Healey drives me up the wall

I heard Housing Minister John Healey defending his party’s dog whistle politics on the Today show this morning.

You’d have thought they would have learnt their lesson after the “British Jobs, for British workers” fiasco.

Instead they decided to promise local authorities more power to prioritise “local people” for housing.

No doubt it’s a reaction to, and an attempt to stymie, the BNP’s success – but actually it plays right into their hands.

Healey dodged the issue, using that most irritating style of ignoring what was being asked and answering a different question.

To be fair, many politicians do it. But when it’s employed with such precise obtuseness, it’s enough to drive one to distraction.

Conservative rural re-action

Lobbydog was unimpressed with the Conservative’s Rural Action campaign which the party “launched” today.

Rural Action was touted as an “agenda for rural communities”. In truth it was largely made up of previously announced proposals collected in a document with “rural” written on the front.

It seemed particularly meagre as Gordon Brown was given such an ear-bashing by the Tories for wrapping up old policies in new packaging with the Building Britain’s Future plan last week.

In Rural Action the Tories said they’d help save village schools by abolishing current limits on surplus places. But this was a wider policy David Cameron and Michael Gove proposed as far back as 18 months ago.

Under Rural Action the party would also let communities decide where new developments went through Local Housing Trusts, something Grant Schapps announced in April.

Then there was the document’s promise to help small firms with tax relief – one of Caroline Spelman’s announcements from March.

They would’ve been better off highlighting the benefit of their policies to rural areas when they were first announced – and targeting the relevant rural media outlets to hammer the point home.

Instead they’re trying to convince rural lobby groups that they’re important because they have their very own “agenda” document, full of polices announced months ago for everyone else.

Shadow rural affairs minister Jim Paice admitted the Tories don’t have the rural vote sewn up yet – if they want it they need to do better than this.

Lords scold Government

A Lords Committee has slammed the Government’s attempt to bring in new laws to improve standards of conduct in Westminster.

The Parliamentary Standards Bill was pushed out in the wake of the expenses scandal.

The Bill has already suffered two setbacks after parts – including one which would rob MPs of protection to speak freely in the Commons – were defeated.

Now the Lords Constitution Committee has said what others suspected – it has all been too rushed.

They wrote: “The Bill is the product of a desire to respond to a demand to see something done, as the Government put it, rather than the product of a law making process suitable for a bill with serious constitutional repercussions.

They said the Government’s attempt to fast-track the bill was “wholly unacceptable”.

Osborne's detractor

Here is the chair of Tatton Labour Party giving his reasons for making a complaint against the shadow chancellor on Sky News.

Acid test burns

The Royal Mail stand down will have left Mandy fuming, though only inside of course. He’s far too polished to let his hair get out of place.

There were rumours that an unspoken deal was done over the issue at the Labour meeting, which saved Brown’s premiership, last month.

If Brown had to stay, said angry backbenchers, so too did Royal Mail.

The Government’s struggle to get the institution part-privatised was branded by Ken Clarke as an acid test of the leadership’s strength.

That it failed is not a huge surprise, we all knew the Government was weak. But what may become of Royal Mail now could still be a huge shock.

Royal Mail makes a profit of more than £320m but has a £10bn pension deficit, that makes paying for tech upgrades – and everyone admits they need it to survive – very difficult.

In other words without substantial amounts of new cash from somewhere it’s going down the toilet.

Tessa Jowell's face is a picture

Immediately after PMQs 25 to 30 hacks surrounded Michael Ellam, Brown’s spokesman, and harangued him over what – in the name of jumping jehosifa – a 0% rise is.

The likes of the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson, the FT’s George Parker and the Sun’s George Pasco Watson – who were leading the interrogation – looked astonished as Ellam attempted to explain that a 0% rise was indeed a rise.

The weird claim, along with Brown’s equally bizarre statement that Tory policy was to increase unemployment, made this a particularly desperate performance for the PM.

Hat tip to Crown Blog, speedy as ever.

Second wave of repossession coming

Amid talk of hope and stability came a little dose of reality yesterday.

Official figures showing the number of people in arrears on their mortgage and repossessions are apparently dropping.

But housing experts reminded MPs on the Treasury Select Committee that the figures are still at their highest level since 1991.

Dominic Lindley of Which actually said arrears were rising right now and that official figures were misleading.

Meanwhile Kay Boycott of Shelter warned there was a second wave of repossessions coming in 2010.

The first factor was that interest rates are low and are keeping arrears down – when they inevitably rise they will send mortgage payments beyond people’s means.

Market conditions and rising unemployment count – for every 10% in sustained unemployment, she said, you get 30% in increase in arrears.

Finally – the mortgage rescue schemes that are in place are time limited, they start to run out at the end of next year.

Without the extra support, she said, the people who would have had their houses repossessed or gone into arrears may do anyway – leading to the second wave.

Which begs the question – if we were only prolonging the inevitable was it worth it?