10 days, zero posts; there is no sign of life over at Britain’s leading left-wing blog. Not even – if their lefty pals are to be believed – the death of the welfare state and the privatisation of the NHS could revive Political Scrapbook. Nor could IDS’ £53 petition or Osborne’s dodgy figures wake them from their blogging coma. The Scrapbook twitter account, posting tweets from “the whole Scrapbook team”, has lain dormant for over a week. Rest in peace…
UPDATE:
Off topic I know, but does anyone know what's happened to the @PSbook blog? It's been rather quiet of late.
— Niall Paterson (@skynewsniall) April 2, 2013
Rule number one when wading into a debate on welfare, don’t do this:
Former Tory MP Edwina Currie says SHE could live on £53 a week. Asked her to talk to @5_News about it, she wanted 500 quid
— Nick Frost (@nicholasfrost) April 2, 2013
Doh…
IDS has told his local paper: “I have been unemployed twice in my life so I have already done this. I know what it is like to live on the breadline.” He says the petition “is a complete stunt which distracts attention from the welfare reforms which are much more important and which I have been working hard to get done.” The quiet man is turning up the volume.
How convenient that “fascist” Di Canio gave David Miliband the perfect chance to loudly leave his £25,000 job at Sunderland Football Club on a matter of principle. How convenient too, that the former Labour-leader-in-waiting is getting away just at the time widespread anger is boiling over in Africa at the club’s sponsor: a sponsor that David Miliband secured. Regular readers will remember Tullow Oil.
According to the Guardian, David played a vital role in forging the Sunderland deal with Tullow, the African oil firm who have been humiliated this week after accusing the Ugandan President of being involved in a $50 million bribe, leading to the company making a grovelling apology.
This sort of hiccup cannot have gone down too well with Miliband’s other employers – he is an advisor to African leaders through Tony Blair’s African Governance Initiative. Along with his escape to New York, a cynic would say Miliband saw a perfect excuse to spin this one…
Two versions of the Osborne speech have been distributed today. One via the HMT press office, that stated:
“That means about one in every six pounds of tax that working people like you pay was going on working age benefits.”
Yet the version that CCHQ pushed half an hour later said:
“That means about one in every seven pounds of tax that working people like you pay was going on working age benefits.”
The Treasury version stated:
“In 2010 alone, payments to working age families cost £90 billion.”
Yet the CCHQ version says:
“In 2010 alone, payments to working age families cost £75 billion.”
Which figures are accurate?
Via Sam Coates.
Click to enlarge. You can read his speech in full here.
UPDATE: Buried in his HMT promoted speech is Osborne’s general election campaign message:
With all our welfare changes, we’re simply asking people on benefits to make some of the same choices working families have to make every day.
To live in a less expensive house.
To live in a house without a spare bedroom unless they can afford it.
To get by on the average family income.
These are the realities of life for working people.
They should be the reality for everyone else too.
No wonder the Tories were PRing the speech too. Whose side are Labour on? Simples…
