Should Larry the Cat resign?

Larry the Downing Street Cat

The ConDem Coalition is under pressure as its slash and burn tactics by the Cabinet of All the Millionaires drags the economy deeper into recession. The May 2010 General Election resulted in the LibCon Coalition of the Conservative Party who didn’t win the election and the Liberal Democrats who most definitely lost the election and whose promise of changing the “Face of British Politics” turned out to be a busted flush. Since then the public has been treated to a drip, drip, drip of spending cuts and tax raises based on slash and burn policies which were never put to the electorate. It is now clear that under the guise of “fiscal responsibility” what is happening is an ideologically driven attack on State services and the whole concept of “Society.” For David Cameron’s Big Society read Bogus Society.



As you would expect the pressure has already lead to high level political resignations and the papers are speculating on what is to come with both Theresa May and her nemesis Ken Clarke being frequent names in the media frame. However far more seriously there is a clear and vicious smear campaign against the one name which still commands cross-party support and the public vote, Larry the Downing Street Cat who was drafted in to get the rats out of British Politics.

Today, Downing Street has rebuffed calls for Larry to resign as No 10's cat after reports a mouse appeared at a recent prime ministerial dinner. The PM was with other ministers, including Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, when the offending creature appeared, the Daily Mail said. No 10 brought in Larry, in February, to combat its rodent problem. Asked whether Larry should resign, the PM's spokesman said: "Larry brings a lot of pleasure to a lot of people."

Four-year-old Larry came to Downing Street from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and was said to have "a high chase-drive and hunting instinct", developed during his time on the streets. A spokesman said he had also shown "a very strong predatory drive" and enjoyed playing with toy mice. Larry's services were called upon after a large rat was seen scuttling past the door of No 10 during live television broadcasts.



In June, the prime minister told the BBC he was "a good mouser" and had caught three mice since his arrival. Spotted during a live broadcast from Downing Street during the BBC's News at Ten, Larry patiently waited on the steps before being let in through the famous door. The PM said he had taken a photograph on his mobile phone of a mouse in his kitchen, but at the time Larry had yet to have been allowed in that room.

He said the cat was "doing well" in his new home and although he was "not very keen on men", he had made an exception in May when he was happy to be stroked by US President Barack Obama. Larry is not taxpayer-funded - and until a recent fundraising event, his meals were paid for by the prime minister's staff out of their own pockets. A spokesman for the Royal Parks confirmed in September that Maisie, a cat who lives at the nearby St James' Park keeper's cottage, had struck up a close friendship with Larry.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/st-jamess-park-london.html

This is the political story which has it all, backbiting, intrigue, leaked smears, back alley briefings, cat porn and inaccurate fork throwing. As for the future of Larry the Downing Street Cat? Well there are no grounds for optimism, David Cameron has just given him his “fullest 100% support” and described his position as unassailable. It seems for Larry the Cat the writing is on the skirting board, he is being set up as a scapecat?

The Demolition Job

Gideon then

It is amazing how uncritically craven the right wing press is in the face of today’s UK Comprehensive Spending Review – A concerted ideological attack on the poor and on women. Can you imagine the hysterical headlines about “Betraying Our Boys!” If Labour had emasculated the defence Budget the way the Lib Cons have? A gaffe by Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander has revealed that half a million job losses are set to emerge in the upcoming Spending Review - a Government strategy to cut the deficit released by George Osborne today.

The coalition's austerity drive comes despite huge waves of protest across the country from working class postmen, nurses and teachers who presume their jobs are on the line. However, despite this, Chancellor, George, formerly known as Gideon Osborne will outline the 'hard road' ahead as the Government takes on one of the biggest spending cuts in the Western World. The scale of the cuts dwarfs Britain's two most recent austerity drives, after a 1976 IMF bailout and in the 1980s, under the leadership of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.


George now

Alan Johnson MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, has criticised the coalition’s Comprehensive Spending Review as a huge gamble from a government with no plan for growth and jobs.


Alan Johnson MP,Shadow Chancellor

Alan Johnson said:

“Today is the day that an abstract debate about spreadsheets and numbers turns into stark reality for people’s jobs and services. Their pensions, their prospects, their homes and their families. It is our firm belief that the rush to cut the deficit endangers the recovery and reduces the prospects for employment in the short term, and prosperity in the longer term.

“We believe we can and should sustain a more gradual reduction. Securing growth. I don’t believe that the Chancellor or the Prime Minster sufficiently understand the worries and concerns of families up and down the country. And I think those worries will have multiplied as a result of the spending review statement today.”

The full text of Alan Johnson’s speech follows:

Mr Speaker, members opposite are cheering the deepest cuts in public expenditure that have taken place in living memory. Today is the day that an abstract debate about spreadsheets and numbers turns into stark reality for people’s jobs and services.



Their pensions, their prospects. Their homes and their families.

The day that the statistics which were sitting so comfortably in the lap of the Chief Secretary yesterday, become uncomfortable reality for hundreds of thousands of families. The deficit deceivers opposite have peddled a series of myths to the British public.

The most incredible is that the biggest global economic crisis since the great depression is the fault of the previous government.

Perhaps the Chancellor will confirm three facts.

Fact one, when the global crisis hit the UK had the second lowest debt of any G7 country.

Fact two, that the last government inherited a debt interest level of 10p in every pound of tax received. And that even after a world recession, bequeathed a figure 15% lower.

Fact three, that the interest rates the UK pays on its debt have been falling since the beginning of the year.



The last CSR was in 2007, when the Chancellor was at this despatch box complaining not that we were spending too much, but that we were spending too little. He complained that we were slowing the growth in health and education expenditure. Indeed his party supported every penny of our spending plans until well after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in America set off a disastrous chain reaction around the world.

The Chancellor described his Emergency Budget in June as unavoidable and fair. It was actually unfair, as the IFS pointed out in a devastating critique within 48 hours. And it was also avoidable.

The deficit has to be paid down. But today’s reckless gamble with people’s livelihoods runs the risk of stifling the fragile recovery. The ridiculous analogy of credit card debt insults the intelligence of the British public.

If countries around the world hadn’t run up debts to sustain their economies people would not have lost their credit cards, they’d have lost their houses, their savings and their jobs. The Liberal Democrats know this. Because it’s what they argued when seeking the support of the electorate. Before the Deputy Prime Minister discovered Greece, in the period between the ballot boxes closing and the door of his ministerial car opening.



They, like us, argued that in the context of reducing the deficit, speed kills. The Chancellor repeats a list of organisations that support his swift cuts. Curiously he fails to mention the opposing views of the other nations that make up the UK – Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Perhaps that’s what he means when he describes himself as a one nation Tory.

And here’s another supportive quote.

"The measures we have taken have been commended by international bodies such as the European Central Bank, the European Commission, the IMF and the OECD. They have also won the approval of the international markets."

That was the Irish Minister of Finance last December, telling the Irish Parliament that his austerity plan was working, just four months before they slid back into recession. After months of overblown rhetoric from the Chancellor, the concerns of those watching his announcement today will be about:

• staying in work,
• staying in their homes
• and staying safe on our streets.

We are told that the expected job losses from this spending review amount to 490,000, in the public sector alone. And a Price Waterhouse Coopers report last week told us that a million jobs are at stake - because the impact on the private sector will be just as severe. Isn’t it the case that, at the same time as they throw people out of work, the government is reducing the support to help people return to the workplace?



They’ve already cancelled the Future Jobs Fund. Now, whilst the Work and Pensions Secretary tells us that the system must ensure that people are better off in work, the changes to Working Tax Credit announced today will have the opposite effect.

Reducing childcare support for working parents adds to the problem. This isn’t a strategy for jobs. It’s a recipe for unemployment.

On housing the Chancellor has announced the retreat of central government from any role in building new affordable homes. So I ask the Chancellor can he tell the House, how many jobs will be lost in the construction sectors as a result of his decision to all but end capital funding for housebuilding?

And on crime which has fallen dramatically over the last 13 years - how on earth can the government think they are in tune with people’s priorities when a substantial cut in the Home Office budget is bound to result in police officers being taken off the streets?

Spending does have to be reduced. But the frontline services on which people rely must be protected. The public do not want to see teacher numbers fall, fewer police officers on their streets, or hospitals short-staffed. So we support moves to protect schools and the NHS.

However, it seems clear that the Deputy Prime Minister has failed to meet his pledge that the pupil premium would not be funded from within the schools budget – a clear case of robbing Michael to pay Liam.

On the NHS, the small re al terms increase will be more than swallowed by the waste of £2 to £3bn on a top down reorganisation they promised in the election not to undertake.



And while we’re on the NHS, will the baseline for the Department of Health resource spending be reflected in the actual 2010/11 budget? Mr Speaker, without growth the job of getting the deficit down becomes impossible. A rising dole queue means a bigger welfare bill. And less tax coming in.

A cost of at least half a billion pounds for every 100,000 people thrown out of work by the government's approach. So to get the deficit down the starting point must be jobs, jobs, jobs. And that is the core of the difference between us and the government.

The Ministry of Justice tells us that they will see 14,000 staff go. Does he agree with the department’s assessment that the vast majority of those, 11,000, will be from the frontline?



Can he confirm that £230m of taxpayers funds have been earmarked for redundancy costs in that department alone? What is the total scale of redundancies expected across the public sector? What will the total redundancy bill be?

Thanks to the Chief Secretary we know that the Treasury has provided him with estimates. He should share them with the House. I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to revisit his plans for capital spending and support for science. The Business Secretary has rightly fought to partially protect the science budget, and to put more money into regional development.

It’s true that he had to switch overnight from opposing any graduate contribution to their education to support for unlimited fees, but such contortions are nothing new for the Rt Hon Member and his colleagues.

But given the warning signs in the UK and global economies, we believe the case for going further on infrastructure is clear.



The banks that benefit from the ending of the bonus tax, and the cut in Corporation Tax, can well afford to take more of the strain. This additional would mean that vital infrastructure projects could go ahead – keeping people in work now, and creating the environment for growth in the years to come. And we call again on the government to change their perverse decision on Sheffield Forgemasters.

It is right that the government looks for savings from the welfare bill. Where changes are fair, proportionate and encourage work we will support them as we have shown in respect of incapacity benefit, a reformed gateway for Disability Living Allowance and on up ratings. We will look at the other changes announced today.
But there is nothing fair about Child Benefit changes that leave a single earner on £45,000 losing thousands of pounds, while a family on £80,000 gets to keep every penny.

As things stand the government is looking for a bigger contribution to reducing the deficit to come from children than from the banks. That can’t be right.

Will the Chancellor confirm that his change to Child Benefit equates to a 6p increase in income tax for a single earner family on £45,000? Perhaps because of the consternation caused on this issue he has dropped plans to remove child Benefit for older children. Can he rule this our completely, or is it still under consideration?

And, while we accept that Housing Benefit should be reformed, how can anyone on the benches opposite suggest that removing 10% of the rent for a family’s home from someone who has been looking for work for 12 months is fair?

Can the Chancellor confirm that the poorest will bear a greater burden than the richest – with the middle squeezed even further? And that women are shouldering three quarters of the cuts? Does he still claim that these measures are progressive and fair?



Mr Speaker. There is an alternative to this slash and burn approach. This Spending Review is not about economic necessity, it’s about political choice. The Chancellor argues that Labour would have done nothing about the deficit. But he goes on to say that his cuts are no worse than ours. He can’t have it both ways. But he’s wrong on both counts.

The government is removing almost twice as much from departmental budgets as we think is wise, before we consider the further welfare reforms he has announced today. It is our firm belief that the rush to cut the deficit endangers the recovery and reduces the prospects for employment in the short term, and prosperity in the longer term. We believe we can and should sustain a more gradual reduction. Securing growth.

I don’t believe that the Chancellor or the Prime Minster sufficiently understand the worries and concerns of families up and down the country. And I think those worries will have multiplied as a result of the spending review statement today.

The Demolition Coalition

There is a huge democratic deficit at the heart of British politics today. The May 2010 General Election resulted in the LibCon Coalition of the Conservative Party who didn’t win the election and the Liberal Democrats who most definitely lost the election and whose promise of changing the “Face of British Politics” turned out to be a busted flush. Since then the public has been treated to a drip, drip, drip of spending cuts and tax raises based on slash and burn policies which were never put to the electorate. It is now clear that under the guise of “fiscal responsibility” what is happening is an ideologically driven attack on State services and the whole concept of “Society.” For David Cameron’s Big Society read Bogus Society.

Since the election the LibCon Coalition has announced so many cuts that it has been renamed the Demolition Coalition – no evidence they can (or want) to build anything but plenty of evidence they are happy to tear the house down. Non-protected departmental Budgets, everything apart from health and International Aid, are going to be cut by 25 percent on average. But Chancellor George Osborne told the House he would hope that the cuts to defence and education would be significantly less than that. The unspoken part of that is that the cuts to some other Budgets will have to be significantly bigger than that. Even then, Britain faces further tax rises even after the Coalition Government imposes deep cuts in public spending, according to a two-year study. An all-party commission has warned that taxes will have to rise to cope with the financial pressures caused by an ageing population; an increase in chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity; combating climate change; closing the gap between rich and poor; abolishing child poverty and improving skills levels in the workforce.



The coalition government's spending cuts to reduce deficit will see unemployment in the UK rise to almost 3 million over the next five years, according to a revised forecast by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). There was no prospect of real wage growth until at least 2015, and the public sector faced sharp pay cuts and job losses, which could total 725,000 by that year. The CIPD warned of a "bleak" outlook for "those individuals and communities already suffering the greatest hardship in society".

So it is not just the raving loonies that warn that the Demolition Coalition have got it wrong. That natural home of extremism, The Association of Police Superintendents has warned that the proposed cuts will lead to civil anarchy. The OECD is worrying that cuts will choke off recovery and the IMF is saying the UK has room for fiscal manoeuvre, so the Demolition Coalition’s arguments looks weaker every day.




Portcullis House

So I was very heartened last night to be in the Macmillan Room at Portcullis House in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster to meet the acting Labour Party Leader Harriet Harman and South East Labour Mp’s, Alan Whitehead, MP and John Denham, MP who represent Southampton, Andrew Smith MP for Oxford East, Fiona McTaggart MP for Slough. There is a real sense that the Labour Leadership campaign is leading to a real debate and renewal which will strengthen the Party. Over 32,000 people have joined the party since the election and disenchantment is rife among former Lib Dem supporters who voted for no VAT rise and against spending reductions.

It was good to see the inside of Portcullis House, a building which went significantly over budget and which has as its foundations, Westminster Tube Station. Portcullis House is built above the dramatic Westminster Tube Station on top of the “Box”, a vast 39m (127ft) void which was excavated underneath the old station to house the escalators, lifts and stairs to the deep-level Jubilee Line platforms, the deepest ever excavation in central London. One of the most difficult problems the engineers faced was to construct the station around the Circle and District line tracks, which continued in service throughout its construction. The tracks had to be lowered by 300mm (1 foot), an operation achieved a few millimetres at a time during the few hours each night that the system was closed. The station was by far the most complex in terms of engineering of any of those on the Jubilee line and it was the last to open, just before Christmas 1999. Nothing of the old station remains. The “box” gives you the impression you are in an Escher engraving and the spray concrete used in the “Austrian Tunnelling Method” is deliberately left exposed to demonstrate how it was constructed.






Westminster Station "The Box" under Portcullis House

The station's cavernous design, by Michael Hopkins & Partners, won it a 2001 Royal Institute of British Architects Award and earned it a place on the shortlist for the RIBA's prestigious Stirling Prize. The architects, Michael Hopkins and Partners, published their design for Portcullis House in 1993 and the existing buildings on the site were demolished in 1994. At the same time, London Underground was building the Jubilee Line Extension, including a new interchange station at Westminster tube station which occupies the same area; the two were thus designed and built as a single unit.



Inside with its dramatic atrium and its separation into Parlimentary and public areas (necessary for security reasons) Portcullis House reeks of long lasting quality and is hugely impressive. But what really impressed me was the fighting spirit of the Labour Party activists, MP’s and acting Leader Harriet Harman. With the Demolition Coalition greatly afraid of the electorates reaction to its slash and burn policies they are trying to Gerrymander the Electoral and Parliamentary systems, pushing through legislation to give Parliament a fixed five year term, postpone the Queen’s Speech (which sets out the Government’s legislative programme) and change the majority needed for a Vote of Confidence. As Harriet Harman pointed out the Labour Party is very much alive and kicking and holding the Demolition Coalition to account and the May Local elections next year will be a real moment of truth.


Acting Labour Leader Harriet Harman, a scion of the Anglo-Irish Harman-King family

One amazing feature of the Demolition Coalition so far is the compliant press coverage from the Murdoch and Tory Press. When you consider the acerbic and highly personalised disinformation campaign against Labour and its entire works before the May Election the docility of the right wing press in the face of, say swingeing Defence cuts is both incredible and hypocritical. The Demolition Coalition and the Labour Leadership Campaign has made the UK electorate realise why Labour is different. With its roots in the struggles for ordinary people’s rights by the Trade Union Movement and mutual self help by the Co-Operative Society it is set apart from the shallow opportunism of other parties and is the only political movement which can bring fairness and growth to Britain. As the outcome of the last election and the destructive experimentation of the Demolition Coalition has shown the Lib Dems were not an alternative to the overweening selfishness of the Tories.


Aaaahhhhhh ........ Nick, The Downing Street Baby

BHS – British Home Savings?

Philip Slasher Green

As the LibCon Coalition implodes before a horrified electorate, including the last remaining 11 Lib Dem supporters, who never voted for the policies they are threatening to implement PR Dave can’t resist the eye catching gesture of recruiting the most unlikely figure of Sir Philip Green to advise on cutting expenditure. Sir Philip, owner of clothing retailer Arcadia Group, will scrutinise expenditure from the past three years to try to identify where savings can be made. The conclusions from the external review will feed into the Comprehensive Spending Review due to be completed in October.

Announcing the appointment, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: “We are extremely fortunate to have Sir Philip, with his immense commercial experience and of course his fantastic track record at managing large organisations, on board. “Sir Philip has made clear to the Government the importance of his business remit which has always been that efficient operating is different from cost cutting and removing jobs.”


Philip's 206 ft Benetti "Lionheart" registered in the Cayman Islands. He also has a 105 ft "speedboat" Lionchaser

The billionaire retail tycoon, who will be supported by a team of civil servants and report to Maude and Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander, said: “I will give this efficiency review my very best effort knowing how hugely important it is to the recovery of the country.“I want to help focus, motivate and energise to achieve these efficiency savings. It is these actions that will re-start growth in the UK.”

Alexander said: “The Spending Review is about promoting growth, rebalancing the economy and completely re-evaluating the Government's role in providing public services. Sir Philip Green's efficiency review will play an important role as we totally re-think how the Government spends taxpayers' money.“Tough decisions need to be taken in order to ensure that Britain lives within its means. By being prepared to do things differently, we can ensure that this process will enable us to get more for less, and support our front line services.”



Now judging by this sybarite’s lifestyle “cutting” and “expenditure” have never been key words associated with him. Sir Philip, 58, owns more than 2,000 shops across Britain. His empire, which also includes BHS, is estimated to make up 12% of the nation's clothing retail market. When he turned 50, he received a solid gold Monopoly set from his wife Tina, featuring the stores he had acquired, including Top Shop, BHS and Miss Selfridge. To mark the occasion, Green chartered a private jet to fly 200 guests, including journalists and business associates, to Cyprus for a three-day toga party at a cost of £50m, and a few years later he spent further millions on his son's bar mitzvah, hiring Destiny's Child to provide the entertainment at the achingly stylish Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat. He is Britain's fourth richest man, with a total of 2,300 shops in the UK and assets worth around £3.61bn. Together, the companies boast 40,000 employees, 2,500 outlets and $5.1 billion in sales. He lives part-time in the Dorchester Hotel in London while his wife, Tina, and two children reside in a Monte Carlo penthouse. Philip is a commuter, flying the tedious 1 hour 30 minute, 580 nm commute from Monaco in his 12 seater Gulfstream 550 Jet, range 6,800 nm. This of course gives him a great insight into the plight of the common people, an insight shared by the 22 millionaires (out of 26) in the LibCon cabinet.


Sir Philips Gulfstream 550 jet registered in the British Virgin Islands

Sir Philip is also – I must express this with care – a man who is careful to arrange his own finances so as not to needlessly benefit the common weal. In 2005, for example, the man whom Robert Peston (The BBC Business Reporter) dubs both a lovable rogue and the king of jackpot capitalism paid himself a tax-free dividend of £1.2bn from the Arcadia retailing business. Technically the dividend went to his Monaco-resident wife, in order to avoid UK Treasury attention, a tax saving to Sir Philip that has been estimated at £300m. That one dividend payment, as Mr Peston has written, was equivalent to what 54,000 people on average earnings would earn in a year, would build around 10 secondary schools capable of educating some 13,000 young people.

The BBC’s Money Programme calculated that Green and his family had ’saved themselves’ £300m from their £1.2bn salary by living for a part of the year in Monaco, whose residents don’t pay income tax.Standing up for such paupers used to be the point of a Labour government. Even if it could not force the likes of Green to pay their fair share, it retained the power to shun them and make it clear that those who don’t contribute towards their country can’t expect their country to be grateful.


Phil's normal hood of Monaco - Once described by Somerset Maugham as "A sunny place for shady people."

Amazingly, under Tony Blair even modest defiance of the plutocrats was beyond Labour now and Green, received a knighthood for ’services to the retail industry’. If I were in the Inland Revenue, I would fret about the moment when the little people who stupidly still pay taxes realise that the state is treating them like fools. It insists that they must hand over their earnings on pain of punishment by the courts, while inviting Philip Green to Buckingham Palace to be honoured by the Queen.

If Billionaires like Philip Green want to help society they should pay taxes and stop screwing workers. There are too many Great British Patriots who are too patriotic to pay taxes while living in their little islands in the sun, or in Belize. They are called Conservative Party donors. The whole Non-Dom tax status is nonsense. There is no such thing as an American Tax exile – If you are an American citizen you pay American Federal taxes on your world income no matter where you live. Don’t take my word on Philip Green’s unsuitability to take part in this gimmicky review, this is what Britain’s most trusted economic commentator and trusted politician once said;

"I have no time for billionaire tax dodgers who step off the plane from their tax havens into the country where they make their money and have the effrontery to tell us how to vote and how to run our tax policies. If some of them came onshore and paid their taxes it would make a useful dent in the budget deficit."

Fine words from Vince Cable. Now stand by them.


The man who banked £1.2 Billion tax free in Monte Carlo