Just as my town is to this house, just as this country is to this town, just as this world is to this land; just as the sun is to this planet, just as this galaxy is to our sun just as the universe is to a galaxy, so is God to all the universe. He is so much greater than all we see here, though all that we see is undoubtedly within him, carried safely within him. Still, though so vast he holds the Universe in the palm of his hand and supports and sustains all that is; though he alone is great and holy and eternal, and the world is a small and sinful place; still he came and was born to a young girl, in a stable where only animals saw his birth.
God is greater than everything, yet he made himself almost nothing, entirely weak, entirely dependent on human hands, so the world may be filled with God. We see so many Christmas scenes, so many little statues of the nativity, that it is easy to forget what it really is.
Throughout history man has attempted to reach out to God to know him and be as One with him, to understand the most fundamental meaning and value and purpose of all existence. To this end we have tried everything through the ages. We have built vast churches, temples, cathedrals and shrines; made beautiful Art, sculptures, paintings, murals; wrote songs, chanted, written classical symphonies and oratio, hymns, carols, strummed guitars and rock worship; formulated liturgies, services and prayers; given sacrifices, performed rituals, lived as hermits, prayed, fasted from meat, for a time, until the point of death; wore hair-shirts, sackcloth and ashes, habits of wool, elaborate robes; burnt incense and shared bread, kept vigils, entered trances, whipped ourselves into frenzies, meditated for years on end; danced and sung, begged, kept silence, built great institutions, spanning continents and centuries, held laws and statutes, raised leaders, revered prophets and saints, told stories and legends, crafted myths and philosophies; read books and nature, wrote and studied books after books for lives after lives, preached, taught, spoken and listened and listened, argued and argued; done works of charity and love, taken poverty and hoarded great wealth, travelled vast distances and changed the world, fought wars and conflicts, taken life and given life and given up our own life, loved and hated, hoped and trusted and clung on for lifetime after lifetime over century after century.
But for all our learning, studying, writing, speaking, listening and arguing we know and comprehend all but nothing of the depth of God who is infinite Truth. For all our praying, sacrificing, worshipping and ritual we barely brush the edges of his greatness. For all our meditation, prayer, fasting and solitude we barely approach his essence. For all our good deeds and charity and sacrifice to be holy we only come to realise how perfect, how Holy, how infinitely far beyond he truly is. For all our mysticism, philosophy, frenzies and ceremony we barely glimpse him as through a thick mist.
Our greatest efforts could barely begin to approach God. But God came down and was born as a tiny baby in a lowly stable. And the fullness of Almighty, Infinite God was held tight in the arms of a virgin girl, and Invisible and Unseen God was seen clearly by those human eyes, and God who requires nothing from us received everything he needed in milk and warmth; And God who can not be known was known by those there. All of God who encloses the whole Universe was enclosed in her arms; God who no one fully knows was known by her, and raised by her and taught and loved by her. And he grew and he walked amongst us and we could see him and touch him and speak to him face to face, and we knew him. And he taught us in plain words and ate with us and was there, and he was our friend.
God descended from his distance and came into the world as a man, and the whole world is sacred, because the Lord God experienced it. This earth of matter is holy, because God descended into it. Because it is a created thing and still God grew up from within it like a plant from the withered ground.
Without a doubt the two greatest deeds of God are the birth of the Universe and the birth of Christ. The first creation and the new creation. And the One Creation is much like the Other. Through the Creation of the Universe we know of God at all, as St Paul says, "the whole world sings of the glory of God". In the new creation we know of God perfectly, as his perfection enters a damaged world. The Universe is vast and great and magnificent, but in new creation God,who is greater and vaster than all the Universe, is born into it, made himself enclosed and surrounded by it, as the tiniest part of it.
One Life grew and lived and loved and died and rose again. So we are all reflected and sanctified by the life of Christ, who shared our body. One Life, greater than all life, is born among us. We who are beings may see Being, asleep in a manger, and we who love, may hold Love in our arms, a babe in a stable by an inn.
Christ the Son was born beautiful and grew and lived in love, and for a long time he was silent, but in later days he spoke out, but he died, but the Father raised him to greater glory, transformed into eternity, and he sits at the right hand of the Father. Like this the Universe was created, beautiful, and grew in beauty, but for a long time it was silent. Now in these later days have awoken the voice of the children of God among it. But in the end it will come to destruction, but it will not pass away, but be transformed by God in to greater glory, to dwell, sanctified by him and with him and in him forever. He gave us the sign of Christ, so we may know, and never fear again.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of Grace and Truth”
The Universe is a mystery, but God upholds it and secures it and sustains it. And God is wrapped around everything that is and holds it within him, yet still he came within and so was held within himself. God the Son who is beyond all Understanding was sustained within the World, and the World is contained and sustained within and by the Father. And yet still more, for the Son is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son, so the whole forms an eternal cycle and the Universe is held between and shot through with Godhood within and without and both and again. And so we have a Wonder containing a Mystery containing that same Wonder, again and again.
And that is the most beautiful thing in the world.
Merry Christmas.
Friday, 24 December 2010
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Dealing with the Deficit (4) - Tax is always bloody taxing.
On Tax Avoidance, Robin Hood, Bashing the Bankers, VAT, cabbages and Kings (and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings - well, not really.)
This article follows on from previous articles outlining the economic arguments around the Coalition's budget plans, introducing the structure of the public finances and the plans for reducing the deficit, and looking at the feasibility of closing the deficit by cutting military spending. It's followed by a final article on the distributional impact and fairness and (my) opinion of the government's plans. I've separated them out to try to keep them shorter.
In dealing with our country's financial problems taxation is the obvious other element of the equation, along with spending and borrowing. Even if we as a country manage to agree how much and how quickly we should reduce the deficit there is still the question of Tax; how big a contribution it should make to deficit reduction and what taxes should be raised. The government does not currently get enough money in taxes, at previously agreed rates, to pay all its bills. It must, hence, tax more, or spend less, or go on borrowing forever. But no-one really thinks that last one is a viable option. In one form or another this is one of the eternal issues of politics, seeing as it relates to one of the most important things in human society: money. It is one of the fundamental arguments of the Left and Right in politics. Pretty much wherever you are, and whatever the precise figures and names involved, those on the right will be arguing that we should be taxed less and those on the left will be arguing we should be taxed more. And this is one of those occasions, though the exact details are, as always, considerably more complicated.
The first question that must be answered is the extent to which a change in tax policy is required. Most of the £155 billion deficit the UK currently has exists because tax revenues have collapsed due to the recession at the same time as spending on social services and welfare have dramatically risen due to the increase in unemployment. Taxation is generally a skimming off the surface of economic activity. It is the icing on top of the cake. Things that are taxed strongly are things like profits, employment, income, capital gains, luxury spending, rather than the underlying substance of economic transactions and existing wealth. Because of this when recession occurs and economic activity falls the decrease in tax revenue is proportionally much larger.
However, this in itself is not necessarily a good reason to increase tax rates, because after the recession economic activity will return to previous levels, and tax revenue accordingly. If this was all that happened then we could just borrow to make up the shortfall in the meantime until economic activity and tax revenues returned to normal and closed the gap. Unfortunately there is more to it than this. A deficit of this type, caused by a temporary fall in economic activity is the cyclical deficit, as it is caused the temporary affects of the economic cycle rather than any intrinsic mismatch between taxation levels and spending commitments. It is estimated that this accounts for around £50 billion of our deficit. The Other part of the deficit is the structural deficit, so called because it is down to the structural feature of our tax and spending system, rather than a transitory effect of the recession. This part of the deficit will not go away when the economy returns to normal. It must be dealt with either by raising tax rates permanently or by cutting spending. This is the serious part, and it is estimated that it is about £100 billion. But where has it come from?
Firstly, we were running a £30 billion deficit even before the recession. Secondly, the realisation that the boom in the housing and banking sectors was in fact an unsustainable bubble. Thus meaning the record tax revenues from these industries were also a bubble that will not be returning, lowering the estimate for the sustainable tax revenues under the current system. This is about another £30 billion. The final element is the interest payments for all the debt we've built up due to the recession, which even if we eliminate the deficit we have already piled up and hence must pay interest on until we ever pay the debt off (unlikely), and which hence sucks up tax revenue we could otherwise use for services. This spending has increased from about £30 to £60 billion. I have gone into this all in a bit more detail here. So that is the structural deficit. And it is what we cannot rely on a return to economic growth to remove. We have to cut spending commitments and projects and/or raise tax rates to get this hole filled in future. So what is the current role of Tax rises in the government's deficit reduction plan?
The government plans £110 billion of 'fiscal consolidation' over the next 5 years, of which £29 billion is tax rises and £81 billion is spending cuts. That is a ratio of 24% tax rises to 76% spending cuts.
These figures are not in nominal money terms (actually figures spent), or in inflation adjusted real terms, but rather in real terms in comparison to current expectations if current policy is not changed. In terms of the actual figures of pounds and pence the government plans to spend the plan is quite different. Spending is forecast to rise by £70 billion from today. Even in real terms this is equivalent to spending falling by only £25 billion, a fall of about 3.5%. Tax revenue on the other hand is forecast (in nominal terms) to rise by £170 billion. In other words the plan is to hold overall spending as roughly flat as possible, bringing it down slightly in real terms, while waiting for the economy to recover to bring tax revenues up until the point where they close the gap. This plan seems very different to the position in the popular media understanding, where 'savage cuts' are going to bring down the deficit. The truth is though, that this plan does require hefty cuts, just to keep spending level, due to the constant upward pressure on government spending from changing demographics, the constant demand for more resources and rising interest payments. Even under this plan many areas of spending will continue to naturally expand, thus necessitating the deep cut in programs and jobs to hold spending down sufficiently in some areas for it to naturally rise in others.
The Coalition is planning £29 billion of tax rises, which involves taking the £21 billion of tax rises Labour planned and adding £8 billion onto them. Labour's plan basically involved whacking the rich with various schemes that massively reduced the generosity of pension rebates, removed personal allowances, and brought in a 50% tax rate; and pushing up NI, Labour's tax rise of choice, roughly from 11->12%. NI is the 2nd largest tax in the UK and is very useful for raising money because it is paid by everyone and, in fact, paid twice for each person, by them and then again by their employer. Hence raising NI brings in lots of money, and does it without raising the headline rates of income tax or VAT. To this mix the Coalition kept all Labour's taxes on the rich, but removed part of the NI increase, while adding the increase in VAT (Britain's 3rd biggest Tax), a hike in Capital Gains Tax and a Bank Levy. On the tax cut side they cut Corporation Tax, NI for businesses outside the South and raised the income tax threshold, giving a net increase of £8 billion on Labour's plans.
This article follows on from previous articles outlining the economic arguments around the Coalition's budget plans, introducing the structure of the public finances and the plans for reducing the deficit, and looking at the feasibility of closing the deficit by cutting military spending. It's followed by a final article on the distributional impact and fairness and (my) opinion of the government's plans. I've separated them out to try to keep them shorter.
In dealing with our country's financial problems taxation is the obvious other element of the equation, along with spending and borrowing. Even if we as a country manage to agree how much and how quickly we should reduce the deficit there is still the question of Tax; how big a contribution it should make to deficit reduction and what taxes should be raised. The government does not currently get enough money in taxes, at previously agreed rates, to pay all its bills. It must, hence, tax more, or spend less, or go on borrowing forever. But no-one really thinks that last one is a viable option. In one form or another this is one of the eternal issues of politics, seeing as it relates to one of the most important things in human society: money. It is one of the fundamental arguments of the Left and Right in politics. Pretty much wherever you are, and whatever the precise figures and names involved, those on the right will be arguing that we should be taxed less and those on the left will be arguing we should be taxed more. And this is one of those occasions, though the exact details are, as always, considerably more complicated.
The first question that must be answered is the extent to which a change in tax policy is required. Most of the £155 billion deficit the UK currently has exists because tax revenues have collapsed due to the recession at the same time as spending on social services and welfare have dramatically risen due to the increase in unemployment. Taxation is generally a skimming off the surface of economic activity. It is the icing on top of the cake. Things that are taxed strongly are things like profits, employment, income, capital gains, luxury spending, rather than the underlying substance of economic transactions and existing wealth. Because of this when recession occurs and economic activity falls the decrease in tax revenue is proportionally much larger.
However, this in itself is not necessarily a good reason to increase tax rates, because after the recession economic activity will return to previous levels, and tax revenue accordingly. If this was all that happened then we could just borrow to make up the shortfall in the meantime until economic activity and tax revenues returned to normal and closed the gap. Unfortunately there is more to it than this. A deficit of this type, caused by a temporary fall in economic activity is the cyclical deficit, as it is caused the temporary affects of the economic cycle rather than any intrinsic mismatch between taxation levels and spending commitments. It is estimated that this accounts for around £50 billion of our deficit. The Other part of the deficit is the structural deficit, so called because it is down to the structural feature of our tax and spending system, rather than a transitory effect of the recession. This part of the deficit will not go away when the economy returns to normal. It must be dealt with either by raising tax rates permanently or by cutting spending. This is the serious part, and it is estimated that it is about £100 billion. But where has it come from?
Firstly, we were running a £30 billion deficit even before the recession. Secondly, the realisation that the boom in the housing and banking sectors was in fact an unsustainable bubble. Thus meaning the record tax revenues from these industries were also a bubble that will not be returning, lowering the estimate for the sustainable tax revenues under the current system. This is about another £30 billion. The final element is the interest payments for all the debt we've built up due to the recession, which even if we eliminate the deficit we have already piled up and hence must pay interest on until we ever pay the debt off (unlikely), and which hence sucks up tax revenue we could otherwise use for services. This spending has increased from about £30 to £60 billion. I have gone into this all in a bit more detail here. So that is the structural deficit. And it is what we cannot rely on a return to economic growth to remove. We have to cut spending commitments and projects and/or raise tax rates to get this hole filled in future. So what is the current role of Tax rises in the government's deficit reduction plan?
The government plans £110 billion of 'fiscal consolidation' over the next 5 years, of which £29 billion is tax rises and £81 billion is spending cuts. That is a ratio of 24% tax rises to 76% spending cuts.
These figures are not in nominal money terms (actually figures spent), or in inflation adjusted real terms, but rather in real terms in comparison to current expectations if current policy is not changed. In terms of the actual figures of pounds and pence the government plans to spend the plan is quite different. Spending is forecast to rise by £70 billion from today. Even in real terms this is equivalent to spending falling by only £25 billion, a fall of about 3.5%. Tax revenue on the other hand is forecast (in nominal terms) to rise by £170 billion. In other words the plan is to hold overall spending as roughly flat as possible, bringing it down slightly in real terms, while waiting for the economy to recover to bring tax revenues up until the point where they close the gap. This plan seems very different to the position in the popular media understanding, where 'savage cuts' are going to bring down the deficit. The truth is though, that this plan does require hefty cuts, just to keep spending level, due to the constant upward pressure on government spending from changing demographics, the constant demand for more resources and rising interest payments. Even under this plan many areas of spending will continue to naturally expand, thus necessitating the deep cut in programs and jobs to hold spending down sufficiently in some areas for it to naturally rise in others.
The Coalition is planning £29 billion of tax rises, which involves taking the £21 billion of tax rises Labour planned and adding £8 billion onto them. Labour's plan basically involved whacking the rich with various schemes that massively reduced the generosity of pension rebates, removed personal allowances, and brought in a 50% tax rate; and pushing up NI, Labour's tax rise of choice, roughly from 11->12%. NI is the 2nd largest tax in the UK and is very useful for raising money because it is paid by everyone and, in fact, paid twice for each person, by them and then again by their employer. Hence raising NI brings in lots of money, and does it without raising the headline rates of income tax or VAT. To this mix the Coalition kept all Labour's taxes on the rich, but removed part of the NI increase, while adding the increase in VAT (Britain's 3rd biggest Tax), a hike in Capital Gains Tax and a Bank Levy. On the tax cut side they cut Corporation Tax, NI for businesses outside the South and raised the income tax threshold, giving a net increase of £8 billion on Labour's plans.
Saturday, 11 December 2010
The Tution Fee Vote - How did it get this close?
.
Well, the motion to raise University Tuition fees from about £3500 to £6000-9000 a year passed. For once I get to actually see how accurate one of my predictions was (which you can see in full just below this article).
I suggested there would be 296 Conservatives and 24 Lib Dems in favour giving 296+24=320 votes for. And that there would be 8 Conservatives, 18 Lib Dems and everyone else voting against giving 281+8+18=307 votes against.
The actual result was 297+28=325 for and 277+21+6=304 against. Pretty close. I was almost exactly right on the number of Conservatives voting for, and everyone else voting against (no big surprise there), I underestimated how many lib dems would actually vote rather than abstain, but by about the same amount on each side, and a couple of Conservatives abstained rather than voting against, making the government's majority slightly larger than I predicted. Still, not bad, not bad at all. On the other hand since this was pretty much all using information that was easily in the public domain, I won't apply for my soothsayer's licence quite yet.
The government won. But this was certainly the tightest vote since the Coalition began 6 months ago and offers a fascinating look at the truly unique parliamentary mechanics of this most unusual of British political organisations. So, How did it get so close but still pass? And, how did the government end up in this tricky situation on this of all issues?
In a normal government with a decent working majority the only way the government can lose is if the leadership propose to do something that runs so counter to either their parties natural instincts, or public opinion in general, to outrage a significant enough number of their MP's into rising out of their customary sheep-like slumber to vote against their own party, or just refuse to turn up to vote at all.
This basically only occurs when the party leadership gets so delusionally out of touch with either public opinion or their own party that they lose all sense of perspective and propose something completely barmy.
The reason this ever happens is in a usual one-party government in Britain what you generally have is a core group in around the leadership, generally those MP's in the government itself, that is thinking up plans and solutions and trying to drive the country in a certain direction, usually with one eye on what is pragmatically possible, one eye on what would be politically popular, and only their peripheral vision on whatever their party might actually think about it.
You then, however, have all the mass of backbench MP's who actually give the government its majority, but have little other obvious purpose. These simple creatures are kind of like a large inertial mass. They sit around dozily content with whatever ideology and prejudices their party generally holds to, certain of their superior righteousness and intellect. Only rousing themselves to occasionally wave their order papers at the opposition at PMQ's and be herded by the government through the correct voting lobbies as needed. They are generally a docile and unconcerned bunch but they do have two features that mean they can at times cause trouble for the leadership.
The first is that they are generally closer to ordinary party activists, particularly in terms of their prejudices and their beliefs, than the party leadership, who are generally an out of touch bunch with their heads more or less in the clouds, whatever the party. This is probably a good thing, it means that meritocracy actually exists, and political parties generally choose their elite to lead them. But elites, as night follows day, are generally distinct from the majority in most ways, not just their particular skill. The other thing is that whereas a party leadership are generally insulated from public opinion by both their important ministerial jobs, which mean they have more important things to deal with, very important one might say, and by the fact they have generally found their way into very safe seats, which means they don't have to particularly worry about getting unelected. Backbenchers on the other hand are often in marginal seats, and have little else to do but worry about their re-election. These together mean that, however crudely, backbenchers are normally, as a mass, more concerned, in touch with, and likely to act upon public opinion, and more likely to want to act in accordance with their party's general beliefs and ideas.
This means that the dynamic of a government, as far as votes goes, is a struggle between the party leadership who are constantly trying to branch out in strange, new, and hopefully effective and vote-winning directions, and their mass of MP's, who want to sit around doing things that are either (or preferably both) popular and in accordance with their party's core ideas. The MP's can generally be herded, as the leadership wants, through a mix of encouragement, threats, and motivational partisan slogans. Sometimes though, as I've said, the leadership gets sufficiently delusional and/or out-of-touch that even their own MP's refuse to vote for their proposal and they are defeated in the Commons.
So that is the way things usually go in a one party government. In the Coalition though things are different. We have a leadership who are more or less coherent as a group with a plan, and then not one but two inertial masses of backbenchers with quite different underlying beliefs and prejudices: the Conservative backbenchers and the Lib Dems, both who are needed to make the government's majority.
MP's getting the Coalition up the mark and then the mass of 57 Lib Dem MP's pushing them comfortably over it.
The obvious problem though is that this mass of MP's is really made of two separate parts, coming from very different directions. One would think that the surprising thing would be that this has not happened already. The problem of coalitions according to the traditional wisdom then is that the government cannot afford to do anything that sufficiently annoys either part, or its majority will fail, and hence it is more hamstrung than a single party government. Forced to stick to the lowest common denominator of policy. The remarkable thing about this Coalition though is that this has not happened.
Well, the motion to raise University Tuition fees from about £3500 to £6000-9000 a year passed. For once I get to actually see how accurate one of my predictions was (which you can see in full just below this article).
I suggested there would be 296 Conservatives and 24 Lib Dems in favour giving 296+24=320 votes for. And that there would be 8 Conservatives, 18 Lib Dems and everyone else voting against giving 281+8+18=307 votes against.
The actual result was 297+28=325 for and 277+21+6=304 against. Pretty close. I was almost exactly right on the number of Conservatives voting for, and everyone else voting against (no big surprise there), I underestimated how many lib dems would actually vote rather than abstain, but by about the same amount on each side, and a couple of Conservatives abstained rather than voting against, making the government's majority slightly larger than I predicted. Still, not bad, not bad at all. On the other hand since this was pretty much all using information that was easily in the public domain, I won't apply for my soothsayer's licence quite yet.
The government won. But this was certainly the tightest vote since the Coalition began 6 months ago and offers a fascinating look at the truly unique parliamentary mechanics of this most unusual of British political organisations. So, How did it get so close but still pass? And, how did the government end up in this tricky situation on this of all issues?
In a normal government with a decent working majority the only way the government can lose is if the leadership propose to do something that runs so counter to either their parties natural instincts, or public opinion in general, to outrage a significant enough number of their MP's into rising out of their customary sheep-like slumber to vote against their own party, or just refuse to turn up to vote at all.
This basically only occurs when the party leadership gets so delusionally out of touch with either public opinion or their own party that they lose all sense of perspective and propose something completely barmy.
The reason this ever happens is in a usual one-party government in Britain what you generally have is a core group in around the leadership, generally those MP's in the government itself, that is thinking up plans and solutions and trying to drive the country in a certain direction, usually with one eye on what is pragmatically possible, one eye on what would be politically popular, and only their peripheral vision on whatever their party might actually think about it.
You then, however, have all the mass of backbench MP's who actually give the government its majority, but have little other obvious purpose. These simple creatures are kind of like a large inertial mass. They sit around dozily content with whatever ideology and prejudices their party generally holds to, certain of their superior righteousness and intellect. Only rousing themselves to occasionally wave their order papers at the opposition at PMQ's and be herded by the government through the correct voting lobbies as needed. They are generally a docile and unconcerned bunch but they do have two features that mean they can at times cause trouble for the leadership.
The first is that they are generally closer to ordinary party activists, particularly in terms of their prejudices and their beliefs, than the party leadership, who are generally an out of touch bunch with their heads more or less in the clouds, whatever the party. This is probably a good thing, it means that meritocracy actually exists, and political parties generally choose their elite to lead them. But elites, as night follows day, are generally distinct from the majority in most ways, not just their particular skill. The other thing is that whereas a party leadership are generally insulated from public opinion by both their important ministerial jobs, which mean they have more important things to deal with, very important one might say, and by the fact they have generally found their way into very safe seats, which means they don't have to particularly worry about getting unelected. Backbenchers on the other hand are often in marginal seats, and have little else to do but worry about their re-election. These together mean that, however crudely, backbenchers are normally, as a mass, more concerned, in touch with, and likely to act upon public opinion, and more likely to want to act in accordance with their party's general beliefs and ideas.
This means that the dynamic of a government, as far as votes goes, is a struggle between the party leadership who are constantly trying to branch out in strange, new, and hopefully effective and vote-winning directions, and their mass of MP's, who want to sit around doing things that are either (or preferably both) popular and in accordance with their party's core ideas. The MP's can generally be herded, as the leadership wants, through a mix of encouragement, threats, and motivational partisan slogans. Sometimes though, as I've said, the leadership gets sufficiently delusional and/or out-of-touch that even their own MP's refuse to vote for their proposal and they are defeated in the Commons.
So that is the way things usually go in a one party government. In the Coalition though things are different. We have a leadership who are more or less coherent as a group with a plan, and then not one but two inertial masses of backbenchers with quite different underlying beliefs and prejudices: the Conservative backbenchers and the Lib Dems, both who are needed to make the government's majority.
MP's getting the Coalition up the mark and then the mass of 57 Lib Dem MP's pushing them comfortably over it.
The obvious problem though is that this mass of MP's is really made of two separate parts, coming from very different directions. One would think that the surprising thing would be that this has not happened already. The problem of coalitions according to the traditional wisdom then is that the government cannot afford to do anything that sufficiently annoys either part, or its majority will fail, and hence it is more hamstrung than a single party government. Forced to stick to the lowest common denominator of policy. The remarkable thing about this Coalition though is that this has not happened.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
The Tuition Fees vote. - It's getting bloody close!
It's less than 5 hours to go and it's getting bloody close.
Today's the day for the Big Tuition Fee vote, the closest and most difficult vote since the Coalition was formed. The Lib Dems managed to get themselves in a right bloody mess and today we get to see what they're going to do about it.
Everyone still expects the fees to pass, but it is going to be bloody close.
The government theoretically has 363 votes to everyone else's 281. Easy.
Even without the Lib Dems though there are 306 Conservatives to an opposition of 281. If the Lib Dems all abstain then the motion will pass.
If the Lib Dems all vote against it then it will fail 306 votes to 338.
But most Lib Dem ministers will vote for it, because they have drawn up the policy and have to as part of the government. That gives 306+16=322 to 322 votes. A tie.
If then any more Lib Dems asbtain rather than voting against the measure there are 322 votes for and fewer votes against. The motion passes. Given 16 Lib Dems voting for, perhaps 16 voting against and the rest abstaining the motion passes about 306+16=322 against 281+16=297 and it passes.
But that's all theory. What reality are we facing? Not all Conservatives will vote for it. As many as 5 have already declared themselves against it and perhaps as many as 8 will vote it down. Among the Lib Dems about 18 have declared they'll vote no. That gives around 281+8+18=307 against.
The rest of the Conservatives will vote for it and the 17 or so Lib Dem ministers will vote for it as well as perhaps 8 backbenchers. Nick Clegg expect 24 Lib Dem MP's to vote for it, the Conservatives expect at least 296 MP's to vote for it. That's 296+24=320 votes for.
The fees should pass, as long as Nick Clegg has convinced as many of his colleagues to "walk through the fire together" as he thinks, and as long as more Conservatives do not vote against the government. Of course whether you think that is a good thing or not will vary, to say the least.
Today's the day for the Big Tuition Fee vote, the closest and most difficult vote since the Coalition was formed. The Lib Dems managed to get themselves in a right bloody mess and today we get to see what they're going to do about it.
Everyone still expects the fees to pass, but it is going to be bloody close.
The government theoretically has 363 votes to everyone else's 281. Easy.
Even without the Lib Dems though there are 306 Conservatives to an opposition of 281. If the Lib Dems all abstain then the motion will pass.
If the Lib Dems all vote against it then it will fail 306 votes to 338.
But most Lib Dem ministers will vote for it, because they have drawn up the policy and have to as part of the government. That gives 306+16=322 to 322 votes. A tie.
If then any more Lib Dems asbtain rather than voting against the measure there are 322 votes for and fewer votes against. The motion passes. Given 16 Lib Dems voting for, perhaps 16 voting against and the rest abstaining the motion passes about 306+16=322 against 281+16=297 and it passes.
But that's all theory. What reality are we facing? Not all Conservatives will vote for it. As many as 5 have already declared themselves against it and perhaps as many as 8 will vote it down. Among the Lib Dems about 18 have declared they'll vote no. That gives around 281+8+18=307 against.
The rest of the Conservatives will vote for it and the 17 or so Lib Dem ministers will vote for it as well as perhaps 8 backbenchers. Nick Clegg expect 24 Lib Dem MP's to vote for it, the Conservatives expect at least 296 MP's to vote for it. That's 296+24=320 votes for.
The fees should pass, as long as Nick Clegg has convinced as many of his colleagues to "walk through the fire together" as he thinks, and as long as more Conservatives do not vote against the government. Of course whether you think that is a good thing or not will vary, to say the least.
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