Devo-Manc: Another Serious Power-Play

One of my perennial themes here has been: 

• governments have their hands on the biggest levers 
• a government strategist with a bit of creativity can always drive the agenda

Regrettably it is usually people like Mandelson who actually understand this.  Brown sort-of understood it, except he deployed it negatively in his 2009-2010 scorched-earth campaign, analysed by C@W at the time.  Anyhow, Osborne understands it too (and of course Crosby).

So now we see another serious power play, and it's well up in the creativity stakes (relative to the usual nonsense) - Devo-Manc and, in particular, the NHS-devo aspect dropped onto the unsuspecting Labour Party yesterday by Osborne.  Yes, he couldn't resist dropping this bombshell himself.

And yes, Labour has been comprehensively wrong-footed.  Oh how they hate devolution!  So now they must spend a week (out of the ten weeks remaining) cobbling together a response, which won't be easy because the Mancs (almost entirely Labour) are in favour.  (Hell, Andy Burnham - panicky and instinctively against it - is a north-west MP.)  And Tessa Jowell likes the sound of it for London.  And every regional newspaper will be majoring on it for weeks to come - even if the Gruaniad relegated what the New Statesman called the biggest story of the day to a sub-page on its labyrinthine website (oh how the lefties hate devolution).

We may confidently assume this initiative is part of a rolling barrage.  It wouldn't be difficult to bundle Mili off the field with the devo-bombardment alone, for which there is plenty more ammunition still to be fired: but I'm guessing that another flank will be opened up soon, to reinforce his lethal disequilibrium.

This is gearing up to be one of the great election campaigns.  It's not before time and I'm loving every minute.  There's no such thing as an election to lose.

ND

Scorched Earth Week: Badger's Last Stand against Brown and Balls

Poor old Alistair 'Badger' Darling,t his may very well be the last post I write about him as his ignominious career passes into history. If I was trying to be reasonable I would say that he had the worst inheritance as Chancellor of any of the previous occupants of No 11 Downing Street; at best he could be said to have done badly, at worst, utterly incompetently.

Still he has been defending himself and his record this week at the Donald Dewar memorial lecture (can anyone get a memorial lecture these days?). I note he has not defended the actions of the Labour Government. Instead his focus was on the decisions to save the banking system in 2008. Now as said earlier this week, this is true. Without bailing out RBS and HBOS we would have been finished. So well done for doing the bleeding obvious when there was no alternative. Less is said about the saving of the fraudsters at Northern Wreck or various other smaller institutions where illusory profits were generated to get payouts for top executives; all of which has cost the taxpayer billions.

On the key point of Scorched Earth though there are some very telling phrases. Commenters' so far this week have said that proof is needed of intent over incompetence, but what of this quote:

''By failing to talk openly about the deficit, and our tough plans to halve it within a four-year period, we vacated the crucial space to make the case for the positive role government can play.''

i.e. by lying about the situation they hoped to win the election. I like this piece from The Scotsman too:

"In the run-up to the final budget before the election, Mr Brown tried to sack Mr Darling and replace him with current leadership candidate Ed Balls after he refused to co-operate with him in setting out a "giveaway" package of measures designed to lure voters back to Labour.
The ex-chancellor later revealed that a frank assessment of the poor state of the UK's economy given in an interview had led to the "forces of hell" being unleashed by Downing Street.
Last month, Lord Mandelson revealed that during the campaign Mr Darling wanted to commit Labour to a VAT rise as part of a tougher set of measures to be put before the electorate in a bid to be more realistic about the deficit. According to the peer, it was vetoed by Mr Brown, who was said to be fearful of the electoral consequences."

I don't see how there is much wiggle room left from the above statements. The Chancellor was recommending VAT increases to deal with the deficit which was spiralling out of control, Brown and Balls were advocating more spending to win an election. By definition Darling knew this would make the situation worse for the UK - to some extent he helped to stop the worst excesses - but this proves that Brown and Balls wished to do anything to keep power. Of course at this point it was more realistic to think of a narrow defeat rather than victory; and of course, a terrible inheritance for the next Government.

Scorched Earth: Nero fiddled. Rome burned.

From the comfort of the BQ holiday sun-lounger ...
I read in the original post comments that some doubt that Mr Brown really was on a 'scorched earth' policy. Accidentally he may have pursued such a strategy, but not on purpose. The explosion in debt was just a by-product of the usual political machinations that have been going on since the 1960's when Tory chancellor of the exchequer, Reginald Maudling, left new chancellor Jim Callaghan a note saying..

"Good luck, old cock ... Sorry to leave it in such a mess." Similar to Liam Byrne's "There's no money left" .

But there is a very clear pointer to what was happening in the bunker. Gordon Brown was as convinced that spending was the way to win an election, as a more notorious dictator was convinced that retreat was defeat. Talk of cuts was like talk of surrender and could not be countenanced. Victory or death. When the end came for Germany's 12 year Social Democratic experiment the Fuhrer ordered :

1) All military transport and communication facilities, industrial establishments and supply depots, as well as anything else of value within Reich territory, which could in any way be used by the enemy immediately or within the foreseeable future for the prosecution of the war, will be destroyed.

He tasked this so called Nero Decree to his minister for the economy and loyal supporter Albert Speer. Speer decided that destroying every bridge, collapsing every mine and dynamiting every factory was too much and refused to do anything about it.

In 2008, during the height of the credit crunch not only did the PM insist the spending taps remain turned on , but that the taps be smashed off the spindles so they could never be turned off. He refused to accept cuts to spending programs and simply demanded more.
It was Alistair Darling, the good nazi, who said no. He knew that the recession was the worst in 60 years and that the boom was over. Northern rock had already gone down, yet when Darling said that we were in a damaging recession he had the 'forces of hell' unleashed upon him. There were calls for the chancellor to be sacked. He came under increasing pressure to resign over his expenses claims, when others who had similar did not.

The calls came from the usual Brown brusiers, Charlie Whelan and Damien McBride, instructed by Brown, according to Rawnsley's book. Up until then Darling was often referred to as a sock puppet chancellor {mostly by us} and for a while, the number two man in the government actually got the blame for the global recession.

In 2009, Mr Brown decided that the Chancellor would not do as he was ordered and despite Darling being the ablest of his ministers, decided to sack him and replace him with ultra loyalist Ed Balls. Does anyone believe that Ed Balls would not have carried out his bosses wishes, whatever the consequences? Even now, running for the Labour leadership himself, Ed Balls denies there is even a deficit problem.

As Guido reported Ed Balls saying just today “Halving the deficit in four years by cutting public spending… I think was a mistake. .. in 2009 I thought the pace of deficit reduction through spending cuts was not deliverable… I’m not happy to accept cuts in any part of the budget…”
It was only the dangerous Purnell coup that allowed the chancellor to remain. The price for Alistair's loyalty was for Brown to face facts, which he only paid lip service too until the next coup.

After the third failed coup in 2010 the chancellor had 'frank words' with the Prime Minister and insisted if Labour stays in office, the UK faces its toughest spending cuts for 20 years. Labour will "absolutely not" entertain a core-vote strategy at the election, "To me, cutting borrowing was never negotiable," the Chancellor added, before adding: "Gordon accepts that, he knows that."

And so the Nero Order, whatever it may have been, did not get enacted. A reduction in the lowest rate of income tax to zero to wipe out the disastrous 10p tax botch? A cut in VAT to 10% to prove that it worked the first time? To make good on that mad promise to make the UK the electric car producer of the world? But there can be little doubt that that was the chosen strategy and if the chancellor had been replaced in 2009, then all the taps in the house would have remained firmly on.

{reading the comments on the electric car - A classic from Scrobs.
"Its the economy 7 stupid"}

Scorched Earth Week: Energy

There is something paradoxical about identifying a would-be environmental policy as having ‘scorched earth’ characteristics. Nevertheless, NuLab’s setting of wilfully infeasible targets for emissions-reduction and renewable energy development, can have that effect. And, they seem to have scorched the brains of the Coalition to boot.

This has nothing to do with the ‘legally binding’ aspect of their targets, because upon examination it turns out (of course) that under the legislation the Secretary of State retains for himself the right to change the targets more or less at will. No, the threefold damaging aspects lie elsewhere.

1. the stymieing of extremely useful technology, to wit, the new generation (no pun intended) of ultra-efficient coal-burning technology which needs no subsidy to let it prosper, and which is the ideal replacement for old coal plant. All it needs is to be freed of the open-ended obligation to fit (or retro-fit) carbon-capture systems.

2. the dreadful and unnecessary cost we will be put to, when after years of hiatus in mainstream development, and expenditure on windfarms, solar arrays, and the whole panoply of remedial measures and monstrous feed- in tariffs needed to accommodate these inefficient toys, we finally need an emergency programme of new gas-fired plants to meet our needs.

3. worst of all, the looming trap of signing up to international ‘penalties’ for failure to meet the certain-to-fail targets. To be fair, NuLab was prevented from taking this one final insane step by the chaotic non-result of Copenhagen. But they greatly encouraged the ravening international-taxers by their manic willingness to sign up for ever more ludicrous commitments.

= = = = =

How badly scorched is this earth ? We are certainly doomed to a needlessly expensive resolution of the coming power-generation gap (see this blog passim). However, I’d say the greater problem is that NuLab’s enviro-policies seem to have scorched the brains of both the Coalition parties. The differences between all three manifestos in this area were mere matters of detail.

There is one glimmer in the gathering gloom: a recently-reported willingness in the Coalition to rethink the threatened Environmental Performance Standards for power plants, which are part and parcel of (1) above. Might this be the first sign of a U-turn ? More anon.

Otherwise, the prospects for near-term relief from these crazy policies depend on us being overtaken by highly undesirable events – energy prices so steep that it all becomes irrelevant; and/or a second round of recession/depression that so reduces energy demand, and our ability to pay for crazy green schemes, that once again it’s no longer an issue.

Not a happy prospect.

ND

Scorched Earth Week: Macro-View

Here at C@W we first did a post on Labour's Scorched Earth strategy in November 2007 - long before the financial crisis (and long before the phrase was being used more widely ;o) ).

Today I am going to see how credible this in. In that Post nick Drew wrote of the stupidity of trying to build too many houses, a useless energy policy and a proposal to make all children stay at school until 18. Typically uncosted measures from New Labour.

The real story though is in the macro-view of what Labour was seeking to do, especially after the economic collapse of 2008. The choice at this point was to repair the economy or to march on as if nothing had happened.

Here are a couple of graphs which provide some evidence:

This one is the UK budget deficit accrued each year as a percentage of GDP:

This second one shows the effect on the national debt of the recession.

Finally, the superb Nadeem Walayat shows the last forecasts made by Alistair Darling of the budget deficits, note the November 2008 forecasts, long after the recession had started.

From the above we can see that there was no attempt to reign in spending into the recession. Keynesiasm was tested in the 1970's and failed then monetarism was tested in the 1980's and worked. But Labour chose Keynesiam - but why? Could be that the spending was all on Labour votes? The two biggest recipients of public money are the NHS and the benefits system. Neither has faced any kind of reform, instead they have had spending increases in real terms for nearly a decade and this continued right up until Labour left office.

Rather than make cuts, Labour engaged in Quantitative Easing, a policy which did help to stabilise the economy (and may still yet do so if there is more), but was an alternative to reducing Government spending in 2008-10.

Then, as electoral doom approached, the foot was placed on the accelerator. For all the achievement of staving off financial doom in 2008 (and it was a possibility, mishandled still, but Darling and Brown at least did not fail in keeping the economic system alive), Brown and Darling saved the best till last in 2010. With the budget deficit out of control at 12% they simply put off a new spending round and changed the game to suit their electoral needs.

This last point is worth dwelling on, as there is no cogent explanation for this fudge at all, other than wanting to not discuss impending cuts and the serious situation the Country faced. it is the ultimate shoulder shrug to the people they were meant to be serving. I look forward to reading the memoirs of the two men to see what weasel words they can try and find to get out of this.

Finally, in the run up to the election, the years of spending to keep power meant that a last splurge was felt necessary. Both the Times and Guardian have decent lists of the last minute spending. Here the idea was to commit future Governments to spending that could not be easily reversed, making cuts in other, more essential areas, more likely.

It does seem as if that was all Labour new how to do, spend other people's money. They even had their own epitaph in the 'There's no money left' note left to David Laws. What is sick is that the joke was meant to be ironic.

Scorched Earth Week at Capitalists@Work

With a bow to it being 100 Days of Dave at the weekend, now is a good time to review one of the biggest criticisms laid at the door of the outgoing Labour Government. Here at C@W we proclaimed for more than 2 years before the election that the Government knew the game was up and were going to try their best to leave a terrible state of affairs for the incoming Tory Coalition administration.

From a pure party political perspective this makes perfect sense to do, it ensures that best chance of a one term administration and so a swift return to power from Opposition. From a national perspective it is a gross abuse of power which should really be a matter of treason. To accuse the Labour Party of being more interested in themselves than the Country is a big call, one which would be furiously denied by themselves at all costs.

So this week, amongst the usual posts, we are going to run a series of posts looking at the evidence for a Scorched Earth policy and see what has actually been left for the new Government.

Who would have thought it?

The Times have a story about the outgoing government rushing through legislation and signing up to impossible contracts.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, said: “I fear that a lot of bad news about the public finances has been hidden and stored up for the new government. The skeletons are starting to fall out of the cupboard.”

John Pienaar is discussing it now on R5. His guest says this is all spin. That the Tories are preparing us all for big cuts by saying 'Oh no..look what we've found.' That is probably true but I wonder if there isn't a lot more to it.

One former adviser to the schools department said there was a deliberate policy of “scorched earth”. “The atmosphere was ‘pull up all the railways, burn the grain stores, leave nothing for the Tories’,” he added.

I read about it first, here, in November 2007
when Nick Drew wrote about it. CU has posts too {that I can't locate at the moment.}

I admit to initially being sceptical. Gordon had only become PM in June!
Labour were incompetent, reckless and misleading but to actually set out to damage the next administration? That would be Treason wouldn't it?

Labour throwing the election thanks to scorched earth policies

On this blog the three contributors have long been in agreement that the Labour Government knew the game was up on New Labour a long-time ago. As such they decided to make things as rough for the Tories as possible.

Labour new from 1997 the benefit of taking over an economy that was in good shape. It brought them another election victory subsequently and the Conservative opposition could do nothing about it.Then in 2005, when the economy they had inherited was burdened too much by public debt, they simply borrowed money at the top of the good economic cycle to hoodwink the voters. That set Labour up for the 2005 victory.

Now in 2010, the world is in deep crisis. Think of some of the headlines of the Greek Crisis, VAT up to 23%, public sector real wage cuts of 16%. Any country will do well to survive such measures as a democracy.

In the UK the Government knows full well the tab it has run up. That is why there has been no discussion about its record in the campaign, which rests solely on attacking the prospective Tory Government. This is not a strategy designed to win, but designed to lose with core vote intact...able to come back in 4 years time when the country will feel like blaming the new Government.

Times move quickly I note in the US that Barack Obama is blamed for making the recession worse by many of his opponents. He came to power in the middle of the crisis, entirely caused by political and economic mistakes of many years before his period of office.

Tory Bear also has a great list of the Labour Party mistakes of last week. A few would be a coincidence, but this is the worst run campaign I have ever witnessed and has been years in the making/planning. This just does not sit right.

Of course, as Labour are incompetent, they no doubt failed to see the rise of the Lib Dems; neither did anyone else. This makes their strategy more risky, but ultimately more lucrative too if things go right. If we end up with a Lib-Con Government, then Labour will be the official opposition and afforded that base to work with. The downside is that a narrow Tory win and big gains for the Lib Dems will see Labour have to work hard to re-assert themselves as a party of more than the inner city immigrant and Northern non-working classes.

Labour have seen the books though, others too. Mervyn King's slip of last week is a classic - he can see the same as Labour. They never wanted to win it and it is really starting to show. It will be interesting to see how this political strategy plays out for them over the next parliament.

What was said at the economy debate?

I only have seen highlights; from what I have seen though a massive side-step away from any admittance of the truth of what is to come.

Two things now strike me: Labour, having had a successful scorched earth policy, are trying to throw the election.

Secondly, The Tories are going to win on Labour's terms - when they have to enact horrible policy they may end up hated for a generation. Will Cameron's be lucky enough to find his own Falklands before his term runs out?

Keep on troughing; MP's and their client state friends

So today the MP's of our country have announced they are to get a 1.5% pay rise. In the new Labour way, this has been decided by one of those 'independent' Quango's. To go with MP's, Doctors and Dentists are also getting 1.5%.

Hands up in the private sector anyone who got 1.5% last year or expects to get anything this year? Hmm, thought not.

Personally, not inclduing when I change jobs, I have had 3 payrises in 14 years ( OK, I have learned of the need to change job alot to compensate!).

But really with the country needing to slash at least 10% off it spending over the next two years, this is a disgrace.

It's a typical charade for the Labour Ministers, shortly to be slung out of power in all likelihood, saying they won't take a payrise they will never see; but also to award Doctors and Dentists, two professions who pay has skyrocketed over the Labour years is just insane. See this article on Doctors pay in Scotland increasing 38% over the past 3 years alone. Look at the very enlightening market oracle graph!

Chalk up another scorched earth policy designed to bring the IMF in to run the country ever more quickly.

Have a Care, Ed Miliband

In April Ed Miliband seemed to have squared the circle between maintaining some potentially problematic green positions, and keeping the lights on. In a neat bit of realpolitik he ruled that only ‘carbon-capture ready’ new coal plants would be granted approval – but set the CCR bar really low, maximising the chances that some much-needed new coal plants will actually get built.

It seems however that he’s not content with this clever stroke: he’s out to consultation on a material extension of CCR, and in grave danger of overdoing things.

“New coal fired power stations should only be given consent in the UK if they demonstrate CCS on at least 300MW net (around 400MW gross) of capacity from day one. Each demonstration project would have to store 20 million tonnes of CO2 over 10-15 years. The proposed framework recognises that CCS demonstration will only proceed with Government intervention. A financial incentive funded by electricity suppliers will support up to four commercial-scale CCS demonstrations in the UK”

CCS means actual carbon-capture-and-storage; and “funded by electricity suppliers” means of course that they will be responsible for levying us all to fund these demonstration projects.

Arguably, Machiavelliband may still have a weasel in mind:

“We expect operators to make all reasonable efforts to maximise the operation of the full chain of a CCS demonstration”

As any lawyer will tell you, “reasonable efforts” implicitly recognizes economic reality, and falls a long way short of “best endeavours”. But then he ups the ante significantly:

“If operation of commercial-scale CCS proves to be particularly difficult or costly**, there is a risk that operators will choose not to make reasonable efforts to operate [the demonstration project] … We would not consider this to be acceptable … our initial preference is … the [entire] power station should not be allowed to continue operation”

And so it goes on. Consult away, Ed, but don't expect private companies to invest on that basis. It begins to look more like one of Brown’s scorched earth strategies than intelligent energy politics.

ND


** which isn’t hard to envisage when, on the government’s own numbers (see above), it takes 400 MW of gross CCS capacity to yield 300MW of output, i.e. 25% is required just to run the CCS !

Defending Ed Balls for Chancellor..

In 2007 Ed Balls was an outside bet to be made Chancellor of the Exchequer in the new government of all the talents. A massive promotion for the most junior of Treasury Ministers . But Balls had long been a loyal apparatchik to the great helmsman.

Commentators thought he would be a disaster. Despite being a better economist and a better politician than Darling, he suffered the exact same lack of communication and lack of empathy and personal skills and boorishness that afflicted his master. He also possessed the same tribalism, bias, partisan party loyalty and above all arrogance. The city thought little of him.
John Rentoul at the Independent, almost alone,wrote that Balls should be Chancellor. Iain Dale had a nice line on Rentoul's piece.

" Rentoul comes up with all sorts of historical justifications for it, all sorts of quotes praising Mr Balls and meets all the objections to him head on, bar one. And that is that Ed Balls is, well, a bit rubbish."

It was rumoured that it was Balls/Cooper who were pushing Gordon Brown to call the earliest of early elections. They would capitalise on a Tory government in disarray, a honeymoon period, the defeat of the Blairites, the removal of Blair himself and gaining from a big bounce in the polls.
In the end it proved a poor decision that began the demise of Brown.
However this should not detract from the fact that Ed Balls was right. Brown should have called an election. It would have headed off a lot of the problems he faces today.
Balls understands strategy.

Balls has developed. He has powerful contacts. Look at how little his own second home claims have featured. The Mackay/Kirkbrides hounded from office. Balls/Cooper barely rates a mention. That is not an accident. Its contacts. The Times ran "ED BALLS, the schools secretary, used Damian McBride,to smear ministerial rivals and advance his own ambitions," Anyone remember? Did it harm him? Ed Balls has that political savvy.

As the schools minister he said sorry for baby P, way, way in advance and at odds with the PM. Minutes before at PMQ's Cameron was actually flinging papers in anger at Brown for his lack of human feeling over the death of the child. Gordon Brown wouldn't say sorry. He accused Cameron of making political capital from the death. The Prime minister gave one of his worst ever, slab faced, boring, robotic, unsympathetic readings of a prepared statement. {youtube pmq's 12/11/08}.
Ed Balls has said sorry many times. And said it with enough contition for it sound genuine.

Ed Balls has not had much success as Schools Minister. The Sats for 14 years olds disaster. The pointless "parenting contracts" , the lack of funding for 17, 18 years olds staying in school. "So What?" The list is long, the successes few, the failures many.

But Ed Balls is a political animal in the same mould, from the same streets as Brown, McBride, Watson and Campbell.. At this time, at the end of this government, this is probably what Brown needs. He has lost his street bruisers. His whips aren't whipping. McBride has gone.Tom watson is going. He needs a powerful brawler. Someone who knows that if the ship sinks, then he sinks with it. Politically its just the right thing to do. Brown's enemies are plotting. Upsetting Blairites and backbenchers is hardly a problem now. Its scorched earth time. Alistair Darling finally defies the PM at the last budget and said NO." No, there is no more money. No more money for 20 years!"Ed Balls may not be so worried about finding some stimulus money and the Prime Minister has an opportunity to tip Mr Darling into a face saving, "reward for a tough job" position at the recently vacant Home Office.

In the Prime Minister's words,
"Its the right thing to do."

Well the right thing for him. If its right for the country though...?

We started the fire

On reading the Times yesterday I cam across George Osborne's exact broadside against Brown over the currency devaluation. This has got Brown very hot under the collar, it is copied below:

Mr Osborne suggests that Mr Brown “doesn’t care” how much he borrows. “His view is he probably won’t win the next election. The Tories can clear this mess up after I’ve gone. That is deeply irresponsible. It’s a scorched-earth policy, which I think the history books will write up as a total disaster and which the public will see through between now and the election.”

Both Nick Drew and I started this theme of Scorched Earth a year ago. We even had unfunded tax cuts as a key policy idea for this. A bit of google history searching shows The Speccie linked to us and took on the idea and from there it went mainstream.

Glad to know we can indirectly get up the PM's nose when he is in such bombastic posture.

Made It Ma ! Top-of-the-World Brown Fans the Flames

A year ago we started calling Brown's wretched scorched-earth policies: from aircraft carriers to polyclinics, through uncontrolled immigration and raising the school leaving age, the list is long and inglorious.

But now he's really decided to fan the flames, with tax cuts based on borrowing, as Tony McNulty kindly confirmed this afternoon.

With his hubristic proclamations and eerily fixed grin Brown reminds me of no-one so much as James Cagney in the grim finale of White Heat, as he mounts the gas-tank, announces himself Top of the World, and opens fire.

We are not cinema-goers, however, but victims, and we will all feel the blast when this balloon goes up.

ND

Summer meltdown

Fresh back from my holiday I was unsurprised to see the August weather in full British mode of perpetual rain and misery.

On the other hand I was thinking it would be good to see a real summer meltdown to improve things.


Sadly in this case it is the nations finances in meltdown and not anything meteorologically related.

Tomorrow the latest figures for the PSBR will be released and the Government thinks the debt will reach £43 billion this year. However, this is likely to be out by at least 20%. The government has predicted economic growth at 100% above the private sector economists forecasts.

The graph above form the ONS shows the year to date picture of the public sector finances. Not pretty reading is it?

A few months ago I wrote that he Government could be engaged in a Scorched Earth policy to ruin the country and damn the Tories to a very difficult time in office. On reading Yvette Cooper today and listening to the Government in general I am more and more convinced that this is the case.

Either that or they really are all a bunch of incompetent numpties....

The Scorched Earth Strategy Rolls On

“This is a green revolution in the making... It is the most dramatic change in our energy policy since the advent of nuclear power". (Gordon Brown)

And presumably quite urgent ? Well apparently not.

While I was abroad last week the clunking Renewables Strategy paper was published, as trailed, and it turns out to be merely a consultation exercise, to inform measures that will be put in place next year. For those who believe the ‘revolution’ to be vitally necessary, this is like opening a 9-month consultation in September 1939 on what might be done in response to Herr Hitler’s encroachments in Poland.

Reading between the lines, it’s fair to say the authors of this document clearly have no realistic expectations of the UK’s share of the EU renewables target being met ("in a market economy, policy alone cannot guarantee outcomes"). Unlike the ‘legally binding’ approach adopted to the UK CO2 emissions targets - whatever that might mean in practice - no such strictures are being adopted on renewables.

And, let’s be clear, this is another of the Cluncker’s scorched earth measures. This strategy will cost us all a lot of hard £££ (3% of GDP is probably the most realistic estimate), but not just yet. Here’s the key sentiment in the document:

“costs will translate into higher energy prices, but the impacts will not be felt until after 2010 … There will be no immediate impact on bills. The impact will increase as 2020 approaches and our renewable deployment rises, particularly post 2015”

Now, remind me – when is the next General Election to be held ? Ahhh, I see ...

ND

Energywatch - See the Future

Normally I leave the energy posts to Mr Drew, but he is otherwise engaged in the sordid business of earning filthy lucre.

We had a post a few weeks ago on the scorched earth tactics Labour could employ to leave a terrible inheritance for the next government. High on the list was a ruinous energy policy.

Well today we have had a glimpse of the future;

- Power cuts as too much energy was demanded from the System

- Poor results from British Energy because of inoperable Nuclear Plants (glad I dumped that stock last month)

- Gordon Brown demanding more North Sea oil production even though he was the one to limit it through huge tax levies on exploration in the area

- Record petrol prices for drivers

- A fuel protest by hauliers in London yesterday

- A front page evening standard article declaring domestic average gas bills could soon reach £1000 a year

- A clean up bill for our past Nuclear plants estimated at £73 billion; yet we need a whole new generation.

This is indeed a disturbing picture, our energy crisis could start in just a couple of years if more nuclear plants go offline due to problems with the ageing equipment. Yet we are poorly placed to build more and their economic justification is not clear - do they really compete with oil even at $125 oil?

The government has left energy strategy on the shelf for its entire 10 years in power. This is yet another disgrace and one that we are now paying for dearly when you look at the list above.

Scorched Earth UK

Things are getting out of control for the Government at the moment and the media and blogs are full of febrile ideas; how to get rid of Gordon being the main one.

However, as we all know deep down, Labour are unlikely to find courage in amongst their lack of convictions and we will be stuck with Brown until 2010.

As the momentum shifts away there will be a damage limitation strategy – damage to the Labour Party that is. Instead the Government will turn to the idea of wrecking things for the incoming Conservative administration.

Private Eye likes to caricature Brown as Stalin and he could copy the ogre in this regard.

Here are my 5 thoughts for upcoming policies which could cause huge long-term damage to the next government and so potentially place Labour well for a renewed grasp at power in 2014/15;

1. Spending – Keep doing it, perhaps even with some tax cuts. The public finances will then be in such a mess, with PFI, public sector pensions to be taken into account too, that the Tories will have no room for manoeuvre and will be castigated by the OECD, EU etc for the poor financial state of the economy. A financial straight jacket will have been created.

2. Move inflation measure to from CPI to RPIX – This would overnight change the mandate of the Bank of England, pushing inflation statistics 2% higher. Interest rates would have to rise, causing pain in the economy. Look for this to be done at the end of 2009 for maximum effect on the new government

3. Proportional Representation for Elections – The Left could try this one, to deny a Tory government ever getting into power. It would please the Lib Dems too. Seems crazy, but when men get desperate…could this keep Brown in No. 10?

4. Deliberate inaction on Energy Policy – With no new Nuclear build or coal stations built, the Country could face a serious energy crisis by the middle of the next decade. Although labour’s fault, it would be deep into a Tory government and what government could survive the lights going out…

5. Further Nationalisations? – A huge cost (see point one) and would leave a nightmare of complexity. They could do private schools or the railways – re-assuring the core Labour vote for opposition and leaving a dog’s dinner for the Tories.

I am sure there are plenty of other more subtle or clever ways they could perform a scorched earth strategy. Answers in the comments and I will do a follow-up post to analyse.

The Scorched Earth Strategy of Impossibility Brown

I will do such things — what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth

Gordon Brown is a fretful, brooding man, and his frustration is unbearable. By choice he would now be plotting the downfall of the Tories on a battleground of his own choosing 18 months hence. In practice (barring mental breakdown in the interim), he knows he will be cornered and humiliated in 2010.

Subliminally if not consciously, his thoughts are turning to a scorched earth strategy. Evidence ? The reckless and utterly infeasible goals he now proposes – an unachievable house-building programme, one million of which to be ‘zero carbon’! but still affordable to the masses; an equally impossible range of energy and emissions targets which are to be ‘legally binding’, whatever that could possibly mean; & raising the school leaving age to 18. “Designed to show he is focused on the long term and will not buckle in the face of negative headlines.”

These are not the programmes of a man who expects to be around to be judged on their success or failure, but rather bear-traps for his enemies, be they Cameron or Miliband or the less corporeal terrors that torment him.

Trotskyites, whose concern is the collapse of bourgeois society, are wont to make ‘impossibilist’ demands. Prime Minster Brown is embarking on destructive, impossibilist programmes: and he wields considerably more power with which to cause damage thereby than any British Trot ever did.

ND