Today's PMQs clash over Baby P naturally pushed an important item off the comment agenda: James Purnell's announcement that the Post Office will keep its card account worth £1 billion.

Inside Housing magazine reports here that Housing Minister, Margaret Beckett, is actually considering proposals by the Chartered Institute of Housing (of all people) to end lifelong social housing tenancies.

I covered this appalling suggestion here last month. The idea is that all tenancies should be flexible and subject to review. So if you are a social housing tenant (an ugly term, I wish we could think of something better?) gets a better paid job or their kids leave home, they face eviction? Leaving aside for now, that this would result in modern day social housing ghetto’s which are only inhabited by the very poor and the desperate.

Conservativehome has posted an article by the leader of Southampton Conservatives arguing the road to victory is via a radical right-wing platform.  Only, apparently, it was never meant for publication...

I RARELY write as a transport minister on transport issues; this is a personal political blog. However, one of my regular readers has suggested I respond to John Redwood’s piece about transport on his blog, and for once, I’m more than willing to do so.

Michael Gove unveils his plan to privatise schools in the Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/education/2825885/Tory-plan-for-biggest-educatio n-expansion-in-generations.html

Does this mean that we are happy now to sell the minds of our young people to the highest bidder who comes along?  What about a country wishing to use petro-dollars to promote salafism here or another organisation to promote creationism?  Who determines the curriculum?

What does not for profit mean?  Can the directors or headmasters extract funds via "salaries" higher than are reasonable?  Can I extract funds out of these organisations via the "award" of contracts?

How will the funding system cope with this?  Can they select students and choose which ones they can make a profit on and reject those that they will make a loss on? Can they select on the basis of ability, religion or race? 

What happens when this adds even more spare spaces into the system?  Can they make hostile takeovers of other schools and generate a monopoly in an area?  What happens when they run out of backers and go under?  Does the local authority then have to step in?

What are the restrictions on the right to practice?  Do they have minimum quality threshold, what happens if they fail?

Who are these parents who are setting up these schools.  Can we all club together to pay ourselves the school fees and teach from home (actually they will give us a building as well so we could all become "caretakers" and get a free house as well)?

The plan is to create smaller schools, does that mean that the concept of economies of scale are now lost on the tories?  Do they have any concept of the IT costs and estate costs of schools and the level of investment that is required in running a successful quality management programme?

Ultimately what is the point of having state education if the tories are not prepared to run it?  Why not just scrap the state school system and give every parent £6,000 per child per year?

We do not need any more school places, what we need is an improvement in the ones we already have.

If this is the tories idea of sound business principles then they really need to get back to the classroom.  If I own shares in a company and the company is not up to scratch I sack the management.  I don't build an additional company from the bottom up to see if I might recoup my money that way.

Apparently Gove picked this up on a tour of Sweden, well all I can say is no wonder their tax bills are so high out there as they are wasting half their funding before they start.

as detailed in the Guardian

It is often said that New Labour are just Tories. I'm disappointed in the government for not showing its left-wing policies. Furthermore, they too often make right-wing noises on welfare, taxation, the uber-rich, prisons and immigration.

But if you want a more accurate defenition of this government, I suggest to you what I've done: don't listen to anything the government SAYS. Ever. Look at what they do.

There is an older group in our party, who can maintain Campaign group style scepticism of American foreign policy, or Europe, but who have firm anti-fascist credentials. People like Harry Barnes, Ann Cryer and Dave Anderson can maintain scepticism of our foreign policy, but do not pretend that even when a repugnant Republican administration is in power, that the United States is the enemy. They do not fail to criticise both sides, and understand that Islamic jihadism is a form of modern day Naziism. They understand that sectarian warfare wouldn't just be solved with a United Ireland, or giving Bin Laden "what he wants" (does that include Spain? Will a misogynist, gay hating anti-semite who says that the worst act commited in the West is Clinton's affair with Lewinsky suddenly declare peace if we withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan?). They seek to make sure that we defeat Islamic fundamentalism with aggression in our hearts, rather than through weapons. They care more deeply about rebuilding Iraq, and defeatin World Bank neo-liberalism than saying "See? Told you."

It seems to me, that because of our foreign policy, the left will not endorse any left-wing domestic policy (or they endorse it quietly, or worse, ignore it). It perhaps gives a justification to the government, to continue with triangulation. But let us run through why this government, while it can be more left-wing in many areas, is still on the left.

I'm driven day by day, further into disbelief, when I see that the government thinks by talking right, they'll win votes. Our core voters had never been seeked out for political retribution before, but with the 10p tax rate, they found a reason to think of Labour as bad as, if not worse than the Tories. Our supreme electoral coalition has disintegrated. The only way we will win, is by uniting our natural coalition, stretching from metropolitan liberals, to working class socialists.

Sweden has many lessons to offer. Their current PM, is who David Cameron bases himself on. The government were convinced that the Social Democrats loss in 2006 was a result of centre-left policies. But again, the parallels to Britain are striking. They wanted to kick out a leader who had been looking tired, and had been running the country for 10 years.

If Brown is radical, he can shake off this old, tired milieu that seems to haunt him. I said the other day that the time had come for a Labour revolution. Brown can lead it if he is successful. He needs a right-to-buy, or an NHS to get him to win.

He should stand on the doorstep of No. 10, and say, "I have persued the policies of Thatcherism, and they haven't helped the citizens of this country when they are already worrying about the economy. I am sorry for the 10p tax fiasco, and the failure to adequately tax the super rich. I am sorry for the civil service cuts that have lead to data losses, and the lack of financial regulations that have exacerbated fears about the economy.

I have to take tough decisions in this job. The era of cheap fuel is over. I know it's difficult to hear, but we do need higher taxes to make public services excellent. I, like the opposition leaders, have persued the same undiluted ideology for too long. It is only Labour though, that has the philosophy to correct many of these mistakes.

So I announce to you today, that I'm not going to cut fuel tax. But, what I will do, is use every penny, and I mean every penny, to subsidise public transport. I will use windfall taxes on polluting companies, to fund a new global project to find renewable sources, which I hope my colleagues across the world will join me in funding. I want a world without nuclear weapons, and we must engage other countries, to start the process of multilateral non-proliferation. I will stop the tax breaks on the super-rich, and will redistribute much of those taxes to the lower paid in our society. Not only is it morally the right thing to do, it is economically prudent. I will place more regulations on the financial markets, to stop exploitation of the British people.

I am not going to promise the British people the world. But it is my duty, in the name of social justice, to help them. We're all going to have to be a bit disappointed with pay checks, and prices, but I will do my best with the tax system, to ensure the well off aren't profiting at the expense of most Britons. We do need higher taxes, but it can get us excellent public services. I said in 2003, that Labour is "Best when we are boldest". Let Labour fulfil this promise."


Of course, perhaps he can say this in a less blunt way. But we need a radical path. The only way to lift the fake liberal mask covering David Cameron, is to persue a bold agenda. It has to be a bold progressive agenda. It seems to be universal childcare to me, that will guarantee Labour a couple of more terms, like right-to-buy guaranteed Thatcher 3 successive election victories.

Mostly though, it will not be radical policies, but the general state of affairs that will determine his legacy. I support the current polyclinic plan, but we shouldn't hear 'Reform. Reform. Reform.' constantly. The NHS has drastically improved, but the bread and butter issues of more doctors, more midwives, more nurses, more funding etc. should be the key battleground. I remember reading an article by Polly Toynbee (04/01/08) which showed the model of the Nottingham University Hospital Trust, a model I think we should follow, as it showed that it is not reshaping the beaurocracy, but the attention to the patients that has dramatically improved the hospital. The NHS defines my support for Labour, and I think the model of this hospital should be copied throughout the NHS.

On some levels, he needs radical new policies, and on other matters, he needs to stop pretending that his policies are radical. I think Brown can win, and we can cement Labour's place in government for a long time.