One for the weans

The Diamond Jubilee is fast approaching and there is a competition for kids aged between 6-14 to design the logo for the festivities.  With the Olympics, Diamond Jubilee and 100th anniversary of the Ulster Covenant 2012 is shaping up to be quite a party year.

Behaviour Modification

With candidate selections underway for the Assembly election I am proud to announce the opening of the Ulster franchise of the Canadian Behaviour Modification School for Candidates.

£450m pennies dropping?

Yesterday Melancthon over on the Centre Right section of Conservativehome admitted:

"...it appears that when Labour said our Eurosceptic promises were all hot air, they were right; that when Heseltine said that in government every Conservative Prime Minister is Europhile, he was right; that when UKIP said Conservatives were not to be trusted on Europe, they were right; that when I and others said that the Conservative Party had changed, and that Cameron and Hague were genuinely convicted Eurosceptics who understood what must be done and would not let us down, we were wrong."

This was before David Cameron tried to present an additional contribution of £450m to Europe as a victory on the basis they'd asked for twice that.  He'd previously called for a freeze but had quietly ditched that. 

UK fiscal policy is that the time for stimulus spending by government is over and that cuts are the policy for the next four years.  He has now agreed that the EU budget is an exception to that rule.  This retreat will also do little to curtail the European Commission plans for further growth in the budget during the next major funding round.

In an interesting coincidence this amount is about £50m more than was cut from the NI capital budget for the same period. This has been defended on the basis that there was no more money available and such cuts had to be made in the national interests etc.  Yet within 9 days of the Spending Review being released Cameron's decision has shown both statements to be false.

The Odd Couple

Before Tom Elliott appointed John McCallister as his deputy leader of the UUP Assembly group he took the time to have a tete a tete with the TUV.  However, while the TUV appears upbeat about the meeting:

"There seems to be a wide number of issues that we could find common ground on, chief among them being the changes to how the First Minister is appointed..."

The UUP Leader's placed a different emphasis on the meeting and its conclusions:

"We talked around a number of issues. At this stage it is very hard to come to any conclusions but we had a fairly frank meeting."

Recovering

I seem to be over the worst of it but backlog of work to clear so no blogging today.

Ill

Ill so no blogging today.

Note

Earlier this year the Coalition introduced cuts within this financial year.  The devolved regions were given the options of implementing or delaying them to the next financial year.  Each region chose a different  path.  One chose to make the cuts within this year.  One chose to spread it over this and the next financial year.  One chose to delay the cuts until next year.  The region that chose to cut within this financial year is on course to deliver them.  It was Northern Ireland that successfully implemented the cuts this year despite the difficulties of the system.

Gardiner v McNarry?

According to Sammy Gardiner MLA, the UUP position is:

"Health has been protected in England and Wales. The Ulster Unionist Party welcome this announcement and stresses that the same principle must be the case in Northern Ireland."

According to David McNarry earlier this week (still not on the UUP website) described the UUP position as more nuanced:

"Narrow departmental priorities cannot be allowed to usurp Northern Ireland plc’s priorities...All research suggests that front-line health services are at the head of the public’s list of public service delivery which should be protected."

Which is it ring fence the lot or protect front-line services?

Localism

How sharing and savings can happen between councils without the abolition of a council.

Accents

As local accents go they aren't half bad:



Historical background information here.

Quote of the day

"£10 million a year is to be saved by reducing the cost of metal used for coinage by the Royal Mint."

Particularism

The Assembly Public Attitude survey has been getting some attention.  (What are the odds that is going to be one of the things to be cut in the not too distant future?)  However, does it really dsiplay a particular crisis of local confidence or an example of our normality?

The 4 billion explained

The real terms cuts in revenue are as follows:
2011-12 £237.9m
2012-13 £447.4m
2013-14 £647.2m
2014-15 £863.7m
Total £2,196.2 m

The real terms cuts in capital are as follows:
2011-12 £342.7m
2012-13 £415.9m
2013-14 £527.3m
2014-15 £538.2m
Total £1,824.1m

Combined total £4,020.3m

At their work?

How are more ministers not on the Nolan show?  Perhaps they are working with their officials to deal with news they received less than 24 hours ago? 

Hornets Nest

While we are all distracted by the big numbers and the consequences it will undoubtedly have for our individual and collective standard of living in the next few years one of our Executive Ministers seems to be playing a largely unnoticed but ultimately dangerous game.  Alex Attwood seems to be dallying with the idea of breaching parity. 

In the Assembly earlier this week he stated:

"My officials are currently conducting an equality impact assessment on to the principle of parity in Northern Ireland. I am not just looking at the individual changes to child benefit or housing benefit, or any of the other proposals that are coming down the tracks, but am beginning to scope the much more fundamental issue of the principle of parity, and whether the principle of parity, as it currently operates, does or does not have equality implications. That is some blue sky thinking and the broader context in which we should consider those matters."

This morning he was talking about how the Osborne announcements of £7bn in welfare cuts would involve £200m taken from benefit claimants here.  However, he went on to imply that the Executive budget process was a means to preventing this.  This fundamentally misrepresents our budget process.  Government expenditure falls under two categories the block grant called Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) and benefits which are Annual Managed Exepnditure (AME). 

The Executive has made one foray in the region of benefits with its one off winter fuel payment.  However, the one-off and small nature of it meant it was permitted and not seen as destructive to the principle of parity.  What Attwood seems to be proposing is well beyond. This would involve a rejection of the principle of parity.  This is the financial equivalent of punching a hornets nest.

It may be mighty tempting to a nationalist minister to destroy Craig's negotiating success with the Treasury in the 1930's.  It might be mighty tempting to a SDLP minister to pick such a fight to up their profile with a nationalist and leftward posturing and increase their relevance to working class republican areas.  It might be a good issue to base an Executive resignation on. 

However, if this path is the one Attwood and the SDLP plan to follow it would only make our budgetary problems worse.

Planet Paterson

According to the Stephen Nolan Show the Northern Ireland Secretary of State has questioned what planet our local politicians are living on.  Simple it's a place called Planet Paterson, This was a planet were the capital spending was presented as safe until 2018.  This proved to be a lie and the Planet Osborne we had believed we were on was the correct one.  Trying to blame others for believeing your own lies is a real low.

Barnett - Updated

If I picked Osborne up right Northern Ireland will recieve a cash increase in the first year to £9.5 billion, by a quick reckoning this is a below inflation rise but higher than the flat cash prediction.  The other three years I don't know.

I picked him up wrong, the block grant will rise to £9.5bn in the second half of the CSR not next year.  The grant will increase from £9.3bn this year to £9.4bn for the first two years.  Treasury figures say this represents a 6.9% cut over the CSR period.

UPDATE On the capital side the Treasury figures predict a 37% cut over the CSR period for Northern Ireland from £1.3bn this year to £0.9bn in the first two years of the CSR and to £0.8bn in the final two years.  This brings back into focus Paterson's promises.

UPDATE 2 Sammy Wilson has raised the capital issues and Paterson's comments.  Osborne's defence is his capital cuts are less than Labour but sidesteps the SoS's comments.

UPDATE 3 The Treasury figures and DFP figures are different.  This is based on whether or not you include this year's Coalition cuts in your calculations or not.  Treasury don't and DFP does.

PMS

It sounds looks like the proposal the Northern Ireland Executive developed a number of months ago to compensate the PMS Savers has been accepted by the Treasury.

Milliband blows it

Ed Milliband will be extremely glad that Osborne's announcements will be dominating the news agenda.  Astonishingly bad performance in PMQ's.

Quote of the day

"Michael Gove was heckled about tuiton fees a few mins ago - he said 'Vince Cable is in charge of universities!'"