy to combat air pollution. This should be based around better access to cheaper public transport. 

3. A national infrastructure strategy. We have no strategy, we just have schemes. Our rail strategy is "HS2". I support this, but it should be part of a proper integrated infrastructure strategy, that encompasses road, rail and air. Where there is congestion and bottlenecks, we should look for the best, most sustainable long term solution. I'd like to see more freight on the rails. This would remove lorries and that would mean less congestion. Airports should have easy and accessible rail links and around the clock services. The Ministry of Transport is not fit for purpose and should be replaced with a department for national infrastructure. This would mean that when we lay new roads and rail, we could include power cables, IT fibre etc as part of the plan, rather than doing everything seperately. It would save a fortune.

4. A national IT strategy. Everyone in the UK should have access to high speed broadband. Everyone should have access to IT support and training. This should be a priority. It would give UK PLC a competetive advantage over other nations. 

5. A strategy for managing labour in the UK. One of my bugbears is we always talk about 'immigration'. This is a red herring. What we really should be talking about is making sure we have enough people to manage the economy and that they have the right skills. Our Universities produce students who lack the skills to do the jobs the economy needs. They are lumbered with huge debts and are often unemployable. I know, I run a business. We need a massive rethink. We need to start producing more plumbers, engineers, bricklayers, rail engineers, qualified carers and we need to start paying people properly. This is done by improving productivity. UK productivity is appalling. We need to fix this.

But you won't hear any of this from Rishi or Liz, will you?

Tory Whacky Races - Can Dick Dastardly scupper Penelope Pitstop?

 It was Karl Marx, who said "History repeats itself, once as tragedy and twice as farce". Well when it comes to Tory Leadership contests we had Theresa May deliver us a tragedy, Boris Johnson delivered us a farce. What follows Farce? Maybe we should add that "and a third time as a Hanna Barbera cartoon. In this case, the  competition has become Whacky Races, with Dick Dastardly (AKA Rishi Sunak) plotting and scheming to stop Penelope Pitstop (AKA Penny Mordaunt) from strolling into number ten.

Anyone who ever watched Whacky Races knows the ending. Dick Dastardly spends so much time plotting and schemeing how to stop his rivals, that he doesn't concentrate on the racing so always loses. I suspect that even if his efforts to derail the wonderful Ms Pitstop fail, all he'll do is damage his reputation and open the door for another contender, most likely Liz Truss. Given that Ms Truss has decided that being the "Boris continuity candidate" is a smart move, I can see this all going rather Pete Tong for the Tories. The problem with being the Boris continuity candidate is that the only real asset Boris ever had was his massive power of personality. Saying you are the new Boris whilst being as dull as dishwater strikes me as just about the worst strategy in the world to convince voters that you are Prime Minister material. It seems to me that the Tory MP's have decided that they want Rishi Sunak, but know he's going to lose to whoever comes second in the contest. The Tory Membership think his Dick Dastardly style shenanigans to shaft Boris and crown himself leader are inforgiveable. 

I've been talking to quite a few people of all different political parties about the contest. What is difficult for me to fathom is that just about everyone seems in a sense of complete denial about the reality. Whoever wins the leadership has a large majority and is very unlikely to call an election until they have a realistic chance of winning. This means that whatever happens, the new leader will be running the show for at least a year or two and will have to build a credible platform to bring back the Tories who didn't bother to vote in recent elections. For the rest of us, we need someone who is decent, credible, honest and competent. I'd urge any Tory MP's and members who may read this to set this benchmark. It seem to me that there are only three serious candidates. Sunak, Mordaunt and Truss.

How does each of these fair when we measure them against these tests

Rishi Sunak

Decent - Do decent people who are the chancellor exploit Tax loopholes in the way Sunak has? Do they shaft their boss to further their own career? I think Sunak should have disqualified himself and I suspect that the Tory membership will agree with me in the final battle. The way his team are trying to shaft Penny Mordaunt is not exactly what passes for decency in my books, but sadly that is politics.

Credible - Sunak has a degree of credibility as a serious contender as he was chancellor through the most difficult period in modern times. 

Honest - Do I trust Rishi Sunak? I think he's been tainted by his association with Boris Johnson. His failure to resign when he go a fixed penalty for being at a Boris No 10 party makes me doubt he has the moral gumption for the job. He's got a history of being evasive about his personal financial affairs, which is not what  I want from a Prime Minister.

Competent - I have no doubt he'd be able to manage the economy. He had held a big government job and we know what we'll get. Does he have the wider perspective to be PM though? Tory MP's who know him best seem to think so. 

My verdict - I think he'd be a competent Prime Minister, but after the Boris debacle, we need someone a little bit more trustworthy.

Liz Truss

Decent - I can't say Liz Truss isn't decent. I've felt for the last two years that she'd be the next leader and I suspect she'll be the beneficiary of Sunak's shenanigans. I googled Liz Truss Scandals and the best the Daily Mirror could come up with was that she had a fling with a married Tory MP in 2009. If that's the worst she's done she's probably decent enough.

Credible - She holds the post of foreign secretary and so has held a major office. She hasn't exactly excelled as a foreign secretary but she hasn't made the disasterous gaffe's of the scale Boris did, which should have alerted us to his poor judgement. 

Honest - I've seen no evidence that she isn't honest. There are not reams of stories of her dodgyness circulating. 

Competent - She seems a safe and steady sort of person. She doesn't leave a trail of scandals and cock ups in her wake. I suspect that she'd be operating above her level as PM, I think she's an OK minister, but being the boss is a different matter.

My verdict - I suspect Liz Truss will win and I suspect the Conservative party and the country will regret it bitterly. I just don't think she has the gumption and backbone to do the top job. I may be wrong, but when I see her, I get an air of the Theresa May's.

Penny Mordaunt

Decent - As with Truss, she doesn't have a track record of causing scandals. I think the fact that she's associated with the military indicates that she is a team player. Generally people who are a bit shifty get weeded out

Credible - This is where she scores badly. Unlike the other two, she's not had a big job. Is she credible? I think she is. She's been prepared to go out on a limb over issues such as Trans rights, which shows me that she is not afraid to take a principled stand. Even if you disagree with her position, I think you have to accept that she's shown she is not afraid to swim against the tide of opinion.  

Honest - She is responsible for one of the biggest porkies of the Leave campaign. The claim that the EU was about to let Turkey join. For me that is a problem. Even if you are a staunch leaver, do you really want  someone who tells massive whoppers to be PM? On the other side of that coin though, if you want someone who is going to win elections, she's shown she will be a bit unprincipled when required, which sadly is a key quality in politicians.

Competent - This is a hard one to judge. She's not really been tested. Many Tories will say "neither was Thatcher before she became PM" as she'd only been a rather unsuccessful Education secretary.

My verdict - If I was a Tory I'd want Penny Mordaunt to win. Her miliary background shows she has a bit of backbone. She has shown she will use the dark arts to win. She doesn't appear to have a closet full of skeletons. She's rattled Rishi Sunak and has seemingly come from nowhere to put herself in a prime position. 

My view overall. As someone who wants to see the Conservatives lose the next election, believes in decency in politics and who recognises that we need competent government until we get the chance to vote, I want to see Liz Truss win. I think she'll be dull and competent and lose the next election, wiythout destroying the economy. I don't want to see a shifty sausage in charge, which for me rules out Sunak. I don't want to see Mordaunt win, as I suspect she would be more dynamic and more likely to re-energise the Tory party. As for Rishi Sunak, if he does win, something I really can't see happening, I think his policies will bring about a very deep and difficult recession. The guy does not seem to understand that the only way the UK can get out of the mess it's in is to invest in infrastructure, improve productivity and to encourage dynamic activity in the economy. As a business owner, I think he'd be a total disaster. 

Just one final, rather off the wall note. Whilst researching this blog, I watched quite a lot of Whacky Races. I'd never really realised it, but there are real anti semitic tones about it. If you watch it, Dick Dastardly definitely gets a very raw deal. Most of the contestants were cheating, but Dastardlys disqualification after winning for extending the nose of his car was clearly a case of anti semitism. My favourite character was always Muttly, who reminds me of Ed Balls.

Beware of promises of cutting taxes and burning the red tape!

 I know quite a few local Conservatives read this blog. Oddly many agree with much of what I've written about the local Tories. Interestingly, one of these seems to be disgraced, former Tory bigwig Brian Coleman. In a recent blog he admitted I've been right all along!

 I wish the new Labour Council well especially as they undue some of the dafter decisions of the last few years, Hendon Hub , North Finchley regeneration and of course the horrendous partnership with Capita that has proved a disaster and has had Tory Councillors tearing their hair out .

All of these subjects have been featured regularly in this blog. Anyway enough of that. This morning all of the chat is of the candidates for the Tory Leadership. I was unlucky enough to watch Grant Shapps on Sky News yesterday morning and I've been following the rest of them on Twitter and hearing snippets on the radio.  For most, with the exception of Rishi Sunak, it seems the mantra is "We'll cut taxes and abolish red tape".  It is telling that the one candidate who has a clue about the finances, Sunak, says this is highly irresponsible. We've had 12 years of Tory government and they are taking more tax from us now than ever. We've had Cameron, May and Johnson and all promised lower taxes and less red tape. Surely if this was a realistic possibility, then we'd have seen it long ago, before the pandemic. Of course many claim that the red tape is all the fault of the EU and now we are in the sunny post Brexit uplands, we can do away with all regulations. 

I run a business and I realise that this is compelete nonsense. We import musical equipment from the EU. We used to also export it, but we've totally given up on this due to the red tape and customs regulations that Brexit has imposed. One of the big myths about the EU was that it was wrapping us up in red tape. Much of this was about food production. The truth is that the EU imposed common rules for food, farming and agriculture, so states could trade on an even footing. If we abolish the rules on these, all that will happen is that we'll lose our biggest export market. The same is true with safety standards on electrical products etc. It is all very well saying that we'll abolish red tape, but when your toaster blows up and electrocutes you, you might wish that proper standards had been retained. 

The rule surrounding how businesses operate are a real pain in the backside. I seem to spend my life filling in forms. I've recently had a whole swathe of forms to fill from the Valuation office, regarding the lease details of our studio properties. Each one takes approx 20 mins to fill. I have ten of these. If they are not filled in on time, I get a fine. Each one has to be done every three years. It contains exactly the same information as the previous form (except if a rent/ lease detail has been changed). The system is that you get  a letter through the post and have to then log into the government website and re-enter all the details that you most likely previously entered. The cost of producing a letter is probably about £2. Multiply that by every commercial property in the UK every three years. Part of the form is to put your email in and you get a confirmation. 

If the form was emailed out, the govt could save millions almost instantly. Of course some will get lost etc, but if they only sent reminders via post, it would save a fortune. I have no idea why you can't just be sent a link to the form and change the fields that change. That is just one example of costly, mismanaged bureacracy. I've contacted my MP several times over the years about this. I've never even got a reply recently. Needless to say, my local Tory MP will be voting for the candidate who he believes will most effectively cut red tape, but in truth he's not interested in the reality and the detail.

As to taxes. No one likes paying taxes. But the truth is that whenever a tax is cut, it inevitably means either a rise for someone else or someone receiving worse public services. The right wing philosophy on taxes is that they are bad for the economy and the less taxes we pay, the more dynamic the economy is. What completely baffles me is that they boast about small cuts to the rate of inflation, but the Conservatives never cut VAT which would put money in everyone's pockets. There is VAT on fuel, which means every time a garage puts its prices up, the Treasury make more money. The rules are ridiculous. There was one famous case where McVities and HM Customs and Excise had a long running court battle over whether Jaffa Cakes were cakes or buscuits. The price of Jaffa cakes in Iceland is £1.00 a pack. If they'd lost they'd be £1.20. On petrol you pay 20% VAT, so if you are paying £2.00 a litre nearly 40p of the that is VAT, whereas when it was £1 a litre it was only 20p. The Treasury has seen a huge windfall from this. Until a Tory Leader comes out and say they will reform taxes rather than cut it, the sad truth is that they are not addressing the problems that hold the UK back. 

As someone who runs a real business with real premises, I pay rates, People who run online businesses don't. That is why shops disappear and we all get worse service. People come into our shop, ask for advice then order their guitars online. They turn up and are sub standard. They then come in and ask us to fix them. They get upset when we tell them that we charge £30 an your for a repair, they end up paying more as we'd maintain our product sales for free. The bottom line is that shops are at a huge disadvantage to the online sellers. We need a PM who will come up with solutions that get the UK back on it's feet after the pandemic. A simple tax cut won't do that. Until one of them says that, I wouldn't trust a word they say.

,