The credibility crunch

Iain Dale makes an impassioned plea for his party to pin the blame for the credit crisis on Gordon Brown:

"Brown and his allies cannot be allowed to persuade the British people that he and his government had no part in allowing this crisis to happen. The British people are more intelligent than that, but Conservatives spokespeople need to get out there on the media and tell it like it is."

He may have a point. it was on Gordon and new Labour's watch that this crisis was seeded. Perhaps, as Mr Dale, suggests, he ignored warnings about the inadequacy of the system. Maybe he stood by while debt got out of control. That could all be true, and still the Conservatives would no be able to lead the case for the prosecution. Why?

Because nobody believes the Tories would have operated a more restrictive system. No-one, surely, thinks that a Conservative government would have clamped down on the debt, or fettered the big banks. And I'm not just talking about the chattering classes, here. I doubt whether your average bloke will give the Conservatives any credence if they start to suggest that they would have operated a less Anglo-Saxon, more European system of financial regulation.

How blogging works

Now I’m just getting this blog off the ground, and I don’t want to upset anyone. But I couldn’t help noticing the evolution of one little story today as a very good example of how the blogosphere can get it badly wrong.

The story in question revolves around the deposits of local authority money in Iceland’s failing banks.

As in so many other instances, the mainstream media kicked things off with a quote from Plaid Cymru economist Eurfyl ap Gwilym in this morning’s Western Mail:

“There is a UK contingencies fund held by the Treasury for unforeseen circumstances like this. The Assembly Government does not receive an allocation from it and therefore responsibility for making any compensation payments that may be appropriate lies squarely with the Treasury.”

This was then picked up by blogger Ordovicius, who appeared to decide that this revelation put Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy (who allegedly suggested that the Assembly, rather than the UK government, should bail out Welsh councils) firmly in the wrong:

“If we must have a Welsh Secretary, could we at least have one who knows his arse from his elbow?”

But it fell to Plaid researcher Ian James Johnson to really bump the story along, commenting:

“Plaid's economic adviser, Eurfyl ap Gwilym, has already noted that, while local government is indeed in devolved territory, the contingency funds that are being used to assist English Local Government groups are not, and have no such Barnett consequential.”

Screech! Hold on a minute. Let’s look again at what Eurfyl ap Gwilym actually said again:

“There is a UK contingencies fund held by the Treasury for unforeseen circumstances like this.”

Which is a bit different to:

“the contingency funds that are being used to assist English Local Government…” (my emphasis)

Ok, so perhaps Ian James Johnson knows something we don’t. Perhaps the Local Government Association website can help. Are Treasury funds being used to support English local government? Here is a quote from a press release issued by the LGA today:

“Council leaders are today calling on the Treasury to ensure financial stability in the eventuality that a small number of local authorities get into financial difficulties, following the crash of Icelandic banks. The current estimate from the Local Government Association, which represents over 400 councils in England and Wales, is that at least 45 councils had deposits in affected banks.” (my emphasis again)

This sounds to me as if 1) no council is actually in receipt of emergency Treasury funds and b) no distinction is being made between English and Welsh councils.

I may be wrong, of course. And there may be a question about the Barnett consequential of this contingencies fund (although I always thought the Barnett formula allocated money on the basis of increases to the comparable budget in England, so quite how that applies to a standing fund which is presumably carried over from year-to-year is unclear). But equally, there does appear to have been some carelessness in how this original quote, about the existence of the fund, got spun into one about the use of the fund. And the difference is really quite important.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how blogging works.

Dither ye not

Simon Carr in yesterday's Independent accused the government of embarking on an "aggressive programme of dithering" over the credit crisis.

With £50bn of Carr's - and our - money put down on Britain's wobbling banking system, dithering now seems like he last charge you'd level at this government. Recklessness, or a willingness to reward bad behaviour, perhaps, but not dithering. Deal agreed at 5am, announced at 7.30am, badda bing, badda boom.

Will it work? I don't know. My economist flat mate Favad knows about that kind of thing, but his comment that "I like what I'm seeing" augers well I suppose.

The more pertinent question for the politically-minded is: will it work for Gordon?

There is no doubt that this crisis has been good for Brown. It has chased away Labour's rebels, shown David Cameron up as a peripheral player and reminded us why we used to rate, if not actually like, Gordon.

But before No.10 starts breaking out the champagne they might want to look at the detail of the most recent opinion poll (Hat tip: UK Polling Report). The message here is that, despite hopes that a frightened populace might cling to Gordon, he is still behind Mr Cameron on just about every available measure.

Moreover, as Anthony Wells points out, the public still seem intent on changing the government when the opportunity arises; by a margin of 2 to 1 respondents agree that it is "time for a change".

One only has to think back to the nadir of the Brown premiership of a couple of months ago, with bungled relaunches following lost by-elections to realise that Gordo has come a long way in repariing his tattered repution. But, as this poll shows, he has an awful lot still to do.

Welcome to my blog

Hello world.

The name's Rhys. David Rhys.

Hold on. That only works if your first and second names aren't interchangeable. So, to clarify: First name: David. Second name: Rhys.

Good, glad we got that out of the way. I'll try and do better.

Anyway, I'm new to this blogging malarkey. And, frankly, I don't have a USP, unless being an ex-pat Welsh student with lots of ill-formed opinions about the state of the world counts. And I don't reckon it does.

So, join me as I give form to aforementioned ill-formed opinions (transforming them into well-formed opinions?). I'll talk about all sorts, but these are likely to be: Welsh and British politics, athletics and any one of half a dozen random fads that take my fancy.