Field Floors Brown In 10p Tax Revolt

A last ditch bid to scupper New Labpour plans to impose a 10p tax levy on the poor could mark time for struggling Brown, as he faces up to a fresh challenge to his lamentable leadership.

Today's 10p tax rebellion sees an unholy alliance of around 30 decent Labour backbenchers, Tories and Lib Dems, led by veteran campaigner for the poor, Frank Field, out for revenge after being frozen out in his bid to become speaker.

With his bid to take the speaker's chair dashed as punishment for leading last year's 10p tax revolt and Brown's humiliating climbdown, Fearless Field has made no secret of his distaste for a so-called "Labour government" which is hell bent on hitting the poor.

Revenge could be a dish best served in the cold corridors of Westminster. Delivering a parting shot as he stood down as a speaker candidate, Field made it clear: "It just might be that those people who worked so hard to keep me out of the Speaker's chair, when they see the next campaign on the 10p, they might wish they'd put me in it."

Now with the vexed issue of 10p tax compensation raising its head again, Field has issued a rallying call: "This is the last chance for Labour MPs before the General Election to deliver justice to the 10p losers", claiming 1.3m people are losing out even today by £1 a week as a result of the abolition of the 10p tax.

As MPs prepare to vote on the entire government budget, the cross-party bid may not end in government defeat but could well end in a round of fumbled concessions, arm twisting and blackmail which once again casts doubt on Beleaguered Brown's authority.

The so-called Labour 'rebels' are thoroughly fed-up with their fag-end government. With millions of people on low incomes worse off since the change, New Labour is paying lip service in a pretence to protect the poor. As the Orange Party has said many times before - one person's 'rebel' is another person's true Labour MP.

But Bunkered Brown is having none of it, as MPs seek to secure compensation for everyone left worse off by the controversial abolition of the 10p income tax rate.

In a bizarre move for a supposedly 'Labour' government, chancellor Brown's final shot was to scrap the 10p starting rate for the poor in his 2007 budget to fund a 2p cut in the standard rate of tax for the better off.

Field's July revolt forced Brown to suffer a humiliating climbdown and sparked a fresh wave of leadership challenges, as the government was forced to come up with fudged compensation for those who lost out by the decision to scrap the lowest tax band.

Beleaguered Brown is braced for a fresh backbench revolt. A humiliating defeat could block the entire budget, screw up income tax collection and throw all the carefully laid economic plans into chaos.

But the Orange Party isn't holding its breath, despite backbench support and opposition backing. The fag-end government failure will be pulling out all the stops to head off defeat.

All leave has been cancelled as whips muster the troops and twist a few arms to toe the party line. Once again Northern Ireland's DUP will be cajoled to prop up the government. With backs against the wall, no doubt government pork-barrel sweeteners will be passed around to keep the swervers sweetly in line. If all else fails, there's always blackmail and the frighteners of Armageddon.

Even if the threatened revolt fails or manages to wring out some concessions with another heady mix of fudged figures, the spectacle of ministers digging in their heels makes a mockery of the government's bid to paint the Tories as the nasty party of cuts with a New Labour budget which would hit the poor.

Born-again Brown needs today's commons revolt like a hole in the head. But once again the deluded Supreme Leader has made it even worse, with a hotch-potch of measures brought in to try to fix a problem of his own making.

Whatever the outcome, the threat comes just before MPs break up for the summer holds to spend more time with their plotting pals.

Today's events will leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many decent Labour MPs, already fed-up, angry and depressed. And careless talk over Battered Brown's flagging leadership of a fag-end government is bound to erupt once again.

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Taken For A Ride In Quangoland

Taxpayers are being taken for a ride in quangoland. Now the Tories are hoping to sweep some away with another "bonfire of the quangos". But it'll be a tough job lighting the bonfire when the tentacles have spread everywhere.

In quangoland, the unelected and unaccountable face of New Labour touches everyone's lives with a worthless, useless and wasteful quango or three.

Cameron is promising to cut back the powers of unelected quangos to save cash and increase accountability as he tries to get to grips with post-election public spending. But a roaring bonfire is unlikely. More likely a few will be picked off to stoke up the public spending cuts fire.

He would not be the first opposition leader to call for a "bonfire of the quangos". Way back in 1995, bushy-tailed Brown, as shadow chancellor, famously promised a "bonfire of quangos", until that incoming government realised what a useful tool they were to mask public spending, hand out jobs for their pals, pass the buck and squander billions of pounds of taxpayers' cash.

The Tories won't fall into the trap of empty promises but sacking or reducing the numbers of quangos is a small step. Cost and accountability are equally important. Every little helps. But it's not just the size and cost of these nightmares to New Labour. At the heart is the issue of democracy, where the unaccountable are run by the unelected chosen ones.

Who's in charge in quangoland? Elected ministers hide behind unelected, unaccountable quangos knowing full well this arms length approach gets them off the hook. Stuffed with New Labour cronies at the top, ministers usually have an easy ride while the quango rides rough shod over people, passing the buck instead of sorting out problems.

Nowhere is this more shamefully and starkly evident than with schools secretary, Ed Balls, hiding behind faceless bureaucracy over the SATs fiasco and Baby P scandal.

In biology that would be called a symbiotic relationship. In a democracy it is called a disgrace leading to widespread cynicism and anger about the state of our public affairs.

Everyone's been quangoed. Officially there are a staggering 790 quangos in England and Wales squandering £34 billion. But that's just the tip of a masssive quangoberg. Where is the public scrutiny?

Hiding behind the organisation’s strange acronym, any kind of questioning is treated as meddlesome intrusion. People are fed up of being bossed around and patronised by arrogant and pompous jobsworths, not least by people with questionable levels of competence and changing goal posts.

Equally galling is the cosy relationships between the quangos and the big-name consultants and the way money is splashed around on life's little lavish lunches and luxuries.

The solution is simple. Cut out the expensive quangos and delegate responsibility straight back to local authorities, which are democratically accountable and tightly audited, overseen by a now sidelined civil service.

But adding 1,000 jobs to the civil service is not a "good thing". An increase in 1,000 quangocratic jobs goes at worst unnoticed and at best applauded.

Quangoland is a cure all for all the government's ills. Whatever the problem, if in doubt set up another quango. Inevitably the problem gets worse. But with a quango, a minister can show action with yet another body with a strange-sounding name and costly logo.

Keeping tabs on the rise of the quangos and getting to grips with the sheer numbers is no mean feat. A dirty job but someone had to do it as the government continues to stoke the quango fires.

Back in 2005, Dan Lewis from the Economic Research Council made a start with his Essential Guide to British Quangos.

Quango duplication is common. In 2005 Lewis estimated there were 529 "useless" quangos that either did very little or duplicated each other. That's on top of quangos that are working is direct opposition to each other in the crazy world of quangos.

But the main problem with quangos is not that they waste money but that they suppress democracy. The quango has developed into a tool to support the ruling political class where time and again the top jobs with obscene salaries and pension perks are handed out to government cronies knowing they'll toe the line.

At last there are signs of a proper debate on quangos, highlighting those that come up to scratch and those that do not. And if some do get the boot, all the quango-bashing will have been worth it.

Not to be outdone by the Tories, chief secretary to the treasury, Liam Byrne, reckons the government would review quangos to try to "make sure every penny of public money goes to frontline services". At a stroke that totally misses the point.

Quangos are an expensive and cumbersome extra layer of bureaucracy. What is needed is a less centralising and shadowy government that has more faith in local democracy and governance.

The government will do nothing to solve the problem, because at its heart New Labour prefers to rule by cronies, rather than democracy.

However, with Sir Alan Sugar set to climb aboard Brown's sinking ship, ministers could take Siralan’s lead. Time to say to some of the quangocrats, “You’re fired”.

Top graphic: Taxpayers' Alliance

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On The Right Track

A glimmer of hope is on the horizon for the country's costly railways shambles with the government stepping in to take over the troubled East Coast main line franchise. With jobs on the line, discredited rail privatisation in chaos and the country in the grips of economic recession depression, a little bit of nationalisation is a welcome relief.

With paper franchise holder National Express facing losses around £20m in the first half of the year, the East Coast main line has been offered a life-line from an unlikely socialist savour in the shape of transport secretary, Andrew Adonis, one of Blair's 357 political peers.

Casting MPs and parliament aside, unelected and unaccountable Adonis banged the drum for nationalisation, popping up bold as brass on BBC R4 to tell listeners the government is to take it into public ownership for "about a year" because he was not prepared to bail out the struggling rail operator.




Time and again the government has said it won't bail out rail franchises during the recession but rejected nationalisation. That always begged the question: what if a rail franchise came to breaking point?

National Express agreed to pay the government £1.4 billion to run the East Coast main line after it won the franchise from GNER. All part of a very dodgy banking deal, laid bare by the BBC's Robert Peston.

Since then cuts have been made in shareholder dividend and pay-outs, while 750 jobs have been lost.

Only recently the firm started to mug passengers with a new profiteering con to charge 'customers' £5 to reserve a seat, on top of the already astronomical fares.

National Express, Virgin Trains and their fellow train operating monopoly conspirators have plumbed the depths in their quest to wring every last penny from rail travellers.

But the government dismissed rail nationalisation, harking back to the bad old days of BR and a "joke" railway which became a laughing stock.

Tell that to passengers crammed for hours on a train that reeks of urinals, forced on to replacement buses during a never ending round of maintenance, with meaningless reliability targets using every trick in the book to fiddle the figures.

Of course the railways have to be "modernised" since BR was scrapped. But that shouldn't mean immoral reductions in quality and reliability in return for sky-high fares and a whopping taxpayer subsidy.

So why stop at the East Coast main line? Beardie Branson is making a fat personal profit from his unique guarantee against competition on the West Coast main line. Why should one railway be propped up by taxpayers and another allowed to milk passengers for profit and Beardie live in the lap of luxury?

The Orange Party has long been a supporter of public ownership for strategic public services. Setting up not-for-profit companies can work for the railways. As long as a government which couldn't run a whelk stall isn't in the driving cab.

A long-term solution to the chaos of discredited rail privatisation is staring the government in the face, not least for the future of the country's railways and lucrative franchises.

Time and again rail nationalisation comes up as an issue which would get public support. The Post Office and Royal Mail too could be transformed into not-for-profit companies. Investing in the future with public ownership would lift the spirits of economic recession depression.

Top picture: The Flying Scotsman BR publicity poster, 1962

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It's Still All In Dodgy ID Database

ID cards have bitten the dust in a whisper of lies, as the government clears the decks of controversy on the sinking ship. But only the compulsory plastic goes on the scrap heap. The sinister database, which lies at its heart, is sneaking in through the backdoor.

Determined the poisoned chalice of the home office won't be his graveyard, new home secretary, Alan Johnson, slipped in the scrapping of the compulsory ID card almost as an afterthought.

At a stroke, the government's hugely expensive and highly controversial scheme now joins the doomed Royal Mail sell-off and Trident left in limbo, as the fag-end government throws policies on the back burner in the run up to the election to take off the heat.

A welcome retreat but only half a U-turn here for the man who would be leader of Mandy's Party. The sinister database behind the scheme is left unscathed with moves to use passports to push in the scheme through the backdoor.

Johnson has left himself wide open to attack from Tories, LibDems and civil liberties groups with the most costly and controversial part of the scheme, the national identity database, alive and kicking civil liberties where it hurts most.

The big issue with ID cards was never about the cards themselves, it was the issue of compulsion and the massive database lurking in the background snooping around.

A database which has become a disturbing feature of the Big Brother state and the unrelenting quest for control over the individual.

Plans to make the cards compulsory have been dropped. Plans to foist the cards on airside workers and some pilots have been scrapped in the face of threatened industrial action.

The lame excuse that the cards would be a powerful weapon in the fight against terrorism? Forget it - that was a "mistake" anyway, blurted out a beaming Johnson.

But it's business as usual for the £5 billion project. Now entirely voluntary and a complete waste of taxpayers cash.

The Tories say they will kill off the cards and delete the database.

For all Johnson's politicking trying to win over support, he’s offered nothing to grass roots members who hate his guts as a Blair prop.

But what he has offered on a plate is a big stick for the Tories to beat the boys from the New Labour brand and renewed vigour for campaigners fighting for an end to the disgrace of the database.

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