Elected Police Commissioners won’t extend the franchise they risk damaging it further.

As almost everyone apart from the plan’s boosters in government predicted the forthcoming elections for Police and Crime Commissioners look like being a shambles. With a little over three months to go the public seem either unaware or indifferent to the whole expensive farrago.

Concerns have been expressed about the timing of the ballot, the likelihood of a turnout even lower than the measly twenty percent achieved in most council elections and the large number of ex MPs and government ministers standing as candidates. Katie Ghose of the Electoral Reform Society told the BBC last week ‘It has been a shambles. They have decided to hold a winter election even though we know that drives turnout down.’

A low turnout means that the new elected Police Commissioners will have only a tenuous mandate and so be unable to deliver the radical change most will have promised out on the stump. That such a basic fact of political life seems to have by-passed everyone from the PM down is both surprising and shocking.

Blair Gibbs of the right wing think tank Policy Exchange, also speaking to the BBC, said the new Commissioners would represent and ‘extension of the franchise’ and would put ‘an important executive figure at a local level.’ He went on to say that ‘if Police and Crime Commissioners do their jobs well policing will improve and the streets will be safer.’

In light of the potential lack of any realistic mandate mentioned above the question ‘but what if they don’t?’ begs to be asked; so far I haven’t received a convincing answer.

At the start of the year I wrote that you could judge the lack of value elected Police Commissioners will bring to public life by the stampede of ‘has beens’ rushing to put their names forward to be candidates. Nothing I have seen or heard since has changed my mind, if anything it has made me more concerned about the potential this ill conceived plan has to damage out already fragile franchise.

Everything about it suggests the actions of a political elite so impressed by its own cleverness it blithely ignores the likely consequences. The refusal to provide candidates with a free mail shot as happens in general elections has all but frozen out independent candidates in favour of party funded place people, the media have ignored the elections making a low turnout a certainty.

If Blair Gibbs thinks this is going to strengthen the franchise then he’s employing the magical thinking all too typical of our out of touch political elite and their hangers on. Simply by creating another official to oversee policing, with the salary, pension and perks to match, won’t improve policing or make the streets safer.

To do that the police need to be given the resources they need to do their job and operational power needs to be devolved to officers on the ground. None of this will happen in a force pressed from all sides by government cuts and the spiteful, ill thought out ‘reforms’ put forward under the Windsor review.

As for ‘engaging’ the public, the holy grail of our current political discourse, that could be done better and more cheaply by reforming the existing Police Authorities. Largely by removing a few councillors from comfortable billets and using the funds saved to involve and empower communities.

Police and Crime Commissioners who have been elected by almost nobody and so have neither the mandate or the confidence to act decisively won’t be champions of public interest, they’ll be hostages of the party hierarchy from whom they have received patronage. This will not extend our fragile franchise, it risks damaging it even more.

And Another Thing

Try as I might I can’t work up much in the way of righteous indignation about the antics of Prince Harry.

About the only thing I can think about the ‘scandal’ of his antics in a Vegas hotel room with a bevy of showgirls is that the fact they were the end result of a game of ‘naked billiards’ means that F Scott Fitzgerald was right, the rich are different.

Apart from that it seems like the sort of behaviour you might expect from a not too bright twenty seven year old to whom life has fame, wealth; but no real purpose in life.


A women’s group on Tyneside has called for copies of E L James’s ‘mummy porn’ mega-seller ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ to be burnt because it glamorises violence against women. There is a urgent need to draw attention to the horrors of domestic violence, and not just that experienced by women, but this it no way to go about doing so.

Whatever you may think of its literary merits, or lack of the same, E L James’s book no more condones violence against women that the average crime novel condones murder. Both are works of escapism unconnected to the world as their readers know it, by failing to recognise that the group in question is damaging what is an important and too often ignored campaign.


The torch relay for the Paralympics got under way this week; unlike the one for its sister event is has been dignified, unpretentious and mercifully short. There are no dubious ‘celebrities’ involved, no oppressive security measured and the media coverage has avoided undue hysteria. It seems the Paralympics are where the true values of the Olympic movement are to be found.

And finally Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon died yesterday. In an age when the title is applied unthinkingly to people who kick footballs or actors with stunt doubles this quiet, modest and remarkable man showed what a hero is really like.

Plain packets will just make dumb people think smoking is cool again.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is said to be watching closely the outcome of a ruling made by the Australian High Court on the sale of cigarettes in plain packaging. Big tobacco companies down under had contested the banning of all logos from cigarette packets on the grounds that it infringed their intellectual property rights, the high court found this not to be the case and upheld the law requiring cigarettes to only be sold in plain packets carrying graphic health warnings that has been in place since late last year.

Health campaigners in countries including the UK, Canada, India and New Zealand are encouraging their governments to adopt similar rules. In the UK it is expected that the government will eventually given in to pressure from campaigners and introduce plain packets, if only because it will deflect a little of the criticism being heaped upon them for their inept handling of the NHS.

Scott McIntyre, a spokesman for British American Tobacco in Australia said that banning logos from cigarette packets was ‘a bad law that will only benefit organised crime groups which sell illegal tobacco,’ he added that the existing black market in cigarettes would ‘grow further when all packets look the same and are easier to copy.’

I have no great love for big tobacco companies, but I have to admit that Mr McIntyre might just have a valid point. The more draconian laws banning smoking become the more profit there is to be made from selling black market cigarettes and the local spiv is rapidly replaced by the international crook.

Even if that weren’t the case I would still be dubious about the wisdom of only selling cigarettes in plain packages. Like the rule introduced in the UK last year that cigarettes cannot openly be displayed in shops it is predicated on the idea that smokers are idiot children; only they aren’t, they’re ordinary people just like you and I.

Lets be honest smoking is a mugs game and I ought to know since I used to be a smoker. This means that unlike many anti-smoking campaigners I also know what it isn’t and what it isn’t is an addiction from which society must be protected at all costs.

People who give up smoking don’t pass through some horrific ‘cold turkey’ experience to win a moral victory, at worst they feel like they’ve got a bad cold for a couple of weeks. Those smokers who don’t give up aren’t therefore lacking in moral fibre, they’ve just made a choice. Not a very wise one I’d argue; but one they should be free to make and accept he consequences of in the long term.

The hysterical crusade against smoking that began about a generation ago and has seen smokers banished from pubs, cafes and busses and soon from smoking in the privacy of their own cars is rapidly becoming counterproductive. There is a constituency of people for whom anything ‘they’ don’t want you to do has to be exciting just because someone wants you to avoid it. Putting cigarettes in plain packets runs the risk of making impressionable people think a bad habit is a cool one.

Smokers, like dinosaurs, are on the wrong side of evolutionary change and within another generation or so the habit will seem as arcane as taking snuff or believing in witches. This presents a problem for the professionally self righteous brigade for whom the campaign against smoking has provided a platform, if they are given their head and allowed to use ever more stringent laws to curtail the rights of smokers it cannot be long before they turn their attention to everyone else’s freedoms too.


School playing fields are not safer under the Tories.

As if it wasn’t already enough of an embarrassment the government has had to revise upwards its admission of how many school playing fields have been sold off since 2010 from twenty one to thirty. Even worse it has emerged that ministers pushed five of those sales through despite objections from the panel set up to advise them on this issue.

Questioned by the press about the sales by the press last week absurd Education Secretary Michael Gove sanctimoniously replied that school playing fields are safer under the coalition than under the last Labour government.

Labour certainly don’t have clean hands when it comes to the selling off of school playing fields, but the levels of hypocrisy required for ministers to pose with Olympic athletes whilst simultaneously selling off school playing fields are surely deserving of a gold medal. If things carry on like this it’s probably the only one we’ll win.

And another thing

Olympic cyclist Victoria Pendleton puts on a slinky dress and pouts for the cameras whilst claiming to be a ‘reluctant sex symbol.’ Yes dear and Richard Burton really only liked an occasional sweet sherry after evensong.

For the first time in twenty years the number of students achieving top grades in their A Levels has fallen, for some reason a lot of silly people think this is a good thing. That swishing sound you can hear is the result of a lot of tall poppies having their heads lopped off. Who needs ambition when you can know your place instead?

The Dandy is to go out of print at the end of this year after almost eighty years of entertaining children large and small. Personally I always preferred the Beano or Whizzer and Chips myself, but it is still a shame.

Before he hangs up his Stetson for good I’d like to point out that Desperate Dan with his huge belly, stubble and expression of dim witted belligerence always reminded me a little of John Prescott. Even more worryingly Michael Gove is the spitting image of Billy the Cat.

When the cheering stops the real legacy of 2012 will start; and it won’t be pretty.

Prime Minister David Cameron has called for a ‘big cultural change’ in school sports in the UK to instil a more ‘competitive ethos’ and capitalise on the success of Team GB. London Mayor Boris Johnson said something similar about how he could ‘see the benefits of sport and what it does for young people’, only did so with more eccentricity.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC’s ‘World at One’ programme that the government planned to invest £1billion in school sports over the next four years. This initiative was, he said, about ‘empowering teachers, empowering heads and getting an ethos inside schools and particularly when it comes to sport about the role of competitive sport and the values that can give young people.’

Later, when challenged about the sale of twenty one school playing fields sanctioned by the coalition government on LBC radio David Cameron attacked some members of the teaching profession for ‘not wanting to join in and play their part’ and said that too many schools ‘did not want to have competitive sport’ as part of their curriculum. Getting the chaps out playing rugger is a bit tricky though if the big field behind the school has had a Tesco Express built on it, but I don’t suppose that sort of thing happens down Eton way.

Criticism of the government’s sudden enthusiasm for all things sporting came from Christine Blower of the National Union of Teachers who said that school sports needed the ‘support of government’ not shifting of the blame for the selling off of playing fields and the huge cuts made to the School Sports Partnership. Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg criticised the government for abandoning the target of providing two hours of PE every week for pupils in state schools and Labour leader Ed Milliband said the government had to do ‘a lot of hard thinking’ about how to keep young people engaged with sport.

When it comes to jumping on a bandwagon the average politician, and the current crop are very average, make Usain Bolt look like the slowest of slow coaches. They’re even quicker off the mark if they can mix shallow opportunism with a chance to exercise their favourite prejudices.

As a result we are treated to Citizen Dave playing, again, the populist card and weighing into stereotypical lefty teachers with an ideological commitment to mediocrity for all. The existence of such people is a right wing fantasy; but a remarkably durable one since much of the press buys into it.

Actually things are a little more complicated. When it comes to funding elite sport the best thing the government can do is hand the cash over to the experts and let them get on with things. The secret of success for so many of Team GB’s gold medal winners is, along with personal determination and technical skill, operating mostly underneath the radar. As a result their successes and failures are way stations en route to their ultimate goal rather than invitations to engage in hysterical optimism or soul sapping introspection, as is often the case with the fortunes of the England football team.

Where the government could and should play a part is in promoting sport in schools and the wider community; at the moment it is failing miserably. However hard he tries the prime minister cannot wriggle out of his government’s complicity in the selling off of playing fields across the country, attacking a teaching profession that has been suffocated by bureaucracy and demoralised by constant criticism is just a cynical attempt to cover his tracks.

While we’re on the point a large slice of criticism should be dropped onto the plate of local authorities who insist on keeping school sports facilities locked up at weekends and during the school holidays. If we are serious about getting more young people playing sport then they need somewhere to do so and coaches to help hone their skills, surely this is a better thing to spend money on that the fatuous nonsense of the Olympic torch relay?

A suitable amount of thought should also be given to the fact that 2012 will be a year with a legacy that has nothing to do with the Olympics. This is the year when the full effects of the coalition’s economic policies began to be felt in earnest, through, for example, in rises in homelessness, mental health problems and terrifying levels of youth unemployment. Far from inspiring a generation we are at risk of abandoning one altogether.

The Olympics have provided a sort of cultural sugar rush, for two weeks Britain has been the centre of the world and our national mood has lifted as a result, but such a rush is always followed by an almighty crash. The economy will still be moribund, our national institutions will still fail to inspire public confidence and our elected representatives will still have no idea what to do.

As golden summer gives way to gloomy autumn the party conference season is fast approaching, it is a sure bet that all three party leaders will find some way of incorporating the Olympic ideals of ‘faster’, ‘higher’, ‘stronger’ into their keynote speech along with a pledge to ‘go for gold’ in the year to come. What they won’t do, even though it is what we need most from them, is provide a convincing picture of how they will restore hope to a country that even though it staged a successful Olympics still grows poorer, more divided and angrier by the day.

Labour need to learn that it is policies not poll ratings that win elections.

A poll conducted for ConservativeHome shows that a majority of Tory voters (53%) believe their party will not win the next election. Only 19% believe they will be able to secure a majority whilst 22% see a Lib/Lab coalition taking power in 2012.

David Cameron can take some comfort from the fact that 49% of the respondents thought he should lead the party into the next election, his nearest rival, Boris Johnson polled only 18% and William Hague just 12%, despite nearly two years of frantic positioning Michael Gove didn’t even make the starting grid; poor lamb. In the longer term though Boris Johnson is seen as being the favourite to take over as leader of the Conservative Party if, or when, the position becomes vacant, quite what impact his absurd antics at the Olympic Park this week have had on his standing isn’t clear, but you suspect the Tories will put up with any amount of foolishness from BoJo just to see what he does next.

The news that less than half the people questioned saw the Tories winning the next election should be something to put a spring in the step of Labour leader Ed Milliband, but only a very small one. There is still a long hard pull ahead until the next election and plenty of pitfalls for an unwary opposition leader to fall into.

Anyway, things aren’t quite as rosy as they at first appear; only 20% of the people questioned see Labour winning a majority. A fair enough assessment, public trust in politicians is so low coalition governments could be the order of the day for the foreseeable future.

There is no question that the Liberal Democrats would feel far more comfortable building a coalition with Labour, but there is no guarantee such a situation will come to pass. Many senior Lib Dems currently tainted by their party’s ‘betrayal’ of its principles could survive due to the number of candidates opposing them diluting the protest vote and if UKIP do as well as some people suggest they might, largely by hovering up Tory seats lost thanks to HS2 a three, rather than two way coalition my be a possibility.

To forestall such an eventuality and make itself an attractive partner in the probably post election cotillion Labour must do something at which it has so far failed; produce a distinctive slate of policies. Ones that are sensitive to the underlying concerns of the British people that give a realistic vision of how a Labour government would work with its coalition partners to create a fairer society.

The party’s experiences during the 1980’s, when it regularly led an unpopular Conservative government in the opinion polls, as it does again now, but consistently lost elections, show there is no substitute for strong policies.


Not sitting comfortably; not sitting at all.

The rows and rows of empty seats at Olympic venues is an embarrassment that refuses to go away. Things have become so serious that David Cameron even called a meeting of COBRA, it stands for ‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room’ with the A added to make it sound more ‘exciting’ because inside every middle aged politician is a twelve year old boy struggling to get out, to discuss the issue earlier this week.

Being given a free seat at a premier sporting event speaks of privilege; leaving that seat empty though screams of arrogance. It is a problem that extends way beyond the Olympic Village, go to any major sports event and you will see good seats left empty by prawn sandwich munching corporate types whilst genuine supporters are turned away.

The extent to which sport in this country has sold its collective soul to the corporate hospitality industry is a scandal and one that will do long term harm. Corporate hospitality is fickle, executives soon want something new to ignore as they hog the free bar; taking its grubby pound may cost the sports that do so dearly in the longer term.


Britain needs more social housing.

If there is such a thing as a good time to bury bad news then the Olympics must provide the ultimate opportunity for such spadework. That is why the government will be glad the latest figure on homelessness came out this week rather then last.

Figures released by marketing agency SSentif this week show homelessness has risen by 25% in just three years, during the same period the funding to tackle the problem has dropped from £213.7million in 2009 to £199.8million in 2011/12.

Labour have attributed the rise in homelessness to a ‘perfect storm’ of a fall in house building and the double dip recession, the government have hit back by saying they plan to spend £400million tackling homelessness over the next four years and have pledged another £70million in additional funding.

Both sides can bat statistics and accusations around like tennis balls, but it does nothing to disguise their joint culpability. The Tories carry a little more immediate guilt thanks to Iain Duncan Smith’s hasty and cruel changes to housing benefit, but Labour cannot dodge the blame for failing to get councils building social housing during their thirteen years in government.

Now they are in opposition and still desperately seeking a sense of direction Labour could win themselves much popular support by pledging to reverse the foolishness of the past three decades and get councils building good quality housing again.


And finally:

Two comments about the Olympics stood out for me this week. In the first ‘eccentric’ former sports commentator David Icyke described the opening ceremony as being ‘satanic.’

Another David, our own dear PM this time, said that the success of Bradley Wiggins et al was down to his having sat in the magic wishing chair and, er, wished for it, whilst on a recent visit to Ireland.

The worrying thing is it was David Icyke who was joking.

Olympic Tingle? I haven’t felt it yet.

It was hearing a presenter on the usually stolid Radio Five Live prattling on about the ‘Olympic Tingle’ on Friday morning that finally caused me to snap.

I know exactly what he was talking about, that feeling of transcendental joy that is supposed to have descended upon the country the moment the Olympic carnival finally rolled into town. Knowing what he was talking about though it not at all the same as sharing what he claimed to feel.

What I feel for the Olympics, and this probably makes me some kind of heretic, is nothing, zip, zilch, nada. Despite the best efforts of the media I remain determinedly neither shaken nor stirred.

Its not that I don’t recognise that the next month will see performed inspiring feats of endurance and skill, or that the Olympics provides welcome exposure for sports and sports people who are usually pushed out of the spotlight by mediocre footballers.

I’m even willing to concede that some people saw Friday night’s opening ceremony as a thrilling celebration of all that is quirky, warm and brilliant about being British. Although to me it resembled nothing so much as an opium induced nightmare designed by a committee of civil servants.

What I dislike is the corporate Olympics, the ugly carnival of unrestrained power and barely hidden corruption that has muscled its way into London bringing ‘zil lanes’ for Olympic officials and draconian bans on advertising by anyone other than official sponsors with it. It seems both insecure and bullying on the part of McDonalds to have demanded the sole concession to sell chips in the Olympic Park, for crying out loud they insist on calling them fries all the rest of the time then snaffle the rights to out national dish.

Actually while we’re on the point of sponsorship can anyone explain to me why a sporting event is solely sponsored by manufacturers of junk food? It sends out a decidedly mixed message, we want out kids to eat healthily but allow an event with global coverage to be funded by companies dedicated to making them fat.

Equally unappealing is the behaviour of the International Olympic Committee, who insist that their rules take precedence over national law in any country hosting the games. All the better, you suppose, to avoid those against demanding huge bribes in the form of luxury accommodation and the like. To add insult to injury there have already been embarrassing ranks of empty seats at events thanks to members of the ‘Olympic family’, IOC cronies to you and me, who didn’t feel like turning up. A nice slap in the face for all those people who struggled with the labyrinthine procedure to buy tickets only to come away empty handed.

The IOC alone aren’t to be blamed for the foolishness surrounding the games, home grown politicians seem incapable behaving sensibly. What purpose was served by insisting surface to air missiles must be stationed on East End tower blocks, apart, perhaps, from adolescent chest beating? How do politicians who preach austerity to single mothers and the unemployed square this with the £9.4 billion washed down the drain funding the Olympics? Why will nobody stop Boris Johnson from using this as a platform to launch his bid to be Tory leader and maybe even prime minister?

What sticks in my craw most is that the sort of questions asked above, indeed any criticism of the Olympics is instantly drowned out by a chorus of disapproval. How dare anyone question whether or not this really is the best use of time money and expertise? Maybe the ‘Olympic tingle’ is really the after effects of aversion therapy administered to drive off such unhelpful thoughts.

When the Olympic torch relay began I wrote that it was part of a ‘bread and circuses’ displacement activity designed to hide the problems besetting our country. I still hold that opinion now the show has finally moved into the big top.

Nothing will change because we have played host to a major sporting event. The economy will still be in the doldrums, last week the UK slipped further into recession. A generation of young people will still feel abandoned and increasingly frustrated. Worst of all the boys and girls in the Westminster bubble will have no more idea what to do after the circus has moved on.

Instead they will deliver pious lectures about the wrongness of paying trades people in cash and commission surveys on the happiness of the nation. This last farrago, incidentally, scaled heights of fatuousness hitherto unattained by humanity, if you’re poor and live in the inner city you’re more anxious and less happy than if you’re rich and live in the country; who’d have thought it eh?

In my own lefty, liberal way, I am patriotic and want to see Team GB win so many medals that small children think ‘God Save the Queen’ is the jingle that plays whenever someone switches the podium on, but I refuse to see the Olympics as a cure for all our problems.

At the end of the day I feel about the Olympics how W H Auden felt about the moon landings, they are worth seeing undoubtedly, but not worth the cost and the trouble of putting on the show. However many medals we will the problems facing the Team GB of which we are all part will still be there.

If the IMF is losing confidence in George Osborne why isn’t the PM?

For the second time in a year the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the UK government could fail to reach its deficit reduction targets, as a result confidence in Chancellor George Osborne is plummeting.

The IMF report warns ‘post crisis repair and rebuilding of the UK economy is likely to be more prolonged than initially envisaged’, and goes on to say that ‘looking ahead the economy is expected to grow modestly, but with current policy settings the pace will be insufficient to absorb significant slack in the economy, raising the risk of a permanent loss of productive capacity.’

Not a good position to be in, in fact our prospects look about as bleak as those of a Dodo going internet dating. Government debt is predicted to rise from 78.8% of GDP to 79.9% by 2015/16 and the credit ratings agencies are starting to get jumpy.

This is the point when a sensible chancellor might want to open the file marked Plan B, there’s a problem though; George Osborne hasn’t got one.

As shadow chancellor Ed Balls put it as he called for more to be done to stimulate the economy ‘how much more damage must be done before George Osborne does the most important u-turn of all?’

Quite a lot would be my guess. You might be for turning, so might most sensible people; but not at all curious George just keeps trundling on towards the cliff edge.

Actually you don’t need a report from the IMF to tell you that austerity isn’t working, that it is, in fact, doing serious damage to our country. All you need to do is take a bus ride through any town and look at the boarded up shops, the houses that can’t be sold and the young people aimlessly wandering the streets. All you need is a basic ability to empathise with the experience of the people around you.

Nigel Lawson, a former chancellor under Margaret Thatcher, has criticised George Osborne for retaining his role as the Tories chief strategist, but the problem isn’t one of distraction, it concerns the dilemma facing modern politicians of all parties. How to understand the experience of ordinary Britons living through hard times when you are completely insulated from them yourself?

Never before have there been so many people with first class degrees from Oxbridge in government and yet despite this we are living under the most inept government of modern times. Take George Osborne (please and as far away as possible too) his experience of life outside Westminster is minimal and yet he has pushed through economic policies that will make many people poorer than their parents and their children even poorer still and done so with a smirking self regard that grows ever more offensive.

This might not matter so much, there have, after all, been duff chancellors before, if only he was in fear of losing his own job, but he isn’t. Far from it, our esteemed Prime Minister thinks he’s doing a splendid job. Hardly surprising perhaps since they both seem to be watching the sinking of the British economy with the comfortable detachment of first class passengers who know they will be ushered to a comfy seat in the lifeboat long before their handmade shoes get wet.

Contrary to the glum mantra chanted by the government there is an alternative, cuts to public spending may be inevitable in a time of global economic uncertainty, but they should be made from a standpoint of having clear priorities; not just of doing whatever you can get away with. It is the job of the opposition to articulate the case for such an alternative; the trouble is we haven’t really got one.

Almost two years into the job and Ed Milliband still hasn’t established who he is or what he thinks the Labour Party should stand for. At the moment he seems to want to be something different every other day, a traditional socialist one day standing on the platform at the Durham Miner’s Gala; a disciple of Tony Blair the next as a result despite health poll ratings he says nothing of consequence and in the long term impresses nobody.

This, along with the self preservation instincts of the Liberal Democrats is what will keep the coalition show on the road up to and maybe beyond the next election. There is a huge constituency of floating voters who are increasingly alienated by the current government and might be persuaded to embrace an alternative if one were presented to them in a sensible form.

It is notoriously hard to predict what the electorate wants this far out from an election; but judging by the way things stand I’d say it isn’t more of the same.

A cruel betrayal dressed up as a reform of social care.

Government attempts to put together a white paper addressing the ‘crisis’ in the provision of social care have collapsed into chaos and bitter recriminations. This is hardly a surprise given the long history of foot dragging on this difficult issue, but still a tragedy for vulnerable people and their carers.

Amongst the proposals made are a cap on the amount individuals will be expected to pay for their care, deferred loans to help pay for the cost of care and national standards for access to care that would allow people to transfer the standard of care they receive from one authority to another; something that has previously been impossible.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley described the proposed changes as ‘ the most comprehensive shake up of social care since 1948’ and said they would mean vulnerable people were able to get ‘the care and support they need to be safe and to live well so they don’t reach crisis point.’ Brave words, unfortunately they ignore one important detail; how all of this is going to be paid for.

The government refuses to give any commitment as to where the cap on care costs will be set or how any of its other proposals will be funded until after the next spending review’ which could be up to two years away. As Labour shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham put it ‘with no answers on money this white paper fails to pass the credibility test.’ As a result, he went on to say, the proposals risk ‘appearing meaningless and may in fact raise false hopes amongst older people, their families and carers.’

Further criticism was heaped upon the proposals by Sir Merrick Cockell of the Local Government Association who said they failed to ‘address the reality of the growing funding crisis’ Richard Humphries of the King’s Fund attacked the ‘financial vacuum’ at the heart of the proposals and Michelle Mitchell of Age UK said the delay on making a decision on funding would have ‘a devastating impact on those currently in need of care and support.’

There is a pattern forming here, can you see what it is? To me it looks very much like another instance of the toxic car wreck of incompetence and cynicism that characterises this benighted government and all its works.

This botched, misleading and at heart deeply cynical set of proposals is a direct product of the sustained attack on the welfare state that has been almost the only discernable aim of the coalition. Two years of thundering tirades about ‘scroungers’ has blinded people to the real purpose of the welfare state; ensuring that everyone from dukes to road sweepers can live and die with dignity.

Nothing else could explain their willingness to put forward proposals that promise help for people struggling to cope without bothering to put together some basic costings. Anyone who thinks that paying for social care will be a top priority come 2014 is frankly living in cloud cuckoo land; with an election around the corner tax cuts and eye catching gimmicks will be the order of the day. Social care may be one of, if not the key political issues of our time, but being important isn’t the same thing as being glamorous.

I could, of course, turn this article into another attack on the ‘wicked Tories’ proving they are still as toxic as they always were; but however cathartic that may be it wouldn’t be accurate. Labour had thirteen years in which to tackle the ‘crisis’ in funding care for the elderly, it also had a moral duty to do so since freeing people from the fear of ending their days in poverty is a core value of the party.

What Labour did though was; nothing at all, apart from commissioning several reports to describe at great cost problems they already knew existed. In this latest round of negotiations their intent seems to have been scoring points rather than making constructive suggestions.

That is a serious mistake, for which the party will pay at the ballot box. The public are uninterested in the manufactured squabble over lords reform, what they want is a party that will set about slaying the ‘giants’ that stalk the fears of modern citizens, unemployment, social breakdown, inequality of opportunity and most of all poverty in their old age.

Rather than flirting, as he seems intent on doing, with the glib marketing expertise of Tony Blair Ed Milliband and his shadow cabinet need to concentrate on bringing people together to fight for fairness and dignity. If they don’t and the current cynical coalition is allowed to stumble on things will only get worse for the young, the old; for all of us.