Ahead of the return of the health and social care bill to the House of Lords today, the papers are full of stories David Cameron is seeking to distance himself from the coalition’s heavily-criticised reforms and hang them round the neck of Andrew Lansley.

The truth, of course, is vastly different to the lines briefed out by Downing Street – the bill is as much the prime minister’s as it is his embattled health secretary’s. As the excerpts below show, he says he helped design it, he has repeatedly backed it in public and he is responsible for it – this is David Cameron’s disastrous NHS reorganisation.

• In July 2010, David Cameron, alongside Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley, personally signed the foreword to the white paper – “Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS” (pdf) – which set out the government’s NHS reorganisation plans:

“The NHS is a great national institution. The principles it was founded on are as important now as they were then: free at the point of use and available to everyone based on need, not ability to pay. But we believe that it can be so much better – for both patients and professionals.

“That’s why we’ve set out a bold vision for the future of the NHS – rooted in the coalition’s core beliefs of freedom, fairness and responsibility.

“We will make the NHS more accountable to patients. We will free staff from excessive bureaucracy and top-down control. We will increase real terms spending on the health service in every year of this Parliament.

“Our ambition is to once again make the NHS the envy of the world. Liberating the NHS – a blend of Conservative and Liberal Democrat ideas – sets out our plans to do this.”

• In April 2011, Mr Cameron told Sky News’s Dermot Murnaghan he had “been involved in designing these changes way back into opposition” with Mr Lansley, and takes “absolute responsibility with him for all the changes we are making”:

DM: “Well you were ploughing on until you ran into so much political trouble. Mr Lansley for a long time seemed to be in charge of the process himself, it was only when Number Ten took on board the enormity of the proposed changes, isn’t it?”

DC: “No, not at all. I mean I have been involved in designing these changes way back into opposition with Andrew Lansley, I take absolute responsibility with him for all of the changes we are making but I do think it is right when you have an asset as precious as the National Health Service, if you have the time to just stop and make sure you are getting everything right and at the same time what I’m finding is when you go particularly to hospitals, a lot of this is about reassuring clinicians in hospitals, hospital doctors, that they will have a really big part in this future NHS.”

• The prime minister has regularly defended the reorganisation inside and outside Parliament:

“First of all, let us be clear about the fact that the reforms are about cutting bureaucracy and improving patient care. They were drawn up by us as a coalition to improve the NHS.” – PMQs, March 2011

“It’s because I love the NHS so much that I want to change it… Because the fact is the NHS needs to change. It needs to change to make it work better today and it needs to change to avoid a crisis tomorrow.” – Speech at Ealing Hospital, May 2011

“Three weeks ago, I made the case for change in our NHS. I said we would be kidding ourselves if we thought we could simply stick with the status quo. We need to change the NHS to make it work better today.” – Follow-up speech on the NHS, June 2011

“Of course there are doctors in the health service who don’t like the idea of greater choice and competition and other organisations being able to provide free healthcare services to patients. But I believe patients want that sort of choice and rapid, quality treatment and that’s why it’s right to make these reforms.” – Interview with the BBC, October 2011, in response to a Telegraph letter from doctors and academics warning “the proposed reforms will disrupt, fragment and weaken the country’s public health capabilities”

• Cameron’s former No. 10 adviser James O’Shaughnessy recently revealed that during the “pause” last year “it did take the energy of Steve [Hilton] and the prime minister and Oliver Letwin and others to keep pushing it through”:

“We came in with what we thought were fairly well thought through proposals that then did seem to be running into opposition at a variety of levels, whether it’s the House of Lords or staff or other groups.

“I think there was a lesson in there for all of us which is actually, if you look where we’ve got to with the health bill, the fundaments of what we were trying to do are still there but it did take the energy of Steve and the prime minister and Oliver Letwin and others to keep pushing it through, to weigh in behind that and adopt different tactics in order to get the same principles across.” – “David Cameron’s Big Idea” (listen), BBC Radio 4, January 2012

• And just last week, at PMQs, David Cameron made it clear he would not back down – even citing Tony Blair in his support:

“Let me tell the Right Honourable Gentleman something that Tony Blair once wrote about the process of reform. Now there is a man who knows a thing about bonuses and pay.

“He said this – listen, listen:

‘It is an object lesson in the progress of reform: the change is proposed; it is denounced as a disaster; it proceeds with vast… opposition; it is unpopular; it comes about; within a short space of time, it is as if it has always been so. The lesson is instructive: if you think a change is right, go with it. The opposition is inevitable, but rarely is it unbeatable.’

“That was someone who knew a thing or two about reform.”

Mr Cameron may run, but he can’t hide from the reality that these are his reforms, that he has resolutely stuck by them, and that he is ignoring pretty much everyone who cares about the NHS and is refusing to kill the bill.

See also:

• Miliband goes on attack as fight to save the NHS stepped up – Shamik Das, February 6th 2012

• Sign my petition to drop Lansley’s monster – Dr Kailash Chand OBE, November 24th 2011

• Cameron’s fantasy list of NHS reform backers – Shamik Das, September 7th 2011

• Doctors still fear coalition health reforms – Daniel Elton, June 27th 2011

• So who backs Lansley’s health reforms then? – Dominic Browne, June 1st 2011

• Doctors tell Lansley: “Stop this bill” – Dominic Browne, March 15th 2011

• So, Mr Cameron, who backs your NHS reforms? Erm… – Shamik Das, February 2nd 2011

In opposition, David Cameron made much of his commitment to ringfence aid spending, as part of his detoxification strategy, pledging not to balance the books on the backs of the world’s poorest. All well and good. Yet the government has delayed enshrining the 0.7 per cent target in law. Again. And again. And again.

As Left Foot Forward reported on June 4th 2010, just weeks after the election, it’s a promise the Tories failed to immediately deliver once they’d made it to power, omitting it from their first Queen’s Speech. Back then, there was criticism the legislation wouldn’t make the statute book by the September 2010 New York Millennium Development Goals summit; it now looks like it won’t even be law by the May 2012 Cape Town MDG summit.

Yesterday, international development secretary Andrew Mitchell revealed the legislation would once again be delayed, telling The Sun:

“I don’t think it physically can now because there is not enough time left. We have signed off on the Bill and it’s now with the business managers. They will proceed with it when there is parliamentary time. The most important point, though, is that we are actually doing it – and we have set that out in the figures”

This despite the Tory manifesto pledge (page 117, pdf) to “lock in” the 0.7% target from next year:

“A new Conservative government will be fully committed to achieving, by 2013, the UN target of spending 0.7% of national income as aid. We will stick to the rules laid down by the OECD about what spending counts as aid. We will legislate in the first session of a new Parliament to lock in this level of spending for every year from 2013.”

And the coalition agreement pledge (page 22, pdf) that:

“We will honour our commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid from 2013, and to enshrine this commitment in law.”

As former Department for International Development special adviser Richard Darlington writes in the New Statesman:

This has been one of the longest ever Parliamentary sessions in history, running from May 2010 to May 2012. So what’s gone wrong?

There are still ten weeks left in this Parliamentary session and another three when MPs will be on holiday. DFID’s Bill is short with just a handful of clauses. It has already had pre-legislative scrutiny from the International Development Select Committee and there is cross-party consensus. There is no prospect of it being overturned in the Lords. It could probably be passed on a one line whip on a Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.

Adding:

The last time they were in office, the Conservatives halved the aid budget. Labour trebled it. [See Figure 7.1]. The reason the Conservatives made the promise was to achieve all-party consensus and put the issue beyond doubt.

Desmond Tutu said that “a promise made to the poor is a sacred thing”. Politicians should keep their promises, or risk proving cynical voters right when they say that politicians never keep their word.

Figure 7.1:

This is one Tory promise, more than any other, that David Cameron knows he cannot break; the futures of literally millions of the world’s poorest depend upon it.

See also:

• Conservatives to meet aid target by counting ‘made up’ debt relief as aid – David Taylor, January 9th 2012

• Tories are balancing the books on the backs of the world’s poorest – David Taylor, December 2nd 2011

• An open letter to David Cameron on the importance of the 0.7% target – David Taylor, May 17th 2011

• Government review of UK aid – goals and reaction – Shamik Das, March 1st 2011

• Commitment to ring fence UK aid welcome but questions remain – David Taylor, October 21st 2010

• Tories break promise to legislate on 0.7% in first parliament – David Taylor, June 4th 2010

• Campaign launched to commit UK to spending 0.7% of income on development aid – David Taylor, February 3rd 2010

A week ago, David Cameron tried to embarrass Ed Miliband by claiming a doctor in his Doncaster constituency supported the health reforms – a doctor, that is, who has quit his commissioning group and doesn’t even live in Doncaster – yet today, a real doctor in his own Witney constituency has said “things are going to fail, hospitals will close” as a result of the health and social care bill.

The senior GP has told the New Statesman:

“I would say very few GPs are happy with [the NHS reform] at all… [It's] not a question of supporting it, it’s a question of going along with it… In my practice, nobody supports the changes…

“People think there should be more clinical involvement in commissioning. But I don’t think many people think that GPs are the right people to commission. They need input into it – but if we wanted to be managers we would have trained to be managers, not doctors.”

Adding:

“Most GPs are incredibly worried about conflict of interest. How can you be a patient’s advocate and look after the money?

“A lot of people think the whole thing’s designed to fail so they can bring private providers in. It’s the one big bit of the economy that hasn’t got private money in it.”

And of the effects to patients from the health service overhaul, the Witney GP warns:

“The public have just got no idea what’s hitting them… Things are going to fail, hospitals will close, because the money’s not going to be there. Things will get taken over. And if you’re going to have to make a profit out of it, you’re not going to have the same service.”

This lunchtime, the prime minister was again quizzed over the NHS reforms at PMQs, with Miliband again telling him to drop the bill.

As Left Foot Forward has reported many times before, as the links below show, next to nobody in the NHS supports the changes; now that even a senior GP in his own constituency has articulated that opposition, will David Cameron finally listen?

See also:

• Sign my petition to drop Lansley’s monster – Dr Kailash Chand OBE, November 24th 2011

• Lansley told to his face why his NHS reforms are wrong, wrong, wrong – Shamik Das, October 14th 2011

• Cameron’s fantasy list of NHS reform backers – Shamik Das, September 7th 2011

• Doctors still fear coalition health reforms – Daniel Elton, June 27th 2011

• So who backs Lansley’s health reforms then? – Dominic Browne, June 1st 2011

• Doctors tell Lansley: “Stop this bill” – Dominic Browne, March 15th 2011

• So, Mr Cameron, who backs your NHS reforms? Erm… – Shamik Das, February 2nd 2011

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Since the announcement in 2008 that the UUP and Conservatives would look to form closer links with each other, David Cameron has made it a mission to enter the world of electoral politics in Northern Ireland in a belief that a truly unionist party needed to contest elections in every part of the country.

In 2010, the electoral pact between the parties was a disaster to say the least, leading as it did to the resignation of the UUP’s only MP in Westminster, Lady Sylvia Hermon, in protest.

Indeed, at the time, former UUP deputy leader John Taylor, now Lord Kilclooney, declared, somewhat unflatteringly, the partnerships to be akin to a “mongrel relationship” whilst the then Conservative chair of the Northern Ireland select committee, Patrick (now Lord) Cormack, dubbed it “odd” and “inconsistent”.

Having had advances to re-establish a pact rejected by UUP leader Tom Elliott, the Conservatives have instead decided to go it alone and establish a Conservative party in Northern Ireland completely separately of any other party.

Announcing the plans, the party’s co-chairman Lord Feldman declared:

“For too long politics in Northern Ireland have been built around sectarianism and division. We want to move past the politics of the peace process to a more normal state of affairs where everyone in Northern Ireland has the opportunity to vote for a modern, centre-right, pro-Union party.

“This new political party won’t be encumbered by the conflict and divisions of Northern Ireland’s past. We want to reach out to everybody in Northern Ireland, regardless of their background.”

On the face of it, at a time when the debate over Scottish independence rages on, the idea of bringing Northern Ireland out from the cold and into the mainstream of UK politics might seem appealing to unionists. Dig deeper, however and it’s not hard to realise how difficult a move it could be.

Firstly, how can David Cameron ever now hope to be able to act as an independent arbiter in Northern Ireland politics when he will now have his own electoral chances to consider?

As shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Vernon Coaker, has argued:

“The Conservative party in Northern Ireland has been relaunched more times than the Big Society.

Instead of prioritising their party’s self-serving misadventures in Northern Ireland, the prime minister and the Secretary of State should concentrate on meeting their responsibilities to help secure the peace process and build a shared future.”

Secondly, it has to be questioned how timely the move is for the Conservatives to be entering the world of Northern Ireland politics at the exact same time as even Tom Elliott himself has admitted that he is exploring how the DUP and UUP can better co-operate to give unionism in Northern Ireland a stronger voice. What role does the Conservative Party have to play in this?

Indeed, given their accusations that the proposed boundary changes in Northern Ireland, spearheaded by the Conservatives, amount to “gerrymandering”, the DUP will not be in any mood to give Cameron et al an easy ride.

And finally, just how new is the proposal? As former UUP staffer, Michael Shilliday, has observed on the Slugger O’Toole blog:

“Let’s be clear, there is to be no “new party” in Northern Ireland. They are not farming off their existing branch, they are attempting to tart it up a bit. And what are these momentous changes? They MIGHT get a seat on the Conservative party board (hardly a sign of a new party is it?), they MIGHT be allowed to elect a leader, and they will be allowed to have a Chairman (so what has Irwin Armstrong been doing all this time?)

“It all begs the question, what is the point? It sounds a bit like they will attract a few failed UUP candidates, but is that together with some semantic dressing up really going to turn an electorally insignificant and utterly failed group into the vanguard for liberal Unionism?

“The Conservative party has no hope in Northern Ireland without an existing local base, the best fit being the UUP. The UUP is visionless and increasingly rudderless without the Conservative party (the real one that is, not what passes for it in Northern Ireland). Seems obvious what to do really.”

With the UUP having made crystal clear that it cannot foresee a new electoral pact with the Conservatives, Cameron’s foray into the world of Northern Ireland’s politics is the wrong move at the wrong time.

See also:

• Tories and UUP split over merger deal – Ed Jacobs, January 5th 2012

• Has the UUP/Tory link hit the rocks? – Ed Jacobs, February 3rd 2011

• Northern Ireland: The challenges facing Mr Cameron – Ed Jacobs, May 17th 2010

• UUP-Tory alliance a “mongrel relationship” – Ed Jacobs, March 12th 2010

• Cameron accused of “sham marriage” with Ulster Unionists – Ed Jacobs, March 10th 2010

With 25 of the European Union’s 27 states agreeing to join a fiscal treaty to enforce budget discipline, more questions are being asked about what exactly David Cameron’s December veto achieved. In Brussels yesterday, everyone bar Britain and the Czech Republic signed the new treaty, with the prime minister expressing “legal concerns” about the use of EU institutions.

Cameron added that “it’s good that the new treaty is absolutely explicit and clear that it cannot encroach on the competences of the EU”, insisting “they must not take measures that in any way undermine the EU single market”, and maintaining the treaty would impose “no obligations on the UK”.

However, shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander last night queried the wisdom of Cameron’s walkout:

“The unanswered question after this summit remains what exactly David Cameron achieved by walking out of the EU negotiations last month?

“With the EU institutions now involved, it seems clear that all his earlier phantom veto achieved was to undermine British influence, and so make it harder for Britain to protect its own interests in Europe and push for an effective solution to the eurozone’s problems.”

The new “fiscal comapct” treaty (pdf) states:

National budgets are required to be in balance or in surplus, a criterion that would be met if the annual structural government deficit does not exceed 0.5% of nominal GDP. This balanced budget rule must be incorporated within one year into the member states’ national legal systems, at constitutional level or equivalent. In the event of deviation from this rule, an automatic correction mechanism would be triggered. It will be defined by each member state on the basis of principles proposed by the European Commission.

The EU Court of Justice will be able to verify national transposition of the balanced budget rule. Its decision is binding, and can be followed up with a penalty of up to 0.1% of GDP, payable to the European Stability Mechanism.

The treaty agreed today also reinforces fiscal rules for the euro area by extending reversed qualified majority voting to the decision on whether to place a country in excessive deficit procedure. Reversed qualified majority voting would also be use for imposing sanctions.

The new treaty also contains provisions on the coordination and convergence of member states’ economic policies and on governance of the euro area. In particular, Euro Summit meetings will take place at least twice a year.

Also at yesterday’s Brussels Summit, leaders signed a joint statement (pdf) on economic growth, “towards growth-friendly consolidation and job-friendly growth”, which pledged to:

• Step up efforts to promote young people’s first work experience and their participation in the labour market, with the objective that within a few months of leaving school, young people receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship, or a traineeship;

• Increase substantially the number of apprenticeships and traineeships to ensure they represent real opportunities for young people, in cooperation with social partners and where possible integrated into education programmes;

• Make renewed efforts to get early school-leavers into training; and

• Make full use of the EURES job mobility portal to facilitate the cross-border placement of young people, further opening sheltered sectors by removing unjustified restrictions on professional services and the retail sector.

These efforts will be supported by:

• As a first step working with those Member States which have the highest youth unemployment levels to re-direct available EU funds towards support for young people to get into work or training;

• Enhancing the mobility of students by substantially increasing the number of placements in enterprises under the Leonardo da Vinci programme;

• Using the European Social Fund (ESF) to support the setting up apprenticeship-type schemes and support schemes for young business starters and social entrepreneurs;

• Enhancing cross-border labour mobility, through the revision of EU rules on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, including the European professional card and the European Skills Passport, the further strengthening of EURES, and progress on the acquisition and preservation of supplementary pension rights for migrating workers.

The need for Europe-wide cooperation on solving the economic crisis could not be greater; as the BBC’s Europe editor Gavin Hewitt wrote:

The warning signs are everywhere. Europe isn’t working. There are 25 million people out of work. Nearly six million of those are under 25.

Part of the focus of this summit will be youth unemployment, with a plan that within four months of leaving school, young people will receive an offer of employment or continued education or training.

If Europe is to recover, much deeper questions have to be answered. Are Europe’s welfare states sustainable? How will Europe compete with emerging nations? Does Europe and in particular the EU have to rethink its whole attitude towards regulation?

So Europe staggers on. The crisis is less intense than it was. The patient is no longer critical but remains dangerously unstable.

See also:

• Public support for Cameron’s EU walkout already unravelling – Will Straw, December 13th 2011

• What exactly did Cameron get from the EU summit? – Shamik Das, December 13th 2011

• Cameron turns Britain from an outlier into an irrelevance – James Denselow, December 12th 2011

• Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland savage Cameron’s anti-EU strategy – Ed Jacobs, December 12th 2011

• How Cameron traded influence for isolation – Ben Fox, December 12th 2011

• Look Left – Europe 26-1 Cameron: Britain isolated like never before – Shamik Das, December 9th 2011

• Cameron didn’t sign EU deal because it’s not in the interests of the one per cent – Shamik Das, December 9th 2011

Following one of the best Prime Minister’s Questions performances of his tenure yesterday, Ed Miliband has gone on the offensive, writing to David Cameron, asking him to “correct the record” over his “inaccurate claims” to the House on employment, bank lending and the outrageous slashing of benefits for disabled children; below is the full text of his correspondence with the PM

Dear Prime Minister,

I wanted to write following this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions to draw your attention to some inaccurate claims you made today.

In an answer to me, you said that “There are more people in work today than there were at the time of the last election”. In fact, the most recent employment figures from the Office for National Statistics show that total employment between May-July 2010 and September-November 2011 fell by 26,000.

In an answer to Lindsay Roy MP, you said that the Merlin agreement “actually led to an increase in bank lending last year”. In fact, the latest Trends in Lending report from the Bank of England, published last Friday, said that “the stock of lending to SMEs contracted between end-April and end-November 2011”.

In an answer to Paul Maynard MP, you spoke of “the real shame… that there are so many millions of children who live in households where nobody works and indeed that number doubled under the previous government”. In fact, according to the Office for National Statistics, the number of children living in workless households fell by 372,000 between April-June 1997 and April-June 2010.

In an answer to Rt Hon Anne McGuire MP, who said that your Government was planning to cut benefits to disabled children, you said that “The Hon Lady is wrong”. In fact, according to page 28 of the Department for Work and Pensions’ own impact assessment on the introduction of universal credit, your policy of mirroring for disabled children the current adult eligibility for Disability Living Allowance means that the rate paid to those disabled children who do not qualify for the highest rate of the DLA care component “would be less than now (£26.75 instead of £53.84)”.

I am sure that you will want to take this opportunity to correct the record.

Yours sincerely,

Ed Miliband

Sources:

• Employment stats (xls) – Office for National Statistics

• Jobs claims debunked – Fact Check

• Bank lending – “Trends in Lending” report (page 4, pdf) – Bank of England

• Figures for children in workless households (xls) – Office for National Statistics

• Disabled children’s benefits – impact assessment on universal credit (page 28, pdf) – Department for Work and Pensions

Sally Hunt is the general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU)

The unemployment figures (pdf) make for grim reading yet again this month. The unemployment rate has not been higher since 1995 and the number of unemployed people has not been higher since 1994.

And, as Graph 1 shows, the number of jobless 16 to 24-year-olds has risen by 52,000, to 1.04 million, which is the highest number since records began in 1992.

We have to address the problem of an entire generation being consigned to economic inactivity. Hundreds of thousands of the young people on that dole queue are hard-working students who were encouraged throughout their time at school to ‘aim higher’ and aspire to university.

They did that but now they find the door being slammed in their face through a combination of places being axed, fees rocketing and financial support being cut. These young people do not deserve to become simply another statistic in the record unemployment figures. They need to be given the chance to fulfil their potential, whether that’s at college, university or in the workplace.

A positive first step must be to improve access to education, and the imminent university grant letter from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), which details how much funding will be available for university teaching budgets, needs to provide an urgent boost to our beleaguered higher education sector. In reality this means the government rowing back on plans to slash state funding for universities.

Ministers need to recognise that higher education is a public good that generates billions for our economy and that investing in it will benefit all of society and potentially prevent hundreds of thousands of young people from a lifetime of signing on. The government needs to make a clear statement that it backs our universities and young people and the best place to the start is with HEFCE’s grant letter when it is finally delivered in the next few days.

See also:

• How well does Boris do on apprenticeships? – Darren Johnson AM, January 9th 2012

• 2012: The year ahead for young people – Alex Hern, January 7th 2012

• Unemployment: How Cameron and Clegg are letting the next generation down – Rachel Reeves MP and Stephen Timms MP, December 14th 2011

• Cameron is pricing the young out of education and consigning them to the dole queue – Sally Hunt, December 14th 2011

• Million young unemployed figure highlights enormity of the situation hitting our youth – Rory Weal, November 16th 2011

In a bizarre and abrupt fashion a potential 5,000 gay couples face their marriages being annulled, writes James Hallwood, Young Fabians equalities officer and programme manager at the Fabian Society

The issue arose when a British-American couple sought divorce in the country in which they were wed as they were unable to do so at home.

In the Toronto court case Canada’s Conservative government argued that the lack of recognition in their countries of origin meant that they were never married in the first place, setting a very concerning legal precedent.

While the Netherlands, Spain and others recognise the legality of marriages between foreigners on their soil Canada’s actions have shocked LGBT communities across the globe - not least from those who married there and wake up today unsure of their status.

Given that the Canadian government was happy licensing such marriages at the time this retrospective move seems as hypocritical as it does discriminatory.

Can one imagine Canadian law refusing to recognise an interacial marriage because the applicants’ countries of origin wouldn’t?

Canada does not inflict the death penalty on those from countries that use capital punishment, nor does it prevent Saudi women from driving along the roads of Ontario - yet the same correct standard is not applied to gay marriage that, even if not legally recognised in a home nation, should be fully respected by the country that wed them.

There are certainly valid arguments against foreigners relying on Canadian law to adjudicate divorce but deciding that after the marriage is surely too late?

Legal issues aside, the case argued by the Canadian Conservatives must be seen in the context of an administration that has been perceived as increasingly socially conservative. While native Canadians are not affected many activists in Canada fear that this action may be indicitive of their government’s future direction.

Little wonder there is outrage from sea to sea.

In the UK the Labour party achieved a real change in legislation and public attitudes to LGBT rights, a change that the British Conservative frontbench have eventually had to accept. With this on their watch now is the time to ask them to act, to prove that their gay rights credentials aren’t just soundbites for the ‘pink vote’. The British government cannot remain silent on this.

It has been commendable that the coalition has sought to promote gay rights in the ‘developing world’ but it is now imperative that it seeks to defend them in the West.

To that end I am waiting on confirmation of an e-petition that if accepted I implore you to sign; asking the government to condemn this action and seek to affirm the rights of gay British citizens and others to be legally wed in Canada. Update to follow.

The case for LGBT rights in Africa and beyond would be severely undermined if Britain cannot stand up for gay rights in the ‘developed world’.

The hackneyed charge of ‘imperialism’ and ‘interference’ would be dealt a blow by our being seen to challenge any country that infringes the rights of the gay community. This is a message to Canada as much as it is to the world at large. It’s an opportunity that the British government should not miss.

When the shock subsides one realises how important it is to avoid complacency. If this can happen in Canada it can happen anywhere. While I am confident Britain would never go down this route it is a reminder that we must never take our hard won rights for granted.

Labour enshrined LGBT rights into our laws and society, a lesson our Conservatives have had to learn – perhaps if we ask them strongly and often enough they can remind their brethren in Canada of that same important lesson.

See also:

• Santorum: The candidate the right loves because he hates gay people – Alex Hern, January 4th 2012

• Equal love: Time for the UK Parliament to recognise gay marriage – Glenis Willmott MEP and Michael Cashman MEP, December 19th 2011

• Equal Love – the law should recognise gay marriage and same-sex civil partnerships – Peter Tatchell, July 31st 2011

• Bigots vow to bring Ugandan anti-gay bill back – we must continue to fight them – Paul Canning, May 16th 2011

• Tebbit’s extraordinary rant about a “Big Society gay wedding” – Shamik Das, February 21st 2011

It has been a gloomy start to 2012 so far for the government. Not two weeks into the New Year and worse than expected manufacturing figures for the last quarter of 2011 – the worst since 2009.

We have also seen the Bank of England’s ‘credit trends’ report making grim reading for manufacturing companies, especially small and medium sized businesses – the very companies who were supposed to be leading the way out of recession and helping create work for the thousands of public sector workers who are losing their jobs.

The Bank’s report shows that credit for companies is now becoming scarce and expensive. According to the quarterly credit trends report for the fourth quarter of 2011, banks are raising rates on loans they make to business and plan to toughen the covenants on new loans. This tougher lending environment will damage the UK’s manufacturing sector.

The report also undermines the government’s long promised policy of re-balancing of the economy. The reality is that it has not got off the ground. Cameron has said recently:

“In places there is a re-balancing taking place but it’s not going as far and as fast as I would like it to and we need to do better on that front.”

Do better? The problem is that the government just doesn’t get it.

In order for manufacturing to grow businesses need access to loans and credit and one way to do this is through a strategic investment bank to help UK manufacturing companies to access finance and support.

The UK’s small and medium sized companies, which make up 80 per cent of manufacturing in the UK, are desperate for access for finance. How much worse does it have to get before the government acts?

This report also follows poor figures for manufacturing output at the end of 2011. The Markit Purchasing Managers Index survey, which asked manufacturers about their output and order books, showed a reading of 49.6 last month (December 2011). This is a tiny improvement on the 47.7 recorded in November 2011, but still below the 50 mark which signals the sector is expanding.

With the UK ‘s influence in Europe marginalised, Cameron has had to admit that he did not achieve a “safeguard for the UK”. Stagnation and a double dip recession are looming and the government has no idea how to guide us through it.

See also:

• Cameron sells out UK manufacturing for his loony backbenchers – Tony Burke, December 12th 2011

• A new strategy to help save UK manufacturing – Tony Burke, December 5th 2011

• Gideon’s grotesque attempt to blame workers’ rights for unemployment – Richard Exell, October 3rd 2011

• CBI survey shows glimmer of hope in UK manufacturing – Tony Dolphin, August 24th 2011

• Hopes of an export and manufacturing-led recovery recede – Tony Dolphin, August 9th 2011

Ed Miliband will today warn that only Labour can deliver fairness in these straitened times, and that whoever wins the next election will have to deal with a big deficit. In a speech to London Citizens on the South Bank this morning, Miliband will say that, if the winners are Labour, the party will have to govern in a different way to the last time it was in power.

On the challenges of governing under the specter of the deficit, he will say:

“We live in tough times. In the years ahead there will be less money to spend. It’s a challenge for Labour. It’s the same challenge facing parties on the centre-left all around the world. And it’s a challenge for me. A challenge I relish.

“We always said the deficit had to be reduced. But in a steady and balanced way. And we warned that trying to cut spending and raise taxes too far and too fast would make it harder to get that deficit down. The government has proved that prediction was correct in just 18 months.

“But the failure of George Osborne’s economic policy creates a different landscape for the 2015 General Election and whoever wins it…

“Whoever is the next prime minister will not have money to spend. We will have to make difficult choices that all of us wish we did not have to make. Labour knows what fairness means. It always will. But we must rethink how we achieve it for Britain.

“The ideas which won three elections between 1997 and 2005 won’t be the ideas which will win the election in 2015. So we will be a different party from the one we were in the past. A changed Labour Party.”

Following his attack last November that fairness “is not in David Cameron’s DNA”, Miliband will say the prime minsiter will only offer “more of the same” in answer to the country’s problems:

“Everyone is now joining us talking about the squeezed middle, the next generation and responsible capitalism.

“But it’s not enough just to talk about them. Suddenly David Cameron is falling over himself to say he too is burning with passion to take on ‘crony capitalism’. Now he has accepted this the battleground of politics, I say: ‘Bring it on.’

“The core belief of David Cameron is that we can solve the problems Britain faces by government getting out of the way. His answer to the problems thrown up by an economic crisis caused by faith in free market fundamentalism, is simply more of the same.

“My answer is different. Different to this prime minister. And different too to the previous Labour government.”

In describing the “new reality” as “an opportunity for Labour to achieve more, not less”, he will outline how a future Labour government will deliver fairness:

“I want to explain the principles which will guide the Labour Party under my leadership so that we can rise to the challenge of those who say that Labour is only a party for good times.

“I want to talk about three new ways of delivering fairness in difficult times when there is not much money around.

“First, reforming our economy so we have long-term wealth creation with rewards fairly shared. Second, tackling vested interests that squeeze the living standards of families across our country. Third, making choices that favour the hard working majority.”

Polly Toynbee, writing in today’s Guardian, says of the Labour leader:

Miliband is adopting all the High Pay Commission’s proposals. If Cameron’s plan fails to curb excess, Miliband must go further. He should certainly support those dangerous lefties, Merkel and Sarkozy, on the Robin Hood transaction tax: watching them go it alone shows how wrong Cameron was to claim this was an EU conspiracy against the City.

Hard times need create no “crisis of social democracy”. In Attlee’s postwar days of atrocious austerity, Labour produced its best policies – and so Miliband lays out reasons why fairness matters most when money is short. His “responsible capitalism” may look ever more essential by the end of this economically threatening year.

Adding:

There is nothing anti-business about cleansing cheats, asset-strippers and vultures from honest savings and good business enterprise: Cameron has been forced to agree.

Miliband has forced this onto the agenda; he needs to keep running with it and make this ground his own.

See also:

• Miliband attacks Osborne’s “dangerous gamble” and “catastrophic mistakes” on economy – Shamik Das, November 24th 2011

• Slowly but surely, Ed’s speeches are getting better – Asher Dresner, September 28th 2011

• Miliband needs to move the argument beyond mere Tory-bashing – Ed Jacobs, September 27th 2011

• Leading Labour: Evaluating Ed Miliband’s first year – Marc Stears, September 24th 2011

• Miliband: “Our ambition is to be more than a party; Labour must be a cause” – Shamik Das, June 25th 2011