Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has defended the coalition government’s analysis of the Budget.

Mr Clegg said a report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), which said the Budget has hit poorest families the hardest, was “by definition partial”.

“It does not include the things we want to do to get people off benefits and into work,” he said during a visit to the Disasters Emergency Committee headquarters in central London. BBC.

So Clegg finds nothing wrong with the IFS report on the budget but he believes the IFS should include things we want to do to get people off benefits and into work – but want isn’t actually doing is it? So how could the IFS include them?

Unsurprisingly Clegg makes no mention of the public spending cuts which are going to put millions out of work. Clegg still wants a partial reading of the facts.

As I’ve said before arguing over whether the emergency budget is regressive or progressive is a moot point – the poor are going to be hit hard by the Com-Dems spending cuts.

It’s all over today’s news:

The coalition government’s first Budget has hit the poorest families hardest, a leading economic think tank has said.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the measures announced in the Budget in June were “regressive”.

Its analysis suggests that low income families with children are set to lose the most as a percentage of net income due to benefit cuts announced in the Budget.

The Treasury said it did not accept the “selective” findings of the IFS.

The IFS had already challenged the government’s claim that the Budget was “progressive”.

Its report concluded: “Once all of the benefit cuts are considered, the tax and benefit changes announced in the emergency Budget are clearly regressive as, on average, they hit the poorest households more than those in the upper middle of the income distribution in cash, let alone percentage, terms.” BBC

However, arguing over the budgets effect is something of a moot point as it surely doesn’t take the proverbial rocket scientist to work out that cuts in public spending will hit the poor hardest and the Con-Dems are determined that 80% of the deficit reduction is to come from cuts in public spending.

Still it’s amusing in a macabre way the Com-Dems response

A spokesman for the Treasury said: “The government does not accept the IFS analysis.

“It is selective, ignoring the pro-growth and employment effects of Budget measures – such as helping households move from benefits into work, and reductions in corporation tax.” BBC

What the Con-Dems are ignoring is their public spending cuts which are firmly anti-growth and anti-employment – and how is sticking millions in the pockets of the rich through corporation tax reductions going to help the poor.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister, has admitted that he changed his mind about the timing of spending cuts prior to the general election, despite publicly telling the electorate weeks before the poll that early deep cuts would be “economic masochism”. Hélène Mulholland and Patrick Wintour, The Guardian.

I can’t help feeling the end is nigh for the untrustworthy piece of shit that is Nick Clegg come election time Lid-Dem voters aren’t going to forget his betrayal.

The taxpayer is spending more than £15m a year to send the children of British diplomats and military officers to private schools such as Fettes, Winchester, Roedean and Marlborough.

The subsidies – costing as much as £30,000 a year in school fees – are being paid by the Foreign Office even when the diplomats have returned to the UK and then stay on for years. Patrick Wintour, The Guardian.

Chaminda Jayanetti at A Thousand Cuts points out

The logic – applied both by the current government and its predecessor – is that as these diplomats and officers spend time abroad, it is best for their children to go to boarding school rather than move abroad with their parents. And the perk continues even after the parents return to Britain, because it would not be in the child’s interest to have to change schools midway through their education. It’s about continuity, you see.

Continuity, of course, that is suddenly of no concern to ministers when their housing benefit changes will force families to leave their home and move to a different locality, taking their children with them. A Thousand Cuts.

One rule for us another for the rich.

David Cameron’s “big society in action” answer to police budget cuts has been revealed as a plan to appeal to the public to take part in “do-it-yourself” policing ? and perhaps even go on patrol with uniformed officers.

A radical police reform white paper published by the home secretary, Theresa May, says that she wants to explore new ideas including creating a reserve army of volunteers prepared to act as community crime fighters along similar lines to fire reservists who help staff some neighbourhood fire stations. Alan Travis, The Guardian.

That’s vigilante policing by another name what next lynch mobs?

Study YouGov’s polling: Conservatives are on 44%, Labour on 35% and Lib Dems on 13%. Gloat at the Cleggites’ sinking fate if you like – but the combined government support is a stonking 57% and David Cameron’s approval 58%. Which party is “led by people of real ability”? 31% Conservative, 15% Labour and 7% Lib Dem. People are profoundly alarmed about the economy and afraid for their future: 54% expect their own household to suffer this year, 69% expect to be personally harmed by public service cuts, 64% fear losing their job. Who do they blame? 48% blame Labour, only 21% the Con-Lib government. On a string of measures, Labour is harpooned. Polly Toynbee, The Guardian.

Why are people so stupid? Why on earth do we believe their lies? Why do we wish to wear hair shirts and sacrifice our jobs, health and pensions to making the wealthy ever richer? There is no need for these massive cuts.

There’s much of the defeated Labour government I could find fault with – Iraq, Afghanistan, ID cards to name three – but one thing Labour isn’t to blame for is the banking crisis – not one of our politicians at Westminster saw it any other way at the time.

Still I’m a voice in the wilderness when it comes to my views on the need for savage cuts – there is no need.

Cameron also outlined three strands of what he called the “Big Society” agenda:

• Social action: “Government … must foster and support a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action.”

• Public service reform: “We’ve got to get rid of the centralised bureaucracy that wastes money and undermines morale.”

• Community empowerment: “We need to create communities with oomph – neighbourhoods who are in charge of their own destiny, who feel if they club together and get involved they can shape the world around them.” Nicholas Watt, The Guardian.

Services aren’t going to be run by the proverbial man or woman in the street we haven’t the free time we’re too busy desperately trying to make ends meet – those of us lucky to have jobs that is – those of us who haven’t are going to finding themselves having to work for the pittance that the Com-Dems call unemployment benefit.

This is nothing but the rich dishing out charity to the “deserving poor” whilst companies like Capita are quivering with anticipation at the profits they’re going to make.

Richard Marchant, head of local government strategic partnerships at Capita, an FTSE-100 company which already works for councils in Harrow, Swindon, Southampton and Sheffield, said: “A major problem for the public sector is, we feel, a significant opportunity for us. Opportunities are at their highest level in two to three years. This year we have probably seen a 100% increase in opportunities [compared with 2009] and I suspect we will see another 50% increase in the following year.”

Such an increase could deliver a £60m boost to Capita’s revenues while councils are anticipating a 30% budget cut over the next four years. Other firms vying for town hall contracts include Serco and Mouchel. Robert Booth, Richard Wachman and Jeevan Vasagar, The Guardian.

What on earth possessed people to vote for these arch- Thatcherites? And how many of these bastards are shareholders in these outsourcing companies?

Preaching to the converted perhaps but The Cuts Won’t Work explains five other ways to deal with the countries financial situation.

Hat Tip: Liberal Conspiracy.

MPs approved the VAT rise by 321 to 246, a government majority of 75.

The votes came during a lengthy debate on the bill, which enacts last month’s Budget, in the Commons. BBC.

Whilst I expected the VAT rise to pass – what surprises even me an avowed Lib-Dem sceptic is that not one Lid-Dem voted against the government VAT rise – not one of them honoured their election campaign –not one of them has a conscience – I thought there might have been one – I was mistaken – at least I wasn’t tempted to vote for the bastards unlike the millions of their voters they are busy betraying.

Over the decades John Prescott has become a champagne buffoon from his two jags to croquet on the Dorneywood lawn – but every clown has his day and Prescott’s having a bit of a blinder.

Nick Clegg has made much about his proposed referendum on AV next May.

And you can understand why. This was his pay off for what he’s agreed to so far.

He sold out his party and the near seven million people who voted Lib Dem by letting in a Tory-led Government that’s hit the poor with 20% VAT, slashed child tax credits and sanctioned the prospect of 40% cuts to Government budgets that will devastate public services and lead to more than 1.3 million job losses.

Now on the very day plans for more than 700 new state schools were axed, Clegg championed AV, a form of voting he once described as a ‘miserable little compromise.’

And on this occasion, I agree with Nick.

That’s exactly what it is – cover for the biggest gerrymandering of seats that I have ever seen in my 40 years in politics.

This is a poisonous package and Labour must fight against every single part of it.

So let’s make the May elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and local councils a proper referendum on this ConDem government and a set of savage and brutal policies that no-one would have voted for at the last General Election.

Update:

I’m indebted to Stephen Johnson who made a very important point in my comments section which really sums up Clegg’s inconsistency.

Clegg cancelled Labour’s £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, which would have built a new press to make parts for nuclear power stations, providing a sustainable future for the company and creating hundreds of new jobs at the plant and thousands more in the supply chain.

He defended the cancellation of the loan, saying: “We have to take difficult choices to make sure taxpayers’ money is spent as wisely as possible.”

And the cost of a referendum for a voting system he described as a “miserable little compromise?”

£80m. John Prescott.

Now I’m not against electoral reform – but AV isn’t a reform in fact it’s hard to see how AV will be any different from the first past the post system currently in use – if we’re to have a vote let’s make it worthwhile and have a referendum on a reform that makes a difference – I suggest the Single Transferable Vote for starters.

Still that’s a side issue what Prescott’s really worried about is

His description of the boundary changes and the way in which they are to be constructed as “cover for the biggest gerrymandering of seats that I have ever seen in my 40 years in politics,” was accurate and precise.

The Tories have grasped the opportunity to fiddle the voting profile of this country in such a way as to diminish the importance of Labour’s hold on the inner cities and rebalance the ballot profile of the country to enhance the chances of the Tories in seats where they were hitherto weak. Morning Star.

The reduction in the number of MPs will mean larger constituencies and as Scottish and Welsh constituencies tend to be smaller this will mean fewer Welsh and Scottish constituencies and more in the English Shires which will only mean one thing more Tories in Westminster – David Cameron’s motto seems to be – if you can’t win an election then fix the next so you will.