Labour to slash spending by £15 billion!

Well, they call them efficiency savings, but were it the Conservatives proposing exactly the same thing, Labour would call them cuts.

How much they will affect front line services is difficult to say. You could cut public spending by the actually required £40 billion without affecting public services, the problem is that you would be reliant on those currently wasting money to cut the fat rather than the muscle, and if the could do that, they would be already.

However, there are many points to make about these much heralded ¨efficiency savings¨.

The first is this is a budget announcement, it has been leaked, ergo the chancellor should resign. That is what has happened pre New Labour.

The problem is that New Labour have so cheapened politics that they can get away with leaking budget sensitive information on a regular basis and the client media (yes, the same ones who have now turned on Damian McBride) just lap it up.

The second thing to say is: why have we been tipping £15 billion a year down the toilet? If we assume that this had been going on for 5 years, then had Labour acted sooner, we could have £75 billion more in the bank. Wow, that would come in handy right now.

The third thing to say is that the problem with these cuts is how they are delivered, and more importantly who sets the accounting rules. Government still works on the daft rule that if you do not spend all your budget this year then you lose the money, and you lose the same from next years budget. This is a bean counter rule, and what is more it is a stupid one. If you make reasonable budget assumptions, and beat them you are punished, not only this year but next.

Changing that one rule would dramatically help the public finances. For a start it would mean that there would be budget surpluses.

The last thing to say is that these public spending reductions will not go any where near far enough to reduce public debt. Remember that almost every pound borrowed by the state is a pound less available to the market for every one else.

The BBC has this.

Bloggers on the trail of the terror leaker!

Bloggers are on the trail of the man who leaked details of the terror raid in Birmingham, (See here and here) in the Home Office. I suspect it won't be long before it is all over the press.

Iain Dale has this article with correspondence between Shadow Attorney General Dominic Grieve and John Reid of the Home Office in which after quite some delay John Reid denies that any of his staff leaked. Iain then goes on to say that many in Westminster and the press know exactly who he is.

Guido on the other hand has noticed a missing special adviser, Steve Bates. Surely a coincidence?

I suspect that DAC Clarke will also be very interested to find out who in the met leaked to the tabloids as well.

Who leaked the terror leak?

The Guardian has this interesting front page article on who leaked that terror leak.

In essence it names aids to Dr John Reid and a senior officer in Scotland yard (me, scratches head, wonders who in the Met could be so infected with New Labour's culture of spin? Um.. Blair is pm, Blair in charge of the Met.... Um... )

Obviously the Conservatives are still insisting on a leak inquiry, the Liberal Democrats are still insisting on a criminal investigation. Fair enough on both counts.

What made me laugh though was the Liberal Democrats and their press cuttings of "terror leaks". There have been 60. I can just imagine an earnest Ming Campbell cutting out and sticking paper clippings in his little big scrap book. Most amusing. I don't know which is more sickening though, the fact that there have been 60 leaks of very sensitive national security information,
or that I, and indeed every one else, has become so accustomed to it that not only are we not surprised, we laugh when someone tots them up?

Loose lips sink ships. This government is a danger to national security. It needs to go, and go now.

Blair says there is no evidence that should cause a leak inquiry

When asked if to confirm there was a leak inquiry in progress today into deliberate leaks of classified information related to anti terror operations, Tony Blair declined to confirm.

He seemed to want evidence.

Evidence of what exactly? We know that information has been leaked, we know it should not have been. We know it interfered with a police investigation! What we do not know is who released the information, and the only way we are going to find out is to investigate. Looks like Tony is trying to avoid yet another investigation.

I did listen to a Labour MP, and member of the Home Affairs committee (and apparently ex Home Office minister) bluster about how a leak inquiry was inappropriate as the leak was criminal. Does she really want another criminal investigation that could lead to the heart of government? That would be fun.

Meanwhile tomorrows Guardian will be running a story speculating that it was either one of John Reid's SpAd's or someone in Scotland Yard. We know that SpAd's have form for this kind of thing and we know that the Met has its issues, so it could be either.

What is clear is that we need to find who is responsible, and should have been looking for them as soon as the leak happened.

The BBC has this.

Cash for Peerages, Downing Street Leaked!

According to this article in today's News of the World, sources in the CPS blame Downing Street insiders for leaking the email, in an attempt to blow the investigation off course and even scupper a trial.

Guido also has this analysis, and reaches similar conclusions.

The News of the World contains Ming Campbell's quote on the matter:

"The important thing to remember is that the Attorney General acts in the public interest and, in particular, he has an interest to ensure that no possible prosecution is prejudiced and no possible defence is prejudiced.

"The inference of Lord Goldsmith's actions was that he at least contemplates the possibility that a prosecution of some kind will follow."

Whilst the article quotes media lawyer Mark Stephens:

"I would expect a development this weekend. I would be astonished if there wasn't."

So would I! It certainly is looking bad for those involved!

In fact the News of the World article says it is expecting charges for conspiring to pervert the course of justice. ouch.

For more on the cash for peerages inquiry see here.

Hat tip to Mike Smithson of PoliticalBetting.com for the News of the World article.