This blog is on holiday.

I've gone to Cyprus. I'll be back in November.

Cameron = New Labour?

I haven't got the time for a more detailed post now, but my initial thoughts about Cameron's speech today are that:

• Poverty:  "Don't you dare lecture us about poverty. You have failed and it falls to us, the modern Conservative Party, to fight for the poorest who you have let down" - is this a joke? What about tax credits, the minimum wage, Sure Start and investment in education?
• A more comprehensive account is taken by Left Foot Forward, whoI defer to. They say: "According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (i) “between 1998–99 and 2004–05, Labour oversaw the longest decline in poverty since the start of our consistent time series in 1961"

More on this tomorrow.

Honesty on cuts or honesty on Tory motives?

I don't expect to but it would be good to hear something from the Tories this week admitting that Gordon Brown's fiscal stimulus was necessary to keep the economy going. They are more interested in highlighting the size of Britain's budget deficit. Cameron and Osbourne claim this is because honesty is needed about dealing with the deficit. I'd like to hear a little more honesty from the Tories about cutting public services. 

Osbourne didn't mention what he would do with increasing tax receipts as the economy begins to grow again. Alistair Darling intends to use these to reduce the budget deficit while protecting public services. The Tories are using the deficit as an excuse to make cuts to public spending. In both the 2001 and 2005 elections this was the predominant theme of their manifesto. 

What will George and Dave do when the economy picks up? Osbourne yesterday left the door open for make cuts to inheritance tax for the rich and mentioned that he wouldn't scrap the 50% top tax rate at the moment, leaving open the possibility of scrapping that in future. Cameron's Tories have been accused of being light on detail - they are now, at last, telling the public what they intend to do with government. Rather ominous gaps are still there and it will take a strong response from Labour to show the country why the Tories are wrong. Rachel Reeves at Progress agrees: "The banking crisis and recession will be used by the Tories to do what they always wanted to do. Cutting back the size of the state and then cutting taxes for the few."

George Osborne: necessary evil or nasty party incarnate?

George Osborne today made much play of telling the truth about the country's finances, while claiming that Labour are telling "lies" about it. All sides of the political spectrum agree that the government needs to start balancing the books as we head back into growth after global recession. Does Osborne's speech today set out the answers the country needs?

Public sector pay restraint is going to mean that again those working in the private sector will be able to benefit from a growing economy, while teachers and ordinary civil servants have to wait. Osborne has set the bar too low, with those earning more than £18k subjected to a pay freeze for one year. I doubt these workers will get much in year two from a Tory government. The economy needs public sector workers spending their money just like everyone else. I agree that high earners from the public purse should be subject to restraint, probably for longer than one year.

Tax credit and benefit cuts should be carefully targeted. Labour wants less people claiming incapacity benefit and more working. This needs to be balanced with jobs for the unemployed to go to. I'm unconvinced that Osborne's plan will deliver this part of the deal.

There is little in his speech about what to do with rising tax revenues as the economy recovers. Will these be used to pay for tax cuts or to keep public services running instead of cutting them?

There was plenty of detail from Osborne today. The Tories are setting out their agenda for government. I'm going to cast a very interested eye over the next set of opinion polls to see whether the public accept the Tories somewhat austere plans. My suspicion is that Cameron and Osborne would prefer cuts to taxes and services. This means we may be looking at the start of a very unpopular government.

House of Twits

As an avid social media user I've been a keen reader of political social media aggregator House of Twits for some time. I'm delighted to say that I am now a member of the site's Labour "Front Bench" of bloggers. I'll be blogging from there too from now on.

The site is a great way of keeping in touch with the best political Tweets - somewhere that gives me content from across the spectrum without having to look for it! Anything that saves time and puts everything in one place is a winner for me.

London at the Tory vanguard

Boris Johnson's mayoralty always looked like acting as a prototype for a future Tory government.

His proposed £5bn of cuts to London's budget through "efficiencies" looks impressive. How will it be delivered, if it actually can be?

What will he cut if the flagship projects remain? Delaying pollution curbs by implementing the low emission zone late? What about cutting London's income by scrapping the western extension of the congestion charge? That might not be legal or advisable. What about wasting money by getting rid of bendy buses - adding 12% to costs? That won't help,

He might take the headlines by freezing the mayor's portion of Londoners' council tax - but putting up fares on the tube and buses will impact Londoners pockets on a daily basis.

The cuts sound impressive, yet there is little in actual detail from Johnson. Much like David Cameron, he is able to make bold statements, yet founders on the detail. Londoners will want to know what BJ actually wants to do.

Tory lead cut after Brown's speech

According to YouGov the Tory lead over Labour has been cut to 7% following Brown's speech. As I stated to LBC's Nick Ferrari this morning, the real test is whether Labour can keep this level after Cameron's speech to the Tory conference last week.

The Tories will get widespread positive press from a friendly media, so I'm more interested in seeing the polls next week. Nevertheless, some mildly good news.

Does The Sun lead or follow?

Last night The Sun announced that they will back the Conservatives at the next general election, 12 years after backing New Labour, with today’s front page announcing that: “Labour’s lost it.” In 1992 the newspaper’s election day headline “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?, leading to the later claim “It was The Sun wot won it”. Can we judge the shift to Cameron with the same weight?

I was part of a panel discussing this last night on BBC Radio 5Live’s Richard Bacon show, with commentator Shane Greer and a host of senior media and political heavyweights calling in. It was no surprise that Labour politicians such as Ed Milliband thought the decision lacked the significance of the past, while it was welcomed by Conservative Chairman Eric Pickles.

Tony Blair’s former spokesman Alistair Campbell played down the significance, writing today that “Sun switches ain’t what they used to be.” He suggested: “It is a big media story, and the media love nothing more than a big media story,” adding that with a fragmented media very different from 1997, consumers are also savvier. “While the public may know the politicians spin them a line from time to time, they sure as hell know the papers do too.”

Roy Greenslade also took part in last night’s debate, confirming today his view that The Sun is “placing itself as a central actor in a political drama. It is saying that what it thinks really counts. But there's precious little proof of that any longer.” The Sun’s circulation today is 35% lower today than it’s mid 1990s peak. Greenslade, like Steve Hewlett, thought the newspaper a follower of public opinion, not a leader.

The Sun may not be as significant as it once was. Nevertheless, last night’s announcement hijacked the headlines and to that extent was successful for the paper’s new editor Dominic Mohan. Otherwise it wouldn’t have led last night’s debate on Five Live, or been talked about across the media today. Can a mainstream media title, like The Sun, be as influential as it once was? Does the fragmentation of readership habits mean that no single title will ever again be able to claim an election as its own?

Gordon Brown sets out voters' choice

Gordon Brown today set out his terms for the choice voters face at the next general election. He began strongly by ringing out Labour's achievements, the minimum wage, an end to NHS waiting lists and every school rebuilt. He stated clearly that the Tories would put this all at threat.

There were some new policy announcements such as the National Care Service, something that will extend the helping hand of the NHS to those needing full time care. Talk of tackling anti social behaviour was Brown attempting to talk to the mainstream.

What is clear is that there is a choice at the next election. A choice between a Tory party that would not have invested in public services, improving the NHS, education and regenerated our cities - and a Labour government that did. A choice between a Tory party that would have let the recession run its course and a Labour government that led the way in global action to re-energise our economies.

The Tories had no answers at the depth of the recession, a situation that has enabled them to bang their favourite drum - public service cuts. Brown made it clear today that this is the Tory ideology, it is in their DNA. Labour will ensure the market isn't left to itself and that those in most need will not be left to fend for themselves by an indifferent government. The Tories stand for change, but that is a change back to the 1980s.

Was today's speech the game changer that many commentators suggested it needed to be? Probably not. It was good enough. No general election has been won or lost on a conference speech. The real test of Brown's speech is whether voters will start listening to him again. Will Labour get a boost in the opinion polls? Crucially, will they be able to hold it after next week's Tory conference?

Gordon Brown and Andrew Marr

Gordon Brown today looked astonished as Andrew Marr asked him twice if he was using "prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through." Was this a valid question? Brown certainly thought not.

Marr's raising of this unsubstantiated rumour gives it, perhaps incorrectly, credibility. True or not, asking something like this invades the personal privacy that even the prime minister has a right to.

It will fuel reporting in Monday's press about whether Brown is losing control of his health together with the country. I'm sure may will speculate about whether there really is credence in the rumours by analysing every Brown mannerism for signs of weakness. Judging by the serious comments at The Times most agree that with this line of questioning Marr was overstepping the mark.

I also blog elsewhere...

I also contribute to my company's blog, Measurement Matters. My latest blog post suggests that Google are attempting to take ownership of more web content to take even more revenue from advertising with the launch of the Sidewiki...

Nick Clegg for PM?

Nick Clegg this week declared his ambition to be prime minister. Every year Lib Dem leaders make their claim to become number one and every year (after the annual leadership change) the idea becomes more fanciful.

As our third party there is no chance of Clegg leading the country. Even with electoral reform Clegg would stand no chance of leading the country. Why Kennedy, Campbell and Clegg feel the need to pretend nobody will notice their fantasy and claim that they will become PM seems preposterous. The Lib Dem members in the conference hall this week applauded Clegg's delusional claims. Surely they cannot all be that stupid?

After discussing the 'point' of the Lib Dems on Five Live on Monday, it became clear that the Lib Dems felt they were not taken seriously enough. If their leaders make such preposterous claims is it any wonder?

Lib Dems identity crisis

The row following Vince Cable's proposed property tax for homes valued over £1m has shown the confused identity of the Lib Dems. Cable looks left, Clegg looks right and everybody else gets dizzy.

Last night's Five Live debate didn't throw up any answers for the Lib Dems. Only questions. Voters don't seem to really understand what the party stands for. This is no surprise when the public face of the party nationally is multi-faceted and when many peoples' local experience of them varies so greatly. Social democrats in South West London where they profit from the anti-Tory vote and soft conservatives in the South West of England where they fight the Tories on their own platform.

There is a role for a third party in British politics, though Clegg's Lib Dems are yet to fill that and don't look likely to.

What is the point of the Lib Dems

This week's Lib Dem conference really kicks off the run in to next Spring's general election. Lib Dems will be hoping that this week can be the spur to a resurgence for our third party against an untrusted Tory party and tired Labour government. For a third party to survive in a two party electoral system requires them to have clear goals and radical ideas.

The Lib Dems have always struggled to define a single, clear purpose. Are they the party of opposition - to both left and right? Are they the party of radical ideas? Are they the party of social democracy or the libertarianism?

Today's policy announcement that Lib Dems would tax properties valued over £1m, to take the poor out of income tax, is both radical and socialist. Nick Clegg's constant assertions that "savage" cuts are needed to the public sector is lthat expected of a traditional liberal - today mostly found in the Tory party.

Within the last 24 hours these two events have shown that the Lib Dems are still facing in two directions. Which one the public gets to hear from depends on which Lib Dem voice is speaking. Former Labour Party adviser Vince Cable or the remarkably Tory sounding Nick Clegg. The Lib Dems are still in the shadow of their late 1980s formation from two very different political parites - the SDP and the Liberal Party. Cable and Clegg are each from these different arms.

Until the Lib Dems work out who they are and what they stand for they will struggle to define clear ground for themselves. Without this and a clear identity it will be difficult for them to attract votes on a national basis. Without that, they will always struggle to compete effectively with Labour and the Tories.

Clegg's savage calls strike of a desperate swipte at headlines without really thinking about the effects on economic confidence. Creating a vision of an aggressive and painful future isn't attractive. One criticism that certainly can't be levelled at Gordon Brown is rash decision making. His often well deliberated solutions to problems often get lost in the mire of news headlines, while sometimes managing a little praise for quantitative easing and stabilising the banking system.

More discussion follows tonight on Five Live's Richard Bacon show. Me, Bacon and Mark Oaten...at 11.

Is anybody listening?

David Cameron still has some way to go before he has total control of his party. Today's outbursts by Douglas "clean my moat" Hogg and Sir Patrick Cormack that MPs deserve even more pay, following the expenses scandal, shows a party still very much out of step with the national mood.

The Daily Telegraph was simplistic to suggest that many MPs don't need a second home when they have to work late in Parliament. However, to suggest that MPs' pay should be doubled is so far off the scale as to be simply stupid.

Once MPs stop having second jobs and focusing on the job they were elected to do we'll be in a better position to start sorting the mess out. If MPs themselves actually agreed to the many sensible reforms of Parliament that have been suggested on a number of occasions we might start to make progress. If Parliament met at reasonable office hours, not at night, we might have progress. It might also allow MPs to spend more time with ordinary people and less time in the Westminster bubble. That really would be progress.

Proud of the NHS?

Is the NHS safe in Tory hands? It certainly wasn't in the 1980s and 1990s when I grew up. On the evidence of today's comments by Tory MEP Daniel Hannan, attacking our proudest achievement, I am led to suspect the answer to be no.

I've not been surprised at the American reaction to Obama's plans to expand state health care provision. I have been a little surprised though that ordinary Americans might be against extending their rights to better health.

Hannan's view of the NHS is not one I share. Waiting lists are no longer an issue like he says. As a member of the Tory party perhaps he should remember the closed wards and patients left to die on trolleys every winter as was usual when his party was last in power?

Hannan's Tory party is one of a small state, cuts and always putting the individual first. This is what lurks behind Cameron's compassionate conservatism. I suspect this to be revealed after the next election.

Who are the progressives?

Osborne claims the Tories are. He claims that Labour does not want to reform public services. Are these the same public services that were in disarray in the mid 1990s? Where every winter people died on trolleys in our hospitals because the NHS didn't have the capacity to treat them? This doesn't happen any more. In 1997 the dominant association with the NHS was of waiting lists. These have all but been eradicated.

Labour has reformed public services by making them more effective. Re-building hospitals, slashing waiting lists and rebuilding every school in the country is an impressive record of Labour reform.

Twibbons

Brand Republic reports that Labour now has a Twibbon - a Labour logo to appear in the corner of one's Twitter profile photo. I'll be waiting with baited breath for the weekend's opionion polls, this really could be the catalyst for a startling recovery...I'll still be adding one to my own Twitter profile.

No second jobs

I have always felt that MPs should have only one job - the one they were elected to do. I'm pleased that second jobs won't be permitted by Labour and that the Tories are following suit. It might mean that Parliament actually begins to sit at reasonable hours, making it less necessary for some MPs to have second homes.

Howard Stoate may be a good local MP, but if the same rules apply to lawyers and bankers, they should apply across the board and it is only right that he should focus on one job.

Is the government responsible for unemployment?

Last night I debated this on Richard Bacon's Five Live show with Tory blogger Shane Greer. Yesterday saw a record increase in the number of unemployed in the UK. The reasons for the increase in unemployment are manifold, not least that Britain is suffering together with the rest of the world. Also that not many people spotted this coming.

There is a clear differential between Labour offering business and individuals support, including the holiday on business rates for small businesses; and the Tories offering no alternative. There is also a huge difference between today's recession and those of the 1980s. Before mass privatisation the government was directly responsible for employing huge swathes of the population - and then making them unemployed - when this is no longer the case.

The government here is also ensuring that wide scale public sector construction projects, like Building Schools for the Future and Crossrail continue.

Globalisation also means that we're under ever increasing pressure from the rest of the world to be economically competitive. At the same time, this also offers our best escape route, giving UK business the chance to trade overseas. Protectionism isn't an option.

Listen again, I'm on in the first hour.