So, where were the public?

I wrote in an earlier post regarding top-up fees, that although an NUS poll showed that 74% of those questioned said that top-up fees would deter university applicants, there seemed to be a lack of public support for the NUS opposition to the fees. I wrote that perhaps the public thought the increase in fees was quite reasonable, and that while the fees would deter students from applying, they shouldn’t and that they probably wouldn’t in the long term.

Today I stumbled across a survey taken just after the introduction of top-up fees that suggests on the whole the public accepted the need for students to pay more. The survey by the National Centre for Social Research found that 77% of those questioned accepted top-up fees. If this was a representative poll it suggests that there was always a lack of public support for the student opposition. This is bad news for the NUS. If the fees were accepted back in 2005, they are probably part of the furniture now.

Deja vu

Charles Glover comments in the Telegraph how there was a touch of deja vou about the launch of Sir Nicholas Stern’s report on the dangers of climate change. He tells us how the launch at the Royal Society on Monday reminded him of a speech given 18 years ago in the same building by the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Talking to other journalists at the launch Glover asked what exactly had changed between Mrs Thatcher saying we had begun “a massive experiment with the system of the planet itself” and Gordon Brown saying “The scientific evidence is now clear.” He adds, “what planet was Gordon Brown on in 1988?”. And Glover has a point. Lady Thatcher was the first world leader to draw attention to climate change, and Glover argues that it is Labour’s failure to follow her lead which has led to an increase in carbon emissions since 1997. He adds that Labour in fact inherited falling emissions from the Conservatives.

So, it is not as though the Government have been unaware of the dangers that Climate Change represents. Glover argues that the scientific predictions made in the Stern Report are little different from those made by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990, and subsequently in 1995 and 2001. As a result, Glover is left wondering why the Government has made such a big deal out of Stern’s report. He puts it down to the electoral danger of David Cameron, who has successfully led the debate on the environment over the last year, leaving the Government on the back foot. And so Stern’s report was a perfect opportunity for the Government to regain the initiative.

If so, I doubt the Government can. The Conservatives have not been in power for nearly 10 years and have not presided over an increase in emissions, but they have worked hard to increase the Party’s standing on the environment. But as Glover shows, this is not the first time the Conservatives have led the debate in this area. Deja vu indeed.

Students on the march

Gabriel Rozenberg has some tough words for the National Union of Students in his Times Article. He describes the NUS protests against top-up fees as “dreary demos” and “embarrassing in their lack of gratitude”. In the later, Rozenberg may have a point. Prier to the student protest in London on Sunday the NUS commissioned an ICM poll which asked a thousand people if they thought the cost of University is a deterrent. The result was unsurprising, 74% said it was. However the paradox is that given this result there seems to be a lack of public support for the NUS position on top-up fees. This may be because that while the public agree that the cost is a deterrent, they might argue that it shouldn’t be, and that given the level of State subsidy and the recent increase in student numbers, £3000 is a perfectly reasonable sum to ask for. Therefore Rozenberg could be right in describing the NUS protestors as ungrateful, a view which if widely held, will only make the public even less sympathetic to the NUS position.

Keep going Gordon, we’re with you…

Labour MPs must be having second thoughts about the electability of their leader-in-waiting. Back in September Newsnight commissioned the US pollster Frank Luntz to question 30 voters composed of one third loyal labourites, another third labour leaners, and a final third who voted Conservative or Lib Dem at the last election but would consider switching to Labour in the future. The result was bad for Gordon Brown. In the end, only three out of the 30 voters said they would prefer Gordon Brown to be the next Prime Minister, while 17 voted for John Reid. The response of the perception panel to Brown was overwhelmingly negative. They agreed that he is an intellectual heavyweight, but by in large the panel identified Brown as tired, uncharismatic, and Machiavellian. Furthermore, even though they considered him an intellectual, not one of them had anything to say about his performance as Chancellor. This is odd considering we are constantly told that he is greatest Chancellor of modern times.

If Gordon Brown becomes leader of the Labour Party next year and therefore Prime Minister, as expected, he will have to face David Cameron at the next election. Cameron is young, charismatic and doesn’t carry any baggage, and so comes without the negative characteristics that the perception panel identified in Brown. This is a good start, and is backed up by the polls. Over at UK Polling Report the gap between Brown and Cameron seems to be widening. In September YouGov, in a forced choice question, asked voters if they would prefer a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown or a Conservative Government led by David Cameron. In this poll the Conservatives came out on top with a 7 point lead, and when the same question was asked this month their lead extended to 13 points. Unfortunately for Brown, there’s much more where this came from. All the leading Pollsters since the beginning of this year concerning voting intensions at the next election presupposing a Brown led Labour party and a Cameron led Conservative party, have put the Conservatives ahead of Labour.

The evidence is therefore bleak for Gordon Brown, and the succession not at all certain.

Leading the debate on Green Taxes

There seems to be an emerging cross-party consensus on the issue of emissions tax. A report published yesterday by Sir Nicholas Stern, the Government’s Chief Economist, warns that Global Warming, if left unchecked, will cause enormous economic upheaval in the future, not to mention the environmental impact. The stark warning has been seized on by politicians. The Times tells us that Gordon Brown is likely to use his final budget to introduce a range of ‘Green Taxes’ on motorists and air passengers. Numerous tax proposals were put forward by David Milliband in a leaked letter to the Chancellor. They include increases in fuel duty, higher Vehicle Excise Duty for gas guzzling cars, the introduction of road charging, an increase in air passenger duty, and a new landfill tax.

David Cameron has indicated that a Government led by him would go down a similar path. Commenting on the Stern report George Osborne argues that “we need to rebalance the tax system and increase the share of revenues collected by green taxes.” This seems to be a sound policy. It means that any increase in green taxes would be offset by tax cuts in other areas. As a result families may be left no worse off by the new taxes but they might change their consumption habits. However, I would argue that the effects of each green tax on people’s behaviour needs to be well thought out before implemented.  For example, if you implement a road charging scheme on the busiest stretches of roads, or at peak times, then the motorist will simply adapt. They will use other roads and, if they can, travel at off-peak times. Road charging does not necessarily reduce car usage or emissions.

It is interesting that Gordon Brown now seems to have taken up the environmental cause. The Conservatives are keen to point out that it was they who first proposed green taxes to encourage consumers to curb their consumption, not the government. David Cameron on BBC One’s Politics Show yesterday asked “would Gordon Brown be spending as much time on the environment as he is now if I hadn’t raised the issue so strongly over the last year? I think the answer is pretty clear.” And so do I. This is another example of the Conservatives leading debate and the Government following.

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