Housing crunch, divided nation

Three pieces in today’s Guardian (here, here and here) capture some of the problems being created in the housing market by Coalition welfare reforms. Anyone who’s been watching the London housing market could hardly be surprised. Trouble has been brewing for a while. The housing benefit cap was always going to force migration from inner London to the outer boroughs. Inevitably it is going to force out-migration from London. The huffing and puffing by Shapps and Duncan-Smith is so much hot air. This is what they wanted.

But it is hard to see that this is going to end well. If London boroughs do succeed in exporting households to the Midlands and the North then that is going to cause all sorts of problems in the housing market and beyond. And London will become increasingly disconnected from the rest of the UK. A playground for the rich, but with a misfiring economy? In a few years it will lack the pool of labour necessary to sustain essential low paying service industries.

Byrne and Beveridge sitting in a tree …

Liam Byrne delivered a speech about Beveridge, work and the welfare state at the London School of Economics on Monday. After his execrable op-ed piece in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago, I was fully expecting to disagree wildly with what he said.

I am happy to report that I don’t disagree with him after all.

I am unhappy to report that this is because he said absolutely nothing of any substance.

A dose of realism required

Anthony Painter at today’s LabourList identifies four broad tribes in the Labour party: the hard realists, the soft realists, the change the conversationists, and the not for turning set. These are arranged broadly from right to left politically. I feel that “tribes” may be putting it too strongly. But it is certain that these currents of thinking are present.

Painter suggests that Labour has been sitting somewhere in the vicinity of the soft realist/change the conversationists. But when operating in this territory the message is not getting through. He considers the not for turning brigade to be getting plenty of airtime but ultimately their position lacks electoral appeal beyond those on the fully committed left.

Spinning round today’s poll

Ed Miliband’s performance as Labour leader has come in for plenty of criticism. The Independent on Sunday today reports on a survey which examines whether Labour would be any better placed under a different leader. The conclusion is that of all the likely candidates only under David Miliband would respondents be more positive about the party. And then only by +3%. Any other option offered – Ed Balls, Tony Blair, Alistair Darling, Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna – made matters worse. The poll also suggested that Ed Miliband’s popularity has deteriorated. His ratings are now more negative than Nick Clegg’s.

But if changing the leader wouldn’t improve things markedly then the problem is more than just weak leadership by Mili-E.

Lansley’s zombie bill

Today’s Observer reports:

Andrew Lansley’s health reforms face a fresh crisis as a powerful committee of MPs says the changes are obstructing efforts to make the NHS more efficient and that they fail to address the most urgent health challenge of modern times …

A highly critical report by the cross-party select committee on health, due to be published on Tuesday or Wednesday, comes as the medical establishment prepares to stage its own summit on Thursday to discuss concerns over the health and social care bill. The report, a late draft of which has been seen by the Observer, will cause alarm in Downing Street as it is the work of a committee with a Tory and Liberal Democrat majority …

One of its key messages is that Lansley’s far-reaching attempts to restructure the NHS in England and devolve more power to GPs are making it more difficult to deliver on a separate target of £20bn of efficiency savings by 2014-15. The report echoes the widespread view in the medical profession that it is deeply unwise to be inflicting far reaching structural reform on the NHS at the same time as asking it to make huge savings.

What will it take to kill off this bill? Absolutely no one apart from Lansley and his mates in the private health care sector think it’s a good idea. The Select Committee report adds weight to the criticism precisely because it has a Coalition majority. This could be the killer blow.

Starting out

My political position is moderate, liberal left. I am kind of involved in party politics, but I’m not tribal.

It is obvious that the mainstream political parties in Westminster are operating on an increasingly narrow range of the ideological spectrum. They are trying to differentiate themselves within very narrow constraints.

If you are charitable then you’d say that ideological range runs from the centre to the centre-right. Less charitably, you’d move the whole range a few notches to the right.

I am one of the many who feel no one in the political system is really speaking for what I believe in. No one seems to be aspiring to the type of society I would like us to live in.

This blog is an outlet for my frustration. Who knows how it will develop.