With friends like this......

So, George Osborne is Danny Alexander's best new friend according to his extraordinary interview in today's Scotsman.

This is the same George Osborne who is planning to slash benefits for the most vulnerable in our society by at  least £4bn.  And that's on top of the massive cuts to other public service budgets to be announced next month plus the VAT rise in January which every ecomomic commentator agrees will hit the poorest hardest.

I challenged Danny about the VAT rise when he spoke at the recent Inverness Chamber of Commerce Lunch.  He agreed with me that the rise in VAT was a "political" rather than an economic decision.  Now in today's interview, the No 2 at the Treasury goes on the suggest that benefits cuts of even more than £4bn are being considered.  That seems to me to be all about an increasingly right wing political agenda and nothing about fairness.  Keeping your new friends happy?

The LibDems fairness agenda now seems nothing more than words on an election leaflet.  Actions speak louder than words indeed. 

If I was a LibDem I'd be choosing my friends a bit more carefully.

Judge us in five years time says Mr Alexander. 

We will.

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Time for a Change

I voted on line in the Labour Leadership election last night. It’s taken me a long time during this election process to work out who the right candidate is and who I will support.

From the start, I wanted to support a leader who could get Labour back into power. Not just someone I would vote for, but someone who could earn the trust and votes of the many left and liberal leaning friends and colleagues I meet as I work and travel up and down the country.

I also wanted to support someone who shared my political values, promoted (at least some of) the policies I believed and would allow ordinary party members to feel that it was once again worth being part of a political movement. That membership mattered.

I’ve enjoyed watching and listening to Ed Balls as he has ripped into the Coalition over schools and the economy. He speaks with real authority and knowledge on both subjects. I hope he has a key role to play in our fight pack to power.

But Ed Miliband gets my vote for Leader. The Living Wage is a key policy and it’s something I have long thought is vital to fairness in our society. His views on the need to invest in the green economy and industries of the future sit comfortably with me. He has gone further to say that Iraq was wrong than his brother and I hope he will eventually stand up and say no to Trident. I trust his instincts and commitment on Climate Change.

I first heard Ed speak at conference in Manchester in 2007. He is no Obama, but he has a powerful ability to enthuse, empathise and inspire, all qualities which will build voter support. He is, I am convinced, a team builder, who will assemble a powerful shadow cabinet with the intellect, passion and moral conviction to take on the Coalition and win the argument on the economy, the recovery and the other great issues we face. A shadow cabinet that will focus on the job of winning again, rather than faction fighting around yesterday’s issues.

All of this has to be combined with a determination to take Labour in a fresh direction – radical, democratic, more openly socialist – that will establish a new left of centre politics. A new political “common ground” around which our communities can engage and develop. We also need to re-engage not just with the public but our own membership. Ed doesn’t just recognise the need to do this, from what I have read and heard, he means it.

Ed Miliband talks powerfully about the need for change. I’m trusting him to deliver.

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Rural Fuel Prices

The Highland LibDems - and Danny Alexander in particular - after all the noise they made about reducing rural fuel prices during the election, have a lot of explaining to do.

The Herald has predicted fuel prices in the Highlands could soar to 136p per litre from January as a result of the proposed hike in VAT to 20% on top of the already planned fuel duty increases.  See here.

VAT rises always hit the poorest hardest, so what exactly is "fair" about this, Danny?

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Blairs Millions

Whatever money the British Legion gets from Tony Blairs book profits will be well used and appreciated by those that benefit from it.

I am not going to get into his motives. That's for him to deal with. But the torch shone on his financial affairs as a result reveals so much. The multi-million pound properties, the huge fees for speaking and advice to other governments, the estimated total wealth in 10s of £millions.

Criticising him for taking advantage of the opportunity to make that kind of wealth is difficult. How many of us would walk away?

But you can't operate in that world without losing touch with the world the rest of us live in.

For me, sadly, that explains a lot.

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Benefits should define Labour

An effective and enabling benefits system is for me a pillar of the kind of society I want to see.

There when you need it, supporting you and your family into work or education. Enabling you to develop to your full potential and play a part in your community whatever your personal challenges.

We need to drive cheats out of the system but above all we need to make it simpler. Recent estimates are that more than £3bn is wasted through errors and mistakes which dwarf the estimated loss of £1.5bn through deliberate fraud. Never mind the folk who don't get what they are entitled to because it's so daunting.

The Coalition seem determined to use benefit system reform as a blunt instrument to save money and drive people into low paid jobs. Incenting private companies like Experian to spy on our communities to achieve this is a shocking definition of "fairness".

But there is no point in Labour just criticising from the sidelines. We need to work out our own new ideas and reclaim the Benefit System for Labour in the same way as the NHS.

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Coalition must not be allowed to re-write economic history!

The constant repitition by LibDem and Tory ministers of their mantra that the coming savage cuts are all the result of "Labour's financial mess" risks becoming accepted wisdom if we don't start to counter it soon.  Remember how the Winter of Discontentt came to represent all the reasons Thatcher got support for so long?

Excessive public spending didn't cause the credit crisis; what caused it was a massive over indulgence in credit by the private sector, led by bankers and financiers far more interested in personal wealth and power than stable banking.  Labour - like every other government in the western world - had to pump £billions of public money into the banking system to stop it collapsing.  Now ordinary people will pay a huge price in service cuts, lost jobs and a VAT hike that always hits the poorest, whilst the City gets back to "normal".

Coalition ministers tell us there is no choice but to make savage cuts in public spending, to appease the same financial markets which got us into this mess in the first place!   But there is a choice if you want to make it.

What Cameron and Clegg are proposing is about idealogy.  They want a smaller public sector and this is their great opportunity to do it.

Labour needs to get back on the front foot and stop the re-writing of economic history that is going on.

Which of our party leadership candidates will take up the challenge?

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When Fairness Equals Savage Cuts

Every LibDem candidate across the country campaigned on “fairness” during the Election.

Every letter and leaflet promised that the LibDems were the only party who would restore economic and social fairness. Locally, Danny Alexander promised fair taxes, a fairer economy – with investment in the Highlands in green energy , broadband and affordable house building - and a fair fuel deal for rural motorists.

Labour’s warning about LibDem plans for savage cuts in public spending were dismissed as scare mongering.

Two months on and the LibDems need to answer some questions.

How is it fair to raise the income tax threshold, then take it all away again for low income families by raising VAT and slashing tax credits?

Why is it now fair for public sector workers to take the pain, instead of the bankers and financiers you lambasted in all your election literature?

What’s happened to all the promises of reducing rural fuel costs? The VAT increase next January will put rural fuel prices up not down and a pilot scheme to reduce rural fuel prices seems to have been kicked into the coalition long grass. See Peter Peacock’s latest comments here.

Why is Danny Alexander leading the charge to cut not just 25% but as much as 40% from government budgets? The Barnet Formulae will bring that home to Scotland next year. If times are already tough for Highland Council he is about to make it a whole load worse.

Labour would have had to make some tough decisions about public spending, but our approach was to get the balance right between reducing spending and raising income from economic growth as we came steadily out of recession. We would have reduced the deficit by 50% by 2014 without any of the ideologically driven pain now driven by the Tories and signed up to by the LibDems.

How is all this “Standing up for the Highlands”, Danny?

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