Matthew O'Callaghan

Opportunism or Responsibility

Matthew OCallaghan — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:53:16 +0000

In the recent debate on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill those Conservatives opposing the measure proposed a wrecking amendment to allow heterosexual couples access to Civil Partnerships. Labour which supports the terms of the amendment in principle had originally agreed to vote in favour of the measure. The Shadow Team were then faced with a dilemma. They could have supported the amendment and watch the Tory rebels defeat their own Leader and pile up more pressure on him. In the end the Shadow Team decided to rescue Cameron and voted against the rebels’ amendment which was defeated. The Government then agreed to Labour’s terms of reviewing whether civil partnerships should be extended to heterosexuals. Much of the press have commented on Cameron being ‘rescued’ by Labour. This isn’t the first time that Labour has rescued the Government and has acted responsibly rather than opportunistically. Labour already looks as if it is the Government in waiting.

Ed Balls MP Supports Matthew in Loughborough

Rob Watson — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:03:56 +0000

Matthew & Ed Balls

At a Labour Party fundraising dinner in Leicester last Thursday Ed Balls gave unprecedented backing for Labour’s campaign to win Loughborough at the next General Election. The dinner, hosted by John Ashworth MP, was attended by Labour Party activists from across the City and County as well as representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, Asian Business Community and several leading trade unions. Ed Balls ended a speech on the economy by saying that stacking up even more votes in ‘safe’ seats in Leicester at the next General Election would be a hollow victory if we lost in Loughborough and failed to win the opportunity to be the next Government. He praised the recent County Council results in Loughborough as indicating that Labour is on course to win the target seat. He warned however against complacency and said that more work needed to be done and that constituencies across the county and city should sign up to help. He himself has pledged to come and visit Loughborough and has accepted an invitation to speak at a fundraising dinner in the constituency in the Autumn.

Shepshed’s Labour Doorstep Team

Rob Watson — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 19:41:00 +0000

A Snow Flake in Loughborough and the Triple – George Osborne and Chaos Theory

Matthew OCallaghan — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:42:45 +0000

In Chaos Theory, the butterfly effect is where a small change in one place can give rise to large effects elsewhere. This effect was named by Edward Lorenz and featured in the title of his 1972 lecture ‘Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?’.

George Osborne appears to be a great believer in Chaos Theory as each time there is a downturn in the economy he has offered an excuse – other than his mishandling of the economy – in small external factors that have, he claims, had an out-of-proportion effect on the country’s GDP growth including the Queen’s Jubilee, wet weather, cold weather and a Royal Wedding.

In April when the first quarter’s economic results are out, should there be a downturn in the economy and a triple-dip recession, given the current weather, George will no doubt blame a snow flake in Loughborough for the Government’s continuing economic failure.

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Note: The effect has an older antecedent deriving from Henri Poincaré’s three-body problem of 1890 and is mostly applied to meteorology. The first appearance of the butterfly and its effect on future events is in a 1952 science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury called a ‘Sound of Thunder’.

A Tale of Two Economies: Lending to Businesses Down while Payday Loans to Poor Soar

Matthew OCallaghan — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 02:27:44 +0000

Want to borrow money? Do I look like a bank?

Everyone agrees that the economy will only get going if small and medium businesses are given access to funding so as to expand. After the banking collapsed, blamed on banks being to ready to lend to anyone, banks have reined in lending – more so since the Government have told them to hold more money in reserve. In August of last year the Bank of England and the Treasury launched the Funding for Lending Scheme to encourage banks to lend giving them access to £90 billion worth of cheap capital. Banks have taken up this offer of cheap cash but have not passed it on to businesses as intended. In fact net lending fell by £2.4 billion in the three months to December 2012 compared with the previous quarter.
Contrast this with those ‘legal loan sharks’ called payday loans, they’ve grown now worth over £2billion, earning astronomical fees when clients unable to pay on time have to roll over their payments at even higher interest rates. Some of their practices are exposed in a recent OFT report.
A tale of two economies then; businesses unable to get money at low interest rates, the poor swamped with loans at astronomical rates. Time for the Government to do something about both these issues.

Cameron wrong: cuts have reduced economic growth – official

Matthew OCallaghan — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:10:52 +0000

David Cameron wrong: the cuts have reduced economic growth – official
The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) has publically slapped down David Cameron who when explaining why growth has been depressed claimed that that the OBR “are absolutely clear that the deficit reduction plan is not responsible” in other words it’s not the cuts that are causing thye economic downturn. This wasn’t just a slip delivered during an off the cuff remark. It was part of a carefully prepared speech David Cameron delivered on the economy trailed long in advance. And it’s the second time in recent months he’s got it wrong. He claimed the national debt was falling when in fact it is rising and due to be significantly higher at the next General Election.
In a stiff letter of rebuke to Mr Cameron the OBR said quite the opposite “we believe that fiscal consolidation measures have reduced economic growth over the past couple of years” ie the cuts are responsible for the economic downturn. There will be other factors as well such as the global economic climate, the Euro etc. But the OBR has confirmed what many of us have been saying all along; the cuts are too fast – too deep.

AAA – The Duracell Chancellor runs out of battery

Matthew OCallaghan — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 01:48:58 +0000

We’ve been in some up and down’s economically since 1978. We we’ve seen lots of chancellors come and go in these last 35 years, some good, some not so good. In all that time the financial world had confidence in the UK’s ability to manage its economy. No more! With the loss of the AAA rating, the first time since 1978, that confidence has disappeared – and on George Osborne’s watch.
Keeping the UK’s AAA rating was one of George Osborne’s main goals as chancellor, all the pain he will inflict on us would, he argued, be worth it in order to keep our AAA rating. And there has been pain, with a lot more to come from April onwards.
George Osborne based his own credibility on the retention of the triple AAA rating. Indeed he said in the Conservative Manifesto for the 2010 General Election “We will safeguard Britain’s credit rating with a credible plan to eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit over a parliament.” The loss of the AAA rating shows that the financial world no longer finds his plan credible. And there’s worse news – it also appears that the National Debt is rising and not falling as the Conservatives implied it would.
The value of the pound is falling and we risk facing a triple dip recession because our economy has run out of steam. To get growth not only does the chancellor need replacing but so do his policies. We need new batteries to drive the economic engine forward and to restore our AAA rating.

10 pence tax rate – what this policy reverse signals

Matthew OCallaghan — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:44:01 +0000

Ed Miliband has pledged to re-introduce the 10p tax rate, abolished by Gordon Brown, to be paid for by a Mansion Tax on homes worth more than £2m. Its abolition in 2009 was one of Labour’s worst policy decisions as it was taken by many as a signal to the poorest in society that Labour was no longer on their side. New Labour it was argued was too cosy with the rich and an ambivalent friend to the poor. The widening gap between those at the top and those at the bottom of society was further proof they said that Labour had abandoned those it was supposed to care for.
By saying we made a mistake on the 10p tax rate adds to the other admissions of policy errors of the last Labour Government; for example on immigration. Labour lost the last election. We got it wrong on a number of policies. Unless we analyse what went wrong and why, and where appropriate apologise for our mistakes then we won’t be able to develop policies that are right for the country and that will form part of our next manifesto. Announcing a policy reversal on the 10p tax rate is a good start.

Horseburgers – Why we’re so angry

Matthew OCallaghan — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 02:23:59 +0000

Don’t worry – horseburgers are safe to eat says Defra Secretary of State Owen Paterson. May be so but that’s not the point! People are buying food which says it contains beef, not horse or any other species that unscrupulous profiteers want to foist on us. And besides how do we know that the horsemeat in question is safe since we don’t know where it has come from, what diseases it may have died of or what harmful chemicals it was injected with during its life time?

If we don’t know what’s in our food – how can we guarantee it is safe? Food minister John Gummer famously tucked into a burger in 2000 at the height of the BSE epidemic. In a similar message of false reassurance Owen Paterson recently said he’d be perfectly happy to eat a frozen ready-meal lasagne for his Friday night dinner.

Part of the problem is that the responsibility for the traceability of our food is divided between the FSA (Food Standards Agency), Defra, Ministry of Health and Trading Standards with the buck being passed from one to the other during this crisis. What is clear is that the FSA is not up to the job, the Irish FSA having been clearly ahead of the game in both technology (DNA testing) and in its investigations into this issue. Now the FSA are demanding that retailers carry out the relevant DNA tests on their own products since it appears they don’t themselves have the resources to do so.

The supermarkets and major retailers don’t get away blameless in this shambles either. They’ve failed to establish supply chains that guarantee safe and known sources of primary raw materials for food – a lesson that should have been learnt from the BSE epidemic. These same retailers have the hypocrisy to demand of British Farmers higher standards than that many of their European counterparts with the higher costs that this imposes on them. They then have the gall to buy substandard meat from dubious suppliers on the continent. It appears that profit rather than safety is the watchword of the British retail sector whilst sending British farming into near bankruptcy.

Ed Miliband – a Central Role for Local Government

Matthew OCallaghan — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 17:17:05 +0000

Ed Miliband outlined a central role for local government at the Labour Local Government Conference today, the first since 2004. He gave a keynote speech on One Nation Britain and afterwards invited questions. I asked if there was to be a new role for Local Government under a Labour Government after the next election in terms of democratic accountability of the delivery of services at local level. He said that there would be a strong partnership between Central Government and Local Government in the delivery of services such as health, education and the police. This he argued would enhance the role of the Councillor and may encourage more to stand for their local council.