Some time for reflection

I've taken some time away blogging, so that the picture can settle and we can begin to get a clear view of the new politics.

Now that the new Government has started its serious work, I feel it is now time to give some thoughts and observations.

Firstly, it seems that the public are broadly supportive of the new coalition Government and wish it to succeed. I think the public just want the Government to get on with it now, announce the pain that we are going to have, let us feel it for a few years and then begin to get us out of this trough.

It appears that the vast majority of Tory and LibDem MPs are also supportive but there are rumblings on the Tory right and LibDem left. I can sympathise with the Tory right as it appears that a few too many policies were ditched to enable to coalition. I can sympathise with the LibDem left who always envisaged a relignment of the left, but the maths made it impossible.

I think we need a period to see how the new coalition performs before complaining. I'm heartened by David Cameron's reach out to Frank Field, as I think he has the right ideas about poverty and welfare. He will have to throw the right some red meat soon though to placate them and firm up his position.

I believe that David Cameron has been extremely bold in not choosing the easy option and going for the coalition. He is seeing a larger picture than the rest of us. He wants a realignment of the centre-right, for he knows that the Orange-book LibDems are closer to One-Nation Tories than Labour.

Maybe the end goal for the Tories and Labour (and one in which Nick Clegg must have foreseen) is to split the LibDems down the middle, back to their roots. The Libs, back in their Whig days, are close to the Tories. The Dems are social democrats closer to New Labour. The coalition may highlight the contradictions that are built into the LibDem party which have been papered over for too many years.

Let's look at some of the new policies. I agree with fixed term parliaments, but the 55% majority required for a dissolution is arbitrary and should be dropped. There needs to be a cross party consensus on a way forward for fixed term parliaments.

It's good to see that George Osborne is going to include all the PFI projects and off-book pension liabilities in the overall deficit. It is frankly ludicrous to omit certain items. He does run the risk that the overall deficit which could be heading towards £3Tr, could scare the bejesus out of the markets but I would expect them to know better. It looks like he's going to make a very early start to cuts, next Monday, indeed and not a moment too soon.

I don't like the increase to Capital Gains Tax and NI contributions for employees. The Tories should have stuck to their guns, and said that they wanted to increase the personal allowance to £10K (which I support) at some point in the future, but we cannot afford it now.

I think the referendum for AV is fine, but I'm glad it did not go as far as PR. I'd like to see a quick move to elect members of the House of Lords by PR though. We do need to keep some elements of party independence in the House though, via some form of appointments.

Anyway, I wish them well so far. We'll be watching closely.

Squiffy.