At the beginning of last week, I tabled some questions for written answer to try and find out how serious the Conservative Coalition is about enterprise and entrepreneurship.

I’ve now had the answer to the first of these.

My question was:

“To ask her Majesty’s Government what entrepreneurship and enterprise projects they have (a) fully and (b) partially funded; and what plans they have to fund such projects in each of the next five years.”

The answer that came back today was:

“A wide range of enterprise projects have been supported through a number of programmes run by various departments, but a comprehensive list of these is not available.”

So BIS doesn’t know, can’t be bothered to find out and ignored the last part of the question entirely.

I am not impressed.

I have now tabled the following:

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government:

1.  
   1. In the light of the answer given by Baroness Wilcox on 28^th October 2010, does the Department for Business Innovation and Skills keep a record of the external projects they fund and, if so, which of these external projects relate to entrepreneurship and enterprise?
   2. In the light of the answer given by Baroness Wilcox on 28^th October 2010, what plans do the Department for Business Innovation and Skills have for funding external projects relating to entrepreneurship and enterprise over the next five years?
   3. In the light of the answer given by Baroness Wilcox on 28^th October 2010, what arrangements do the Department for Business Innovation and Skills have in place for coordinating the activities of other Government Departments in relation to entrepreneurship and enterprise?”

I am not convinced that, despite all the fine words in the Coalition Agreement, the Conservative Coalition is serious about enterprise and entrepreneurship.

So I have tabled some Parliamentary Questions to prod them into exposing their thinking about where they stand.  The questions are as follows:

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government:

1. What entrepreneurship and enterprise projects they have (a) fully and (b) partially funded; and what plans they have to fund such projects in each of the next five years.
2. What proportion of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills budget was spent on promoting enterprise and entrepreneurship in the UK in each of the last five years.
3. Whether there are plans to increase or decrease the proportion of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills annual expenditure which is allocated to promoting and developing enterprise and entrepreneurship.
4. What plans they have to develop the Work for Yourself Programme as set out the Coalition Agreement and how much funding the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills plans to allocate to develop the Work for Yourself Programme in each of the next five years.”

Victoria Coren’s column in today’s Observer shows why she should be the new Shadow Minister for invective.

First, she sums up Nick Clegg:

“A couple of weeks ago, Nick Clegg told the Lib Dem conference: “We haven’t changed our liberal values.”

We know what everyone in the hall was thinking. They were thinking: “Oh hurry up and finish, so I can get drunk and have a disappointing affair with a lobbyist.”

But what was Nick Clegg thinking? At last year’s conference, he promised to scrap tuition fees. It turns out that by “scrap” he meant “the opposite of scrap”.

We knew it was a Humpty Dumpty election. On all sides, the words meant just what they chose them to mean, neither more nor less. That was standard campaign trickery, but it continues now! By “we haven’t changed our liberal values”, Nick Clegg means “we have changed our liberal values.”"

And then moves on to Vince Cable:

“Vince Cable told the same conference that he was “shining a harsh light into the murky world of corporate behaviour”, describing City financiers as “spivs and gamblers”. May I say, on behalf of spivs and gamblers, that I found this deeply offensive. Nevertheless, it promised a stern new approach to those who punted away the money we used to spend on child benefit and healthcare.

But the words are meaningless. Cable has only one hand on the swivelling spotlight while the other signs agreements to axe everything he promised to protect, because the money was vomited into the banking system and it seems impossible to recoup it from there. We’re not even being protected against this happening again. All the talk is of cuts, none of it is about regulation. So what’s the point of the light? To help the spivs see better, as they extract fivers from our wallets? You might just as well give a child strawberry ice cream for every meal, while promising to keep a close eye on its terrible diet.”

Then it’s David Cameron’s turn:

“David Cameron even makes patriotic, tearjerking speeches to “stir a spirit of national unity and resolve”, as if this were a giant episode of Children in Need. Give up your pocket money for Bankers in Need. BIN, I think, is a handy acronym. Come on, families! Join in, jobless! Wheel this way, disabled folk! Let’s all gather together and throw our money towards the BIN!

It’s an old chestnut, but always worth another roasting: remember to keep being insulted by how glibly they demand our sacrifices without paying us the respect of speaking frankly. They dissembled before the election and they’re dissembling now. When they say good morning, they mean it’s midnight. When they say: “I’ve made you a cup of tea”, they mean: “I’ve just weed in your coffee.”"

And finally she leaves us with a metaphor I will find hard to forget:

“Some people hoped the Lib Dems would act as balance in the new government – if not obstructing controversial policy, at least speaking honestly about it. But is it any wonder Nick Clegg wasn’t doing that at their conference? Chillingly, he and his speech had to be vetted by David Cameron.

I assume that’s “vetted” in the traditional sense of vet, ie to have a gloved hand up his backside.”

And the cartoon from Peter Riddell is pretty good too:

I know the Tories and the BBC follow a policy of mutual loathing, so it was no surprise to hear on Radio 4′s ‘The News Quiz’ the line:
‘The Tories have put the N in CUTS.’
I laughed and so did the audience.
So that’s the end of the License Fee then.

Ed Miliband’s speech this afternoon set the tone for his leadership:
‘Freedom and opportunity are precious gifts and the purpose of our politics is to expand them, for all our people.’
He wants Labour to be ‘reforming, restless and radical.’
But Labour must change:
‘We need to learn some painful truths about where we went wrong and how we lost touch.’
And he warned the Party:
‘This will require strong leadership. It won’t always be easy. You might not always like what I have to say. But you’ve elected me leader and lead I will.’
And:
‘The hard truth for all of us in this hall is that a party that started out taking on old thinking became the prisoner of its own certainties.’
Labour must be a force that ‘speaks for the majority and shapes the centre ground of politics’.
‘I believe strongly that we need to reduce the deficit. There will be cuts and there would have been if we had been in government.’
‘No plan for growth means no credible plan for deficit reduction.’
‘No truck with overblown rhetoric about waves of irresponsible strikes.’
‘We can’t be imprisoned by focus groups. Politics has to be about leadership or it is about nothing.’

It was all good stuff.
My only plea is that we don’t start calling ourselves ‘New Generation Labour’.

As my previous post reported, there is jus a little uncertainty about what the detailed outcome will be of the Shadow Cabinet elections that are about to take place. However, I have spoken to a large number of delegates today about how they would like the top few jobs distributed.
There was unanimity that people want to see David Miliband remain in the Shadow Cabinet and after much discussion the following consensus emerged on the ideal line-up.
And here are the top four posts:
Shadow Foreign Secretary – David Miliband;
Shadow Chancellor – Yvette Cooper;
Shadow Home Secretary – Ed Balls;
Shadow Costitutional Affairs (opposite Nick Clegg) – Alan Johnson.

I have just returned from the announcement by Harriet Harman, as Acting Leader of the Labour Party, of the result of the ballot for Labour’s nomination for London Mayor.  Ken Livingstone won convincingly by more than 2:1 over Oona King following a lengthy campaign in which huge numbers of London Labour Party members took part.

I had always been sure that Ken would win but the margin was substantially better than the 3:2 I had expected.

It is a very good basis for the forthcoming campaign, particularly following Ooona King’s very gracious and fulsome concession speech declaring her support for the successful candidate.

Steve O’Connell AM chair’s the Metropolitan Police Authority’s Finance and Resources Committee.  He is also a loyal member of Mayor Boris Johnson’s Conservative team at City Hall. 

So it is not surprising that he tried a few linguistic tricks when he found himself chairing a meeting this afternoon to discuss a paper from the Metropolitan Police snappily entitled “Quarterly Management Report – Quarter One“.

The trouble is he’s not very good at the art of spin.

He started the meeting by saying that the report’s recommendations needed amending because they referred to a “freeze on police officer recruitment” whereas, as he put it, all there was was “a temporary pause in recruitment” pending the outcome of the comprehensive spending review that George Osborne will announce on October 20th.

This clearly came as a surprise to the senior management of the Metropolitan Police present particularly as the report itself pointed out:

“Workforce planning will … be affected by the officer recruitment freeze which has been implemented because of future budget pressures.”

and then talked about revising:

“the deployment plan to reflect the impact of the recruitment freeze”.

So it does sound like a recruitment freeze then.

And that’s certainly what it feels like to the potential recruits who have spent the last year or so going through the assessment and selection process, been successful in that process and  were only waiting for a start date at the Hendon Police College.  They have now received letters saying that as a result of the freeze there applications are no longer being taken forward.  They can of course apply to be Special Constables and be trained to do the same job as an unpaid volunteer.

But to Steve O’Connell, who is so highly regarded by his colleagues that he is paid five-sixths of the Prime Minister’s salary, this is just a pause – until we see what he referred to as - in an interesting choice of words – “horrors” the spending review brings.

In the O’Connell lexicon, a “pause” is what everyone else would call a “freeze”.

So, if  SpinMeister-General O’Connell says the spending review is going to bring “horrors”, what will everyone else call it?

You know what it is like when you are eagerly awaiting something.  You can’t wait, even though you know it is only a matter of time.

But now – for me – the waiting is over.

Finally, just a couple of hours ago it arrived.

Not my Labour Party ballot paper – I got that at the beginning of the week.

No, it’s my personalised phishing email from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

Less than a day after HMRC announced that some six million people had paid the wrong amount of tax enterprising fraudsters began emailing people all over the country telling them that they were entitled to a tax rebate and inviting them to provide details of their bank accounts so that they could have said accounts emptied/be sent their entitlement.

I was beginning to feel left out, but now it’s arrived.

“Today after the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity, we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund.

Complete the individual tax refund form attached this confidential message.

After completing the form allow us 5-9 business days in order to process it.

Your verification form will only be valid only for 24 hours.

Sincerely,
HM Revenue & Customs“

The form itself is very user-friendly and asks for those hardy perennials: full address, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, telephone number etc - everything needed in fact to answer most standard bank security questions.  And is accompanied by a stern HMRC-like warning:

“Important: The tax law imposes heavy penalties for giving false or misleading information“

No doubt, I’m about the thirty-millionth person to receive one of these, but I can’t help wondering why the Government has done so little to warn people about these and to make it clear that HMRC will be WRITING to all those affected and would NEVER request such details by e-mail.

My default position is that the new Coalition Government is hell-bent on creating a double-dip recession and on dismantling vital parts of the public sector, is ideologically-driven and is cavalier about the impact of its policies on disadvantaged communities. And I remain to be convinced that it is not taking unacceptable risks with national security.
So the stories I have been hearing about the willingness of the Government to invest in the nation’s cyber-security come as an unexpected, but pleasant, surprise.
I am told that David Cameron personally has been convinced that the comprehensive spending review must ensure that substantial extra resources are spent on developing the UK’s capacity to counter cyber threats to its infrastructure and that the debate between the Treasury and the Cabinet Office is whether the new investment should be £1.5 billion or £2 billion.
This of course is still far less than many other countries are investing. However, if my informants are correct, this would be a useful step in the right direction. Seeing will be believing. And we’ll see on 20th October.