Further proof voters have stopped listening to Gordon Brown and Labour

The row over the Daniel Hannan and the NHS has provided the Government with a rare opportunity among the never ending gloom to put some real pressure on the Conservatives over their plans for the NHS if they were elected but is seems their strategy hasn’t has the desired effect if a new opinion poll is to be believed with more people trusting the Conservative to run the NHS than Labour.

Voters have had days and days of Government Ministers and Labour MP’s telling them that the NHS is under fire from the Tories who want an American style health care system with insurance which some Conservatives do believe in but not enough to derail David Cameron is seems, but when you have the likes of Andy Burnham the Heath Secretary going totally over the top in media interviews about this story putting the Tories on the ropes and it showing the real face of the Tory Party it has the opposite effect and turns people off the valid points the Government has to put across .

It maybe just one poll but it tells the bigger story of British Politics and shows the Labour Party still hasn’t learned its lessons with the polls continuing to be dire and a the media continuing to be hostile. Maybe they are going to have to get wiped out at the General Election to truly realise that no one is believing or listening in many cases to what they say anymore.

It also says much about the state of the Government/Labour Party that an opportunity to put pressure on the Conservatives only came about as result of the debate in America about Health Care Reform in the first place.

SNP and Conservatives the plot thickens

There’s lots of coverage of the rights and wrongs of the Lockerbie Bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi release today, but the story has also given us some insight into the relationship between the Tories and the SNP and how it might work when the Conservatives are in Government after the next election.

Over at the Guardian blog the issue of independence is raised.

Could independence turn out to be a convenient answer for them both?

But it will be worth watching the cross-party steering group set up by Scottish secretary Jim Murphy to build on the report of the Calman commission on devolution, particularly the decision it takes on devolving further tax-raising powers to Scotland(and, critically, adjusting Whitehall spending accordingly so that Scotland starts to raise more of its own money).
It met first in June but is only now really getting down to work, and is actively considering not whether that balance of taxation should shift but how soon it can be done. Murphy is said to want to push it along before the election campaign gets into full swing (and I guess before the byelection in Michael Martin's old seat next month).

Westminster might not swallow full independence, but financial independence for Scotland during a public spending crisis where every pound counts might suit the next government just fine, whatever its political colouring.

This point among other is also raised by Fraser Nelson at the Spectator

Given this fledgling alliance, a Tory victory in the general election would bring Mr Salmond a chance to achieve a long-standing nationalist goal: financial independence. For some time, nationalists in Westminster have been quietly cultivating Tories who are known to resent the level of subsidy sent to Scotland (public spending per head is still 24 per cent higher than south of the border). They propose a new settlement. Why not set Scotland’s budget at whatever Scotland raises in tax? This is, after all, how the Basque country deals with Spain. Several Tories, including many on the front bench, are interested.

What is unusual about the growing Tory–SNP axis is that each side thinks they are fooling the other. Mr Salmond argues that, by exploiting the Little Englander side to the Tory party, he can take Scotland nine tenths of the way to independence. The Tories who support fiscal autonomy see a rare chance of getting rid of the cost of Scotland and being thanked for it — by a First Minister who is deluded enough to think that he would win from such a deal.

p.s. Congratulations to all those in the Total Blogs Welsh List and thanks to those who voted for this one as its only a few months old it’s nice to know you care.

Is Ireland such a bad example after all?

Critics and Opponents of Plaid Cymru and the SNP’s took great pleasure in watching the so called ‘arc of prosperity’ Ireland, Iceland and Norway held up by the two parties as successful small nations suffer immense difficulties in the current recession. For critics it took away a major plank of nationalists political argument for independence proving that small nations couldn’t survive financially in the Global Economy and left Plaid Cymru and the SNP struggling to counter with credible arguments.

So today’s USB Bank report on Prices and Earnings shows that Dubliners are among the highest paid not just in Europe but in the World will be of some comfort to Plaid Cymru and the SNP no doubt. According to the report Dubliners enjoy the fourth highest purchasing power relative to net income and workers in Dublin need to work for 15 minutes to pay for a Big Mac, nine minutes for a kilo of bread, and 10 hours for an iPod nano.

It seems the slide of the pound on the International money markets is causing London to fall down the rankings, it is ranked at the second most expensive city in the world to live after Oslo.

Enough of the reports, where’s the action folks?

The research from the Policy Exchange about unemployment reaching 6 million has made a big splash and created some troubling headlines for the Government on their economic and social justice records over the past 12 years. It will give the Opposition a headache as well about how to tackle the problems if they win the next Election as many predict, but should these figures be that surprising we are still in the middle of the worst recession for 60 years and according to those in the know unemployment at any point in time is at least double the official figure.

Both Labour and Conservative Governments have talked tough about the need to reduce the dole cue and the amount we spend on welfare and tried through various schemes to get people back to work with mixed results, but they soon realise it’s easier to massage the unemployment figures by creating new categories of the unemployed than to actually do the spade work that will help in the medium and long term.

So instead of ever more research on the grim unemployment situation from Think Tanks that tell us what we already know. I wonder if there is any chance any of the parties start seriously tackling the issues of lack of jobs, education opportunities and other barriers that hold people back head on and help people back to work, which in turn will reduce the Department of Work and Pensions Budget over time.

With close to a tenth of the population out of work no politician of any stripe can afford to be complacent on the issue of unemployment.

The real progressives None of the Above

A new survey from PoliticsHome following last week debate over who owns the title of the most progressive party in UK politics shows that Labour is considered the least progressive of the main stream parties with just 12% of those asked agreeing.

While the poll showed the Tories and Lib Dems tied on 22% of people who said they were progressive they shouldn’t get too excited because 35% of people in the same poll when asked said none of the parties were progressive.

It’s no real surprise as progress means modernising and reforming rather than the usual parking of tanks on their opponents lawns which takes very little political thought or skill, it will be a while before any of them get to claim the progressive mantel and we the voter will suffer in the mean time.

Robin Williams on Bush & Obama