Politics

Ok, so Fraser’s already mentioned Brown’s denial over the state of the economy.  But this whopper that our Prime Minister just issued in an interview with Nick Robinson can’t go unmentioned: “Because we’ve got low inflation we can cut interest rates, because we have had low debt, we can afford to keep our public spending programme in line.” Low inflation?  Low debt?  I’ll leave the response to CoffeeHouser RW: “As for Brown, if he really believes the rubbish he’s currently spouting then he’s seriously deluded, and if he doesn’t but keeps on saying it anyway he’s not just incompetent but malevolent.”

Steve Richards’s column in The Independent is, as ever, worth reading. Richards is surely right that education is fast becoming the main dividing line between the two parties. But I’m puzzled by this question that he poses about the Tory plans for independent, state-funded schools: “And if these schools are “independent” of political control, as Mr Gove envisages, to whom will they be accountable?”  The answer is that the schools will be answerable to the parents of its pupils. Once Gove’s supply-side reforms have been enacted, parents will be able to pick schools for their children rather than having the schools pick the pupils. Any school that isn’t up to

Is Gordon Brown on a mission to prove he is out of touch with what’s happening in the economy? First he tells us inflation is at a record low. Today he offers a £1,500 incentive for certain groups of people to enter a shared equity scheme to buy a house. But today the Halifax shows (Word doc) that the average house price fell by £4,870 last month alone – that’s 2.5%, the worst drop since 1992. Who on a low income and in their right mind would buy into such a market? Events are overtaking Brown at a bewildering speed. For more on matters financial and economic, head over to Trading Floor.

A few sites across the political blogosphere have already flagged up the newly-digitised Conservative Party Archive Poster Collection, but it deserves a Coffee House mention as well.  I’d recommend you take the time to browse through all the 600-or-so posters they’ve got there.   Here are a couple of golden-oldies that grabbed my eye – Team Cameron might want to bring them out of retirement:

More great news for Boris today.  Our Man notches up his biggest lead yet in the latest Evening Standard / YouGov poll; claiming 49 percent of first preference votes – whilst Ken languishes on 36 percent.  That’s a hefty advantage of 13 percent, then.  When second preference votes are allocated, Boris is on 56 percent, with Ken on 44 percent. These results tally with recent Evening Standard / YouGov polls, which have given Boris 10 and 12-point leads.  But they’re out of line with last week’s Guardian / ICM poll, which had the two leading candidates neck-and-neck.  Already Team Livingstone is whining that YouGov employs “flawed methodology”.  I wonder whether that’s more out of hope than conviction.

We hear phrase “market failure” often enough – but (as Michael Prowse once said) government failure is far more common. The most egregious example is education – and David Cameron says in his press conference today with Michael Gove. Here are a few facts they highlight today in their document (read it here): 1) Some 140,000 pupils were suspended from secondary schools for violence or persistent disruption in 2005/06. Many end up in the cells – almost 100,000 under-18s are given custodial sentences. 2) Suspensions for physical assault (in primary schools) is about twelve times higher in deprived areas than in the least-deprived ones. The scourge of school violence is focused