Originally published @ 11:10 pm, Sat 11th Dec 2010
I don't understand a lot of football punditry these days. Arsenal are in some kind of crisis but are top. Man City are in some kind of crisis but are second. Tottenham (who I like) are talking up their chances of winning the Premiership and the European Cup but are only drawing at Birmingham, and are fifth.
Lib Dem members' commentary is in a far worse state. They are in an absolute mess, just months after only 12 delegates voted against going into the coalition at a special conference.
And some sanctimonious stuff is being written to try to cover their tracks. 'Labour doesn't care about students'. Yeah, right, we only got record numbers of children into university.
Rather than sustain growth and only seek to reduce the deficit by a half in four years, the ConDems trying to remove the annual deficit completely in four years and are cutting hard in the first year when growth needs to biggest encouragement. The VAT increase in January is bound to hit sales and the fear has to be that the loss of revenues through a lower growth rate will leave us like Ireland, having to start again in eighteen months time. The plans reflect Tory fringe thinking that was calling for a 30% reduction of the state for some time.
For universities, an 80% cut in teaching grant is compromised by new terms on the tuition fees that actually require the state to take one a bigger deficit and by the ConDems deciding to take £1,400 million less in bankers' bonus.
The banking levy announcement came out on Thursday and was buried by the tuition fees debate. Chris Leslie, Nottingham East's MP and Labour Finance spokesperson has been trying to tell the media, but the message has not come across.
He even raised it in the Commons, but as one colleague once told me, if you want to keep something as a secret, discuss it in a speech in Parliament.
Meanwhile, the previous Nottingham East Labour MP, John Heppell, threw a thank you party on Friday night.
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