House of Comments - Episode 128 - The Living Wage Budget

The latest House of Comments podcast is now out.

This week the podcast is back for a one off special during the current podcast hiatus. I am joined by the Guardian political columnist Rafael Behr to discuss George Osborne's "Living Wage" budget and its political consequences.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:



Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboom for hosting the podcast. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

House of Comments - Episode 52 - The Meh Budget

Episode 52 of the House of Comments podcast "The Eastleigh Fallout" was recorded on Sunday and is out. This week myself and Emma Burnell were joined by former Ed Miliband adviser Sonia Sodha to discuss the budget, Leveson and blogs, Workfare and JSA targets and immigration bonds.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here (note - this is a new feed so if you used to subscribe to the old feed a couple of years ago you'll need to do so again).

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 52 - The Meh Budget’ on Audioboo

If you are a political blogger and wish to be considered as a future guest please drop me an e-mail at markreckons@live.co.uk.

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us and especially to Audioboo's James O'Malley who has helped us out getting relaunched. James is also editor of The Pod Delusion podcast which is about "interesting things" and is well worth a listen too! We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

18.5% Nonsense

I really can't understand why this is considered to be so newsworthy.

Of course the government is going to consider various ways in which to raise revenue later once the economy picks up. Frankly I would be surprised and a little disappointed if options such as a VAT rise had not been considered.

However what has happened here is typical of the way the Westminster echo chamber operates. Some bloggers have picked it up and expressed outrage, Cameron has chipped in with his claim that this is the government's secret plan. His claim that there is a "black hole" in the finances may or may not be true. Frankly at the moment, how the hell anyone has any idea what state the economy is likely to be in by 2011/2012 I have no clue. And neither do they. This is just being batted around for party political advantage.

This is one of the things that turns people off politics. The screeching from all sides about "black holes" and "tax bombshells" as well as "political opportunism" does nobody any favours.

I believe the government when they claim that they considered it and then dropped it. Would the opposition have preferred it if the government had not considered other options and just blindly picked the first thing they thought of?

There are much more substantial things for the opposition to engage with such at what actually was announced yesterday. Not what wasn't.

"Pre-Budget Report" Stuff

I have already said my bit about the VAT "reduction" and the 45p rate on previous posts. However I do have a few comments about things today.

Calling it a "Pre-Budget Report" is surely a massive misnomer. This was a full budget, in fact it was more full and wide-ranging than most full budgets. I can only assume that the reasons why it was not actually called one are:

1. It is politically convenient for the government not to as it perhaps ameliorates the sense of crisis by not having to admit it is an extra emergency budget.
2. It meant there was no proper debate afterwards (indeed Labour MPs started to leave as soon as opposition spokesman started speaking).
3. It meant that George Osborne responded for the Tories and I suspect the government thought this would be better for them than Cameron (who would have responded had it been a full budget as is the convention). Osborne's response seems to have gone down quite well in the blogosphere although I have to say for me he was too confrontational, tubthumping and shrill. All that barracking from the Tories seemed misplaced. I thought Vince Cable had the tone just right (although I would say that wouldn't I!?).

John Redwood has also made the point about it being a full budget in all but name.

I am also concerned about the fact that some of the measures announced today seemed to have ramifications all the way through to 2016 (8 years away) in terms of getting the books to balance. Now I know we are in a very difficult financial situation at the moment but surely there is something wrong with the system if a government can constrain future parliaments to this degree. Whatever happened to not binding the hands of your successor as I remember learning about in A-Level Politics all those years ago?