Following the depressing growth figures, coalition big wigs have been keen to offer their hapoth's worth to George Osborne with a series of bizarre ideas.
Following the depressing growth figures on Tuesday, coalition big wigs have been keen to offer their hapoth’s worth to George Osborne with a series of bizarre policy ideas.
Foremost among them is David Cameron’s “blue skies” thinking guru Steve Hilton, who appears to have been up in the sky with his pie in the sky idea to abolish – yes, abolish – maternity leave, and scrap consumer rights legislation for nine months. Dodgy goods? Ripped off? Missold something? Tough!
The FT reports (£):
Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s enigmatic strategy director, has startled colleagues by proposing the abolition of maternity leave and all consumer rights legislation, as part of an initiative to inject life into Britain’s sluggish economy…
“Steve asked why the PM had to obey the law,” said one Whitehall insider of a meeting in March to discuss the government’s growth strategy. “Jeremy [Heywood] had to explain that if David Cameron breaks the law he could be put in prison.”
Adding (£):
Over the past few months, government officials have relayed to the Financial Times some of Mr Hilton’s quirkiest ideas… The 42-year-old, “Big Society” advocate’s solution to long-term unemployment was to abolish all jobcentres and to hand out money to community groups.
But perhaps his most ambitious unfulfilled plan was to scrap maternity rights. “Steve thinks that they are the biggest obstacle to women finding work, because companies know they are required by law to offer maternity leave,” said one Whitehall insider.
“He also wanted to suspend all consumer rights legislation for nine months to see what would happen. Some of his ideas are great but a lot of time is spent at an official level trying to deconstruct his maddest thoughts.”
Boris Johnson, meanwhile, ever keen to help out his fat cat chums in the City (you know, the ones whose recklessness got us into this mess), has proposed scrapping the 50p tax rate, which will help those hard pressed souls having to scrape by on a mere £150,000 a year, who have a low marginal propensity to consume anyway.
Boris’s policy is hardly going to get the economy moving again.
Finally, to Vince Cable, who wins the award for silliest silly season idea yet, with his “red tape challenge” solutions of lowering the age at which Christmas crackers and liquer can be bought, an amendment to the Wireless Telegraphy Act, and making poisons easier to buy, saying:
“All sales of acids are based on the impression that we are all Dr Crippens wanting to dispose of bodies.”
Yep, that’s really gonna reverse the damage Osborne’s done to the economy. Nope, if they want to kick start the economy they need a Plan G for Growth…
48 Responses to “Has the coalition lost the plot on growth?”
Anon E Mouse
Shamik Das – Excuse me. I’m not the one who diverted this thread away from your topic. You did.
Liz McShane linked off and I AGREED with her but just asked HER why it was Johnson who was being accused of being their “chum” when Labour were far more chummy with bankers, city slickers and spivs and rewarded them with knighthoods like no other government in history. That was all. It just detracts from your article and is unnecessary.
I agree I know nothing about the BNP but even assuming Wolfy isn’t lying, which I don’t, how on earth would this marauding gang of thugs know he was Jewish? And in turn how would he know they were BNP members?
Twice.
I may live out in the sticks Shamik and lead a simple life but I’m sure if his story was true (twice) then the police would have arrested the perpetrators by just going to their local meetings wouldn’t they?
The story stinks to me and as for diverting the thread I AGREE WITH YOUR POINTS in the main. Unusually.
And I do get it Shamik Das… 🙁
Simon Watkins
http://t.co/nqiWDu5 Mitchell & Webb sketch was more accurate then we thought! Irony is dead! @cathyby
Ed's Talking Balls
‘Goodness. Anon, I think you’ll find the only person consistently rewriting history, lying and smearing on this blog is you.’
Come on Shamik, that’s simply not true. On several occasions, I have been insulted for offering an opinion which a non-Guardian reader might agree with. The same goes for 13eastie and Selohesra, among others.
There is plenty of history rewriting on this blog, although thankfully far less inaccuracy and vitriol than can be found on Liberal Conspiracy.
On this occasion, Anon E Mouse quite reasonably pointed out your hypocrisy in talking about Bojo’s fat cat chums in the square mile. Undoubtedly he has plenty, but clearly the Brownite cabal leading Labour has many friends in that area too.
Regarding the substance of your article (you are quite right, the digression is unwelcome), I broadly agree. Scrapping maternity leave seems barmy and destroying consumer protection is also stupid. Nonetheless, perhaps we should give heed to what some employers have been saying about maternuty leave, including the Labour Lord Sugar; it’s always worth listening to what those people who create jobs have to say. Similarly, I would be interested to see some studies on the effect of the 50p tax. Instinctively, I am against such a punitive rate of tax (except in the case of irksome celebrities, on whom I’m inclined to think society should impose a super tax…) and would like to see the back of it. The question is, does it genuinely drive away/scare off entreprenuers who would otherwise be offering jobs here? I honestly don’t know. Still, I don’t think it’s crackpot stuff to suggest that scrapping the tax could aid growth.
Finally, Cable is a fool. It’s important to remember that before paying too much attention to what he says.
Leon Wolfson
Really? No, you’ve been insulted for defending vicious, nasty cuts to vital services. This isn’t a labour site, many of us have no truck with New Labour and are highly suspicious of, for example, Miliband’s attack on the disabled recently (and let’s not start on the Tories of “Blue Labour”).
There have been studies which show the value of maternity leave;
http://www.hrw.org/node/96430/section/5
“The vast majority of establishments responded that the program had minimal impacts on their business operation. They said that the program had a “positive” or “no noticeable” effect on productivity (88.5 percent), profitability and performance (91 percent), turnover (92.8 percent), and employee morale (98.6 percent).”
The areas of America where it’s still not compulsory, under 10% of businesses offer it.
http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/html/ParentalReport.htm
“Still, I don’t think it’s crackpot stuff to suggest that scrapping the tax could aid growth.”
It’s pure supply-side economics. If you support those, then yes, you DO deserve to be mocked, I’m afraid. The UK has the second lowest levels of red tape (next to America) among Western countries, there is no real correlation between that and growth in the last few years.
@7 – No, I’m afraid he does get it. One of the things I do is research for a film production company, and I track down people we’re interested in contacting. Finding Mouse’s far-right friends, by comparison, was easy. (And no, I don’t tap phones, the internet’s a wonderful thing). I’m sure he’ll claim innocence himself, but I don’t believe him.
Juan Voet
Has the coalition lost the plot on growth? asks @ShamikDas http://bit.ly/o2w0Ni (via @leftfootfwd) #falseeconomy