Oxfordshire County Hall: David Cameron’s own council was the first to complain about cuts to local government.

Living in rural Wales, This Writer is aware of the cuts’ effect on council services. If this is due to losses of just four per cent, I’m the Pope.

It does support the rural Tories’ point, however. If Powys is suffering on a four per cent cut, then what of rural England.

Sadly, it seems a little late for these MPs to complain about it. Where were they when the cuts were first discussed? Why didn’t they say anything at a more appropriate time?

Did they really think their constituencies would not be affected?

Or did they think they could fool their voters into thinking that the effect would not be as bad as it is?

David Cameron is facing the prospect of a major backbench Tory rebellion over planned cuts to town hall budgets, amid claims that rural areas are being unfairly targeted.

Up to 50 MPs are understood to have signed a letter demanding changes to the Government’s proposed settlement with local government, which was published last month.

Senior backbencher Graham Stuart, the former chairman of the Education Select Committee, has been named by a number of Tory MPs as the “shop steward” leading the “rural resistance” to the cuts.

The letter calling for shire councils to be given more money has been sent to the Communities Secretary, Greg Clarke, before a final deal is laid before the Commons within the next fortnight.

One Conservative MP said: “There are a lot of us who are absolutely furious about this. We accept the need for cuts, but it’s about fairness. How can it be right that rural councils are facing cuts of 33 per cent, but urban areas – where it is cheaper to provide services – are facing a reduction of just 19 per cent? In Wales, it’s just 8 per cent and Scotland 4 per cent.”

Source: Fifty Tories line up to defy David Cameron over town hall cuts | UK Politics | News | The Independent

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John McDonnell’s tax return.

This could be very embarrassing for our tax avoidance-loving Chancellor.

Here’s what Mr McDonnell – Osborne’s shadow in the House of Commons – has to say:

Since the Chancellor tweeted that the tax deal he struck with Google was a “major success” – despite potentially meaning an effective tax rate of around three per cent when most small businesses pay 20 per cent – many taxpayers will now be feeling angry when they fill in their forms.

When I heard about the Google tax deal, I immediately called for full disclosure and transparency of the deal, but George Osborne has refused.

Then the Prime Minister refused to support his Chancellor’s view that it was a “major success”.

This led to George Osborne spending the past week in hiding.

The Chancellor, the politician with sole responsibility for setting taxation, should be open and transparent about their own income.

That is why in the spirit of the “New Politics” I have taken the decision to publish my personal tax returns.

And I will do so every year while I seek to be and hopefully one day become Chancellor.

I think it is only fair that politicians set a good example. Especially those charged with or those who aspire to oversee the nations finances.

Source: ‘I’ll publish my tax returns and now it’s George Osborne’s turn to be transparent’ – John McDonnell – Mirror Online

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EC president Donald Tusk is to meet David Cameron in Downing Street, to answer his unreasonable demands. Will he go back to Europe waving a piece of paper and saying, “Peace in our time”? [Image: Wiktor Dąbkowski/Corbis].

Firstly, this has nothing to do with the asylum seekers trying to escape war in the Middle East. The fact that David Cameron won’t accept anybody from the camps in Calais has more to do with his own attitude than EU rules.

Secondly, it seems Cameron is determined to test the patience of our fellow EU nation states. Having almost reached agreement with them over in-work benefits, he has decided to quibble.

They know his plan is unfair and prejudicial; he certainly knows. Does he think he can force them into “appeasement” policies, as Nazi Germany did to Neville Chamberlain? Times are different now.

Why would they possibly tolerate it?

David Cameron is to demand the right to use emergency powers to ban EU migrants from claiming in-work benefits from the first day after the planned in/out referendum, in a dramatic move that threatens to cause new deadlock with Brussels.

At a crucial meeting in Downing Street on Sunday night with Donald Tusk, president of the European council, the prime minister will insist he will not sign any deal under which the UK will have to wait months, or years, to address what he says is a migration crisis.

The prime minister will also say the so-called “emergency brake” proposal for curbing immigration, put forward by Brussels last week, is totally inadequate as a long-term plan. He will say he wants an entirely different, permanent solution instead of what he will call a “stopgap” mechanism.

Source: David Cameron raises stakes in migration row with EU | Politics | The Guardian

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The asylum seekers had set out from Turkey, hoping to reach the Greek island of Lesbos [Image: AFP].

His refusal to welcome asylum seekers – that’s what they are, not refugees, certainly not migrants, and we can all thank a Vox Political reader for pointing it out – who have travelled to Calais in their bid to get as far from the violence in their own country as possible indicates that he wants to include them in his narrative that people are coming to the UK to benefit from our “generous” benefit system.

There is a very easy way to expose this lie: How many of you know anything about the benefit system in any other country in the world – particularly places you have never visited?

Secondly, how many of you seriously consider the UK’s benefit system to be “generous”, taking into account the enormous obstacles that are set before anybody who wants to claim them?

Cameron’s comments are no more than deliberate, malevolent lies.

People are not coming to the UK because they want a chance to steal our benefits away. As our commenter said, they are simply “seeking refuge, safety and security because their home that they love has become far to dangerous for them to … exist in anymore.”

Put simply, they are coming here because they want to survive.

Tragically, many are dying in the attempt – while David Cameron uses them to score political points.

At least 39 migrants, including several children, have drowned trying to cross the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece, coastguards say.

More than 60 have been rescued from the sea near the Turkish resort of Ayvacik.

Local officials say they expect the death toll to rise when the capsized boat is searched.

Thousands of refugees and migrants continue to make the dangerous sea journey from Turkey to Greece to seek asylum in northern Europe.

Source: Migrant crisis: Dozens drown off Turkey as boat capsizes – BBC News

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Did anybody think they would see the day in which This Blog praises Lord Nigel Lawson?

Well, he is to be praised today for coming out in support of a tax on companies’ UK sales, rather than their profits.

The suggestion was floated by a commenter on Vox Political, and has since been taken up by politicians.

Lord Lawson told the Telegraph: “It is profoundly unsatisfactory that corporation tax has to be collected from large multinational corporations by a series of ad hoc compromise deals, as we have once again seen with the Google affair.

“It is also grossly unfair on smaller businesses, who are unable to shift profits between tax jurisdictions and have to pay the full amount due under UK law.”

He’s absolutely right, and there’s nothing more to be said about it…

… Other than that – of course – the current Conservative Government won’t take a blind bit of notice.

Corporation tax should be replaced with a levy on firms’ UK sales, according to the former Chancellor Lord Lawson.

It was “unsatisfactory” tax had to be collected from big firms through “ad-hoc” deals, he told the Telegraph.

His comments come after an agreement for Google to pay £130m in tax dating back to 2005 was condemned by critics.

The government and HMRC defended the deal and the Chartered Institute of Taxation said corporation tax should not be abandoned.

Labour has called for the public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, to investigate what it criticised as a “sweetheart deal”.

Earlier this week, the European Commission said it was considering how to respond to a letter of complaint from the SNP about Google’s tax deal with the UK.

Source: Google row: Tax UK sales not profit, says Lord Lawson – BBC News

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Bermuda, the British overseas territory where Google is believed to have amassed £30bn of profits from non-US sales [Image: Alamy].

Instead of supporting efforts to end the practice by major corporations, the Treasury – controlled by George Osborne, who ‘negotiated’ Google’s pitiful £130 million tax offer and whose family company, Osborne and Little, itself seems to have issues with the payment of taxes – has been trying to stop the EU from taking action against it.

The memo sent to Tory MEPs describes such action as “unhelpful”, leading to the obvious response:

For whom?

Britain has been privately lobbying the EU to remove the tax haven through which Google funnels billions of pounds of profits from an official blacklist, the Observer can reveal.

Treasury ministers have told the European commission that they are “strongly opposed” to proposed sanctions against Bermuda, a favoured shelter for Google’s profits and one of 30 tax jurisdictions in Brussels’s sights.

The disclosure is made in a memorandum circulated among Tory MEPs in Brussels that describes potential “countermeasures” against blacklisted tax havens as “unhelpful”.

Source: Tories lobbying to protect Google’s £30bn island tax haven | Technology | The Guardian

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Michael Gove, when education secretary, said councils should seek sponsors for free schools if extra capacity was needed. What if that is not forthcoming? [Image: Dave Thompson/PA].

This means that the number of places available is dictated according to profit levels, rather than local need – and that seems to be what is causing the problem for Conservative MPs and councillors now.

It would be easy to point out that they should have considered this eventuality – and the effect it may have on their own positions, before blindly supporting the evidenceless policies of an ignoramus like Michael Gove, but that would be avoiding an opportunity.

It would be better to hope that these Tories are recognising their mistake and will be able to exert a policy reversal on a government that – let’s not forget – has a working majority of just 16 MPs.

Leading Tories are demanding change to government education policy and an easing of cuts, amid predictions that councils in Conservative-run heartlands will soon be unable to provide school places for all the children in their areas.

The growing concerns of Tory MPs and council leaders are being relayed to ministers by the Conservative-led Local Government Association, which is calling on the government to hand back powers to councils so that they can expand schools or open new ones. The alternative, it says, will be a crisis of provision across the country.

Such a move would require a major U-turn in government policy. In the last parliament Michael Gove,  while education secretary, imposed restrictions on councils’ ability to force academies to expand, arguing that headteachers should be free to run their schools as they wished.

He also said that where new schools were needed, councils should seek sponsors for “free schools” – which are funded by central government but not run by the local education authority.

Source: Tory MPs call for U-turn on education as school places squeeze looms | Politics | The Guardian

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Doctors are having to deal with a ‘conveyor belt’ of up to 70 patients a day [Image: PA].

That’s what this story is about, isn’t it?

GP surgeries are operating in a state of emergency because of problems with resources and staffing levels, a leading family doctor has said.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, head of the British Medical Association’s general practice committee, said patients were being “short-changed on a daily basis”.

Nagpaul, who practises in London, told a conference of local medical committees on Saturday that, according to research, 90% of GPs felt their workload was damaging the quality of care they provided – something he said was a disgrace.

He said GPs were having to deal with complicated cases within 10 minutes, treat a “conveyor belt” of up to 70 patients a day with administration on top of that, while understaffed practices were forced to continue registering new patients.

Source: Top doctor says George Osborne should stop penny-pinching from GPs | Society | The Guardian

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Some events are so monumental that they never go away.

Perhaps it is right that Bloody Sunday should always be remembered – although perhaps we may hope the way it is remembered will change over time.

It was an atrocity that helped perpetuate the violence that became known as the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland.

Of course, some will want those responsible for this an other acts – on both sides – to make amends. That is only natural.

Others will want to consign the whole conflict to history.

This Writer will not suggest either side is correct. How can I? I was not there; I was not directly involved.

But I will say I think the peace is far more valuable to all of us, and anyone commenting on the events of those years should be careful not to enflame sentiments again.

The grandson of Éamon de Valera, one of the key politicians in the founding of the Irish Republic, has called for an end to the prosecution of an ex-soldier accused of killing civilians in the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972.

Éamon Ó Cuív, a Fianna Fáil TD and former Irish government minister, said he supported an amnesty for all those involved in the Northern Ireland conflict from 1969 to the 1998 Good Friday agreement, and this had to include the paratroopers involved in one of the most infamous atrocities of the Troubles.

“Whether it is ex-IRA volunteers, loyalists, the old RUC, the Ulster Defence Regiment or British soldiers, there should be an amnesty for all,” Ó Cuív told the Guardian.

Source: Bloody Sunday anniversary sparks call for Troubles amnesty | UK news | The Guardian

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Don’t look so shocked, Hilary: Of course we were going to see through your betrayals [Image: Richard Gardner/Rex/Shutterstock].

Two weeks before the crucial vote on air strikes against Daesh in that country, Mr Benn opposed the possibility of any such strikes, but on the day he made a passionate speech in favour of them.

That turnaround qualifies him to be described in his own father’s terms as a “weathercock” – a politician who faces any way the wind blows.

Tony Benn said we needed more people in political life who were “signposts” – choosing a direction of travel, saying “this is the way forward”, and sticking to it.

Alex Salmond was right to suggest Mr Benn’s late father would have been appalled by his change of heart, and Mr Benn’s reaction to the indictment is neither here nor there.

To This Writer, it seems more likely he is unhappy that he has lost the respect of his peers, but what did he expect?

He betrayed his party leader, and he betrayed the memory of his father as well.

Hilary Benn has ruled out running for Labour leader in the wake of his dramatic speech on Syria and spoken of his regret at people using his father’s memory to attack his position in favour of airstrikes.

The shadow foreign secretary, son of the late anti-war Labour grandee Tony Benn, condemned former SNP first minister Alex Salmond’s comment that his father would be “burling in his grave” at his speech advocating bombing during the House of Commons debate on Syria.

“I agree with his fellow SNP MP who described it as repulsive. I thought, ‘Well, pretty cheap,’” he told the Guardian.

While he won respect for sticking to his views and speaking from the frontbench against Jeremy Corbyn, others accused him of betraying his leader and his father. Benn revealed he had replied to the many emails he had received since, even abusive ones.

Source: Hilary Benn rules out Labour leadership bid | Politics | The Guardian

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