Wednesday, January 09, 2013

At Last.... Somebody using the media

I've been critical of the way that the Coalition has presented its policies and the results of those policies but as it approaches its mid-term review (don't you just hate all these Americanisms?) it seems that somebody has decided to push the boat out. It's a long report and is being updated as more information is released but it's worth twenty minutes of anyone's time as far as I'm concerned.

The crucial thing for me is how many of the points require, upon reading,  some further thought and not simply dismissed as spin - either by the Coalition or by Labour. I don't agree with some of the points, by both sides of the arguments, which is a good sign as I've grown used to the idea that simply wagging the tail of any political dog is a waste of time.

The good news is that with various consultations going on there could be more 'democratically' decided changes taking place in the future.

Incidentally there's one part of 'failure' picked on by Labour that I think is failure only because the Coalition decided to hide it away in the 2011 Budget and that's support regional growth. As I have said time and time again (to borrow from Alan Hansen) the Budget statements just aren't sexy enough for most people (politicos and journos included) so some fairly important stuff gets overlooked or ignored.

The real test for me won't be the number of 'to do's' that bear fruit but rather the number of achievements that are later withdrawn due to badly drawn-up legislation, that was a particular failing of Labours second term and one I am sure such students of that era as Osborne and Cameron will wish to avoid.

Update: The mid-term review got a real slagging off on Sky News last night where it was described as bland and weak - by the Economics Editor. Can't help thinking he was missing the point, the report was produced for public consumption not for those people who should know their jobs and are basically too idle to read beyond bullet points. Rant over!

2 comments:

Span Ows said...

Yes but still not using it enough, your last paragraph is very true and I was arguing on one or two sites (e.g. Coffeehouse) about how this was being reported: Speccie and Telegraph (and presumably more with "Coalition miss 70 targets" headline...FFS.

Paul said...

Arsene Wenger would be a good politico - accentuate the positive and ignore the negative.