George Osborne (left) talks to the Chinese vice-premier Ma Kai in Beijing [Image: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters].

It’s the Conservative Government’s biggest U-turn yet – and to This Writer, it appears to have been planned.

Remember the Autumn Statement, in which George Osborne struck such a triumphant tone because the Office of Budgetary Irresponsibility had magicked up £27 billion of extra money for him in a prediction over the next five years.

Only three months later, two-thirds of that cash has been magicked away by the same organisation and suddenly Osborne is saying that he may not be able to deliver a budget surplus by 2020 after all.

Not only that, but the downturn means he may be unable to relax austerity in the last two years of the current Parliament, as the Conservatives promised us all in the run-up to the general election last May.

Suddenly the promise has gone from “happy days in a couple of years’ time” to “more cuts, more austerity, more pain”.

And it’ll be the poor who have to pay for it, of course.

But isn’t this what the Conservatives wanted all along?

They hoodwinked us all with some pretty figures that forecast better times, but the plan has always been to keep cutting until the NHS has been privatised, the welfare state destroyed, and everything else but the courts and defence have been sold off – not even to the highest bidder but to Conservative Party donors.

David Cameron said as much in a Telegraph interview, all the way back in 2011 or thereabouts.

Osborne is seeing it through.

George Osborne has warned he may have to impose bigger than expected cuts to public spending towards the end of the current parliament as the “storm clouds” in the global economy hit economic growth.

In a move to prepare the ground for a sharp deterioration in the public finances in the budget next month, the chancellor said the recent fall in nominal GDP numbers showed the British economy was smaller than expected.

Osborne, who signalled that the cuts would come from efficiencies in government spending, also indicated that he might adopt a flexible approach to his target of delivering an overall budget surplus of £10.1bn by 2019-20.

The chancellor made clear that he might have to embark on a change of course in his budget on 16 March when he warned of global “storm clouds” in an interview with the BBC at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Shanghai.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said: “This is a total humiliation for floundering George Osborne. He has sneaked off to China to admit what Labour have been saying for months, that his recovery is built on sand. Far from paying our way, Osborne’s short-term economics means Britain is deeper and deeper in hock to the rest of the world.”

The chancellor spoke out after the latest nominal GDP numbers released by the Office for National Statistics showed that the cash size of the economy was 1% smaller than previously assessed. That represents a fall of £18bn.

Source: George Osborne warns of further cuts as ‘storm clouds’ gather | Politics | The Guardian

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The housing developments being targeted reportedly include the Lower Falinge estate in Rochdale, Greater Manchester [Image: Alamy].

That’s the cost of David Cameron’s plan to level so-called ‘sink estates’, characterised by high levels of crime, economic and social deprivation.

This Blog reported last month that Cameron has realised that poor people live in such estates, so his plan is to get rid of the estates in the hope that the poor people will follow.

Council estates would be bulldozed to make way for new, private developments that must, by definition, cost the eventual residents more.

This is the project that

At the time, I wrote: “All he is proposing is new estates for richer people, while the poorer are moved on – either to ghettoes elsewhere in the country or straight onto the streets.

“And the causes of poverty – Cameron’s own neoliberal, right-wing policies – will remain.”

Now we learn that Cameron’s Conservative Government is too miserly even to stump up the case for what the prime minister has claimed is his legacy project – the event for which he hopes people will remember him.

Private developers would be loaned the money – and let’s remember £140 million is a pitifully small amount that will not cover the cost of bulldozing all the estates on Cameron’s list – and would have to pay it back with interest.

Expect a very low take-up.

After all, what self-respecting business would put itself out-of-pocket, simply to perpetuate Cameron’s good name?

David Cameron’s promise to spend millions on bulldozing and rebuilding sink estates as a key part of his prime ministerial legacy appeared to unravel … as it emerged that the small amount of money set aside for the project can only be accessed by private developers in the form of loans.

To great fanfare, the prime minister announced his intention in January to potentially tear down 100 of the UK’s worst estates to tackle drug abuse and gang culture. The modest size of the £140m “fund” set aside by Cameron to meet costs was widely questioned at the time, but Downing Street insisted that the redevelopment programme would reverse decades of neglect.

The housing developments being targeted reportedly include the Winstanley estate in Wandsworth, south London, the Lower Falinge estate in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, and Broadwater Farm in Tottenham, north London.

Now the Observer has learned that the £140m is only available in loan form to private sector organisations who come forward to regenerate stricken areas. A statement quietly released by the Department for Communities and Local Governmentin February admitted: “£140m of loan funding has been set aside by government, to be used as a springboard for partnership and joint venture arrangements, with the active involvement of communities.”

A spokesman said the rate of interest on the loans to private companies would vary “scheme by scheme”. The application process, more than a month since the announcement, has yet to be opened to interested parties.

Source: David Cameron’s £140m to tear down sink estates turns out to be a loan | Society | The Guardian

No benefit: After Middlesbrough FC supporters heard a series of Benefits Street was to be filmed on Teesside, they flew banners attacking the decision at the club’s next match. They knew that it, and shows like it, help create distrust of people on benefits that leads to false allegations of fraud.

Only a few days ago, a commenter was telling This Writer about people he absolutely knew were benefit fraudsters.

Well, maybe 14 per cent of them were.

This all progresses from another statistic – one we’ve already heard.

It states that people believe 27 per cent of benefit claimants are committing fraud, when the real figure is just 0.7 per cent. In the case of sickness/disability benefits, it’s 0.4 per cent.

Why do people believe this? They get it from the media – from papers like the Express and the Mail, and TV shows like Benefits Street and all the other “poverty porn” programming.

And where do the media people get their ideas? From the Conservative Government – of course.

Boil it all down and you get a “make-work” scheme in which the Conservative Government – through the media – creates an atmosphere of distrust against people on benefits, especially the sick and disabled, leading to an escalating number of inaccurate allegations of fraud against claimants.

That’s why Mr Farron’s comment is important, even though he’s partially mistaken.

The idea isn’t to turn people against the welfare state.

It’s to turn people against the sick and the disabled. Divide and rule.

More than 85% of fraud allegations made by the public over the last five years were false, according to figures obtained by the Observer.

A freedom of information request to the Department for Work and Pensions discloses that between 2010 and 2015 the government closed 1,041,219 alleged cases of benefit fraud put forward by the public. Insufficient or no evidence of fraud was discovered in 887,468 of these. In 2015 alone, of the 153,038 cases closed by the DWP’s Fraud and Error Service, 132,772 led to no action.

People can use an online form on the DWP website to anonymously report suspects, listing their eye colour, piercings, scars, tattoos and other details they deem relevant. Suspicions can also be logged through the DWP benefit fraud hotline.

Information received by the Observer states that more than 1.6 million cases of benefit fraud were opened between 2010 and 2015 after reports logged by the public.

Responding to the figures, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: “The alarming number of incorrect reports shows the system has failed, it should be the DWP which investigates benefit fraud, not your closest neighbours. This McCarthy-style reporting of benefit fraud is another example of the government’s desire to turn people against the welfare state and to treat sick and disabled people as second-class citizens.”

Source: More than 85% of public tips on benefit ‘frauds’ are false | Society | The Guardian

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Justin Tomlinson.

Thanks go to Vox Political‘s long-time friend Samuel Miller for the following, which I am publishing verbatim [bolding mine]:

“Did Justin Tomlinson, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Disabled People, mislead Daniel Zeichner, Shadow Minister for Transport, to spare himself and the DWP political embarrassment?
“Please read: Personal Independence Payment: Motability: 25 Feb 2016: Hansard Written Answers – TheyWorkForYou http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2016-02-22.27713.h&s=disabled#g27713.r0

“Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many disabled people have had their Mobility Scheme vehicle taken away as a result of personal independence payment replacing disability living allowance?

“The date of Justin Tomlinson’s written response is February 25, 2016; and he claims that the DWP does not hold this information. Yet, on February 3, 2016, the BBC reported that nearly 14,000 disabled people have had their mobility cars taken away – BBC News http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35476904.

“It is reasonable to assume that Mr. Tomlinson knew this figure, but wished to spare himself and the DWP political embarrassment.

“Of the nearly 14,000 disabled people who have had their mobility cars taken away, only 8,000 have received a £2,000 grant. This is based on the Motability figure of £16m, quoted in the BBC article.

“There is a urgent need for a Parliamentary debate on the nearly 14,000 disabled people have had their mobility cars taken away. It’s a deplorable situation and a grave and systematic violation of their human rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Up to 200 disabled people every week are losing their Motability vehicles, their jobs and independence, after being assessed for the government’s new disability benefit, Personal Independence Payment (PIP), yet there has been scant attention paid to their predicament by the mainstream British media.”

It seems clear there is evidence to show Mr Tomlinson has been economical with the facts. Will an Opposition MP please bring him to account for this?

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Remember when the Conservative Party erased all its webpages containing promises made before the general election of 2010 – only to find that they had been archived elsewhere?

Apparently they’re now trying to do the same with another embarrassing part of their past – which is why This Writer found the following image on his Twitter feed this evening:

And this one:

And this one, which puts the first two into perspective:

Perhaps the only image that could be more damaging to the Tories right now would be one showing Savile’s opinion of the EU.

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Jeremy Hunt: On the House of Commons’ ‘naughty step’.

So, let’s put down Jeremy Hunt with a few short messages that clarify exactly what he is.

Here’s our favourite spoof reporter, Jonathan Pie:

Remember that doctor who said Hunt is a liar on Question Time yesterday evening?

Here’s an Andrew Marr interview with ‘honest subtitles’ setting the facts next to Hunt’s words:

Finally, let’s have the moment when The Last Leg had Hunt followed by a man playing a sousaphone – providing a musical interpretation of the public’s opinion of him:

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Of course 11,000 people didn’t die because they were admitted at weekends.

The figure was cobbled together to include deaths on Fridays and Mondays.

We were told this fact months ago.

That was the only way they could top the death rate on Wednesdays.

This man should be congratulated for bringing this information back to the public, after so much time has been wasted on Jeremy Hunt’s lie.

A junior doctor has launched an extraordinary attack on “lying” Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and pledged to “make sure you are safe” during the next wave of strikes on the ongoing NHS row.

On BBC’s Question Time, the unnamed medic tore into the Government’s repeated claim that 11,000 die at weekends on the NHS, and linked the mortality rate to the need for a “seven-day” service.

The doctor’s epic rant came after Tory peer and Downton Abbey creator Lord Julian Fellowes said he “wouldn’t want my mum to go into hospital when there was a strike on”, and repeated the hotly contested 11,000 deaths figure.

He was shouted down by the Question Time audience in Poole – who protested “it’s not true!” – and columnist Julia Hartley-Brewer, who pointed out most people who come to hospital at the weekend are emergency cases, which was not the case in the week.

They cleared the path for the junior doctor’s attack, which saw him accuse Hunt of “lying”. His brutal take-down is worth repeating in full.

“The stats are wrong.

“I agree with your point, 11,000 people do not die at the weekend. The stats cover Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. They do not die at the weekend.

“If junior doctor staffing at the weekend was a problem, they would be dying at the weekend. They do not. The highest death rate in hospitals is on a Wednesday. You have more doctors on a Wednesday than you do on a Saturday and a Sunday. It is not a ‘weekend effect’.

“It is misrepresented by Mr Hunt. It is misrepresenting and lying, frankly, because when you’re told something is wrong and you continually repeat it, it becomes a lie. He is lying about what is happening in hospitals.

“I am the doctor on call for the next two strikes. I am the surgical registrar, the junior doctor who will be looking after each and every one of you when you come in. I will make sure you are safe. I am the man below the consultant who will operate in you if you are sick. I will be there no-one will be out at risk. I will make sure of it.”

Source: BBC Question Time: A Junior Doctor Has Taken Down Jeremy Hunt Over His 11,000 Weekend NHS Deaths Claim

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Is this another storm in a teacup?

This Blog has already published information from another blogger, showing that both British people are the EU’s biggest beneficiaries of the right to settle anywhere in the EU and migrants that come here from our European neighbours pay far more in tax than they take in services and benefits so they are a net benefit to our society.

There’s a question about the amount of space available in the UK, perhaps – but there are arguments to counter claims that we are overcrowded.

So this is a pointless argument. Isn’t it?

New figures showing net migration to the UK remains near record levels have sparked a row between the two sides in the EU referendum debate.

The difference between the number of people leaving and arriving was 323,000 in the year to September.

David Cameron said the figure was “still too high” but the government was taking action to bring it down.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage says the only way to get immigration under control is to leave the EU in June’s referendum.

Source: Net migration at 323,000 prompts EU referendum row – BBC News

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David Cameron launches the Conservatives In campaign in London [Image: Alex B Huckle/Getty].

It doesn’t matter if Tory ‘Out’ campaigners think Cameron’s agreement has no weight in law – not if Cameron, the UK government, the EU and the governments of all its member states are committed to treating it that way. And they are.

This story does signify a welcome change, in that the ‘lame-stream’ media are now admitting that the Tories are fighting each other.

And those of us in the know can appreciate that they are making fools of themselves, arguing over a meaningless technicality.

Open warfare has broken out in Conservative ranks over the legal status of David Cameron’s EU deal after leading out campaigner Michael Gove claimed that it could be overruled by the European court of justice.

Downing Street responded to the justice secretary’s intervention by organising statements from senior lawyers to rebut his claims, including from Jeremy Wright, the attorney general, and Dominic Grieve, his predecessor as the government’s chief law officer.

Conservative out campaigners went on to release their own legal opinions stating Cameron’s negotiated settlement was worthless in law, with Dominic Raab, a justice minister in the leave camp, suggesting it had less value than a guarantee for a new dishwasher.

Source: EU referendum: Tories in open warfare over legal status of Cameron deal | Politics | The Guardian

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David Cameron observes work on a Eurofighter Typhoon during a visit to BAE Systems in Warton, Lancashire [Image: Martin Rickett/PA].

In the middle of the noise of the EU referendum and the row over his idiotic comments about Jeremy Corbyn, this is perhaps the most damning indictment against him.

He simply doesn’t understand why his supply of arms to Saudi Arabia – which that country appears to have used against Yemen – is wrong.

David Cameron has boasted of his efforts to help sell “brilliant things” such as Eurofighter Typhoons to Saudi Arabia on the day the European parliament voted for an arms embargo on the country over its bombardment of Yemen.

The prime minister talked of the UK government’s role in selling equipment made by defence company BAE Systems to Saudi Arabia, Oman and other countries as he visited the firm’s factory in Preston.

At almost the same time, the European parliament voted in favour of an EU-wide ban on arms being sold to Saudi Arabia in protest at its heavy aerial bombing of Yemen, which has been condemned by the UN. The vote does not force EU member states to comply but it increases pressure on national governments to re-examine their relationships with Riyadh.

Source: David Cameron boasts of ‘brilliant’ UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia | World news | The Guardian

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