TOP 100 NEWSPAPER SITES
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| Global warming? Why Copenhagen climate talks leave Russia cold news.bbc.co.uk |
Deadly explosion rocks Peshawar A big explosion hits a busy road in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, with at least four people reported killed. news.bbc.co.uk |
This is not class war | Ed Balls We have always fought for the many, not the few. Tory claims to do the same are a con trickOn the stroke of midnight, David Cameron unveiled his new slogan for 2010. "Year for change," he said, but what change he is promising once again went unsaid.The Tories and their media friends want the election to be a referendum on the government. That's why they dismiss talk of policy differences or dividing lines as "false", "partisan" or, ludicrously, as "class war". They don't want any scrutiny of their policies and they don't want the election to be a choice.But politics always has been about choices; about different values, priorities and instincts. And this year, Britain faces the starkest choice for decades – on the economy, public services and our relations with Europe.That's why debates that set out the choices will be so important. And, while the leaders' TV debates will inevitably draw the attention, I hope we will see the cabinet and shadow cabinet debating too. This week I will ask my opposite numbers to agree dates, and will propose that we invite parents, teachers, governors and pupils – the people who will be affected directly by the election choice – to ask the questions.Because there are big choices on education policy. Do we guarantee one-to-one tuition for children falling behind, and education and training up to 18 for all young people? Do we stop treating vocational qualifications as second class? Do we give parents more information on how local schools are performing by introducing new school report cards? The Tories say no to all these reforms.Now, as in 1997, our education policy is driven by the core New Labour idea of opportunity and aspiration for all, not just some; improving standards and expanding opportunity in every school, not just a handful in each area. "The many, not the few" was at the heart of Tony Blair's new Clause Four. But it's only in the last few weeks that the Tories have called this "class war" in a bid to stop any scrutiny of their policies.It doesn't matter what schools David Cameron or Michael Gove went to. It does matter what their policies would mean for the millions of children and parents reliant on today's state schools.Take their so-called Swedish model for schools. Their proposal is that, regardless of local need, those parents with time on their hands should be given taxpayers' money to set up and run a new school for their children, including those now in private schools. But what about the vast majority of working parents who want a good local school for their children but do not have the time, energy or knowhow to set up their own school? They will know that in a Conservative "age of austerity", where schools spending is already targeted for cuts, this hugely expensive experiment can only be paid for by even bigger cuts to the budgets of every state school.Tory education policy is an elaborate con trick on millions of parents and pupils. Just like the Tory assisted places scheme, or the "pupil passport" proposed by Cameron in 2005, they want to take resources from the many to fund the education of a few.Of course our objective is to win the election. But we would never forgive ourselves if we allowed the Tories to emerge from it claiming by default a mandate for their policies to wreck our economic recovery and frontline public services.So don't let anyone tell us that this election is simply about change. Our country faces hugely important choices. And on education, the Tories have made theirs: to pursue a reckless free market experiment with the state system, and to cut the frontline schools budgets relied on by millions to give an inheritance tax cut to the wealthiest few.These are the choices the public must make and – whether the Tories like it or not – they will decide the election.Education policyLabourConservativesMichael GoveDavid CameronEd Ballsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Robert Peston Will Obama's bank bail-out tax go global? bbc.co.uk |
Paul Myners | You are right to be angry. The banks should have to pay for state backing The UK is leading global efforts to rebalance an economic model that privileges the interests of investment banksThere were plenty of reasons to be angry when taxpayers around the world were forced to rescue the world's financial system. It seemed that just as government funds were arriving through the doors of major banks, these banks were turning around and paying big bonuses, refusing to lend to the economy, and fighting proposals for regulatory reform.But behind these headline-friendly outrages, it is the fundamental unfairness of the rescue that should be the cause of lasting anger. When recessions hit, businesses get into trouble. And some businesses fail, taking many jobs with them. Banks, however, were for the most part protected from the rules that applied to everyone else – and protected at great cost to public funds. In the wake of the financial crisis, governments have been working together to address many areas for reform. But our task will be incomplete if we cannot address this fundamental inequity at the heart of global capitalism.If a bank is judged to be too big or too important to fail, it should be the banks and their owners, not taxpayers, who pay the price for saving it.Let me be clear – it is the goal of the government to do everything it can to make sure that banks in future are much less likely to fail in the first place. Through an international process, we are forcing banks to hold more capital and of higher quality than they have in the past. We will also require them to hold a greater proportion of liquid assets, so they can access cash when they find themselves under pressure. And to implement leverage caps to ensure they are living within their means.And we will make sure that pay and bonus policies incentivise smart decisions, not reckless risk-taking.We are also determined to take the "too big to fail" or "too connected to fail" problem head-on. Any institution that thinks it will always be bailed out when the going gets tough is an inherently dangerous institution. If you never have to face the consequences of bad decisions, you are less likely to be as careful as you should be when making important choices.This is why we are leading international efforts to make banks plan for their own failure through "living wills". They will have to build firewalls between their risky trading activities and the deposits of families and businesses. They will have to convince regulators that they are structured simply enough so that if they got into trouble, they could either confront their problems or be allowed to fail in an orderly way.But no regulatory system can or should eliminate all risk. We all need banks to take risks. If banks were not willing to borrow money on short terms (from our deposits, which we can remove at any time) and lend it out on long terms (to businesses and homebuyers), our economy would not function.Making banking risk-free is not an option. And we will never be able to rule out entirely a future scenario in which taxpayer money is required to protect people's savings or to limit the damage of a crisis in global credit markets – even as we strive to make that scenario much less likely.But this is not charity. Banks are paid handsomely for the risks they take on our behalf. The profits reported by big investment banks in recent days have reminded us all that banks don't need the rest of us in the economy to be doing well to find ways to make huge amounts of money.If banks are to enjoy even a small hint of implicit underwriting from the state, they should pay for it. None of us can get insurance for our homes or our businesses for free – we pay a premium for it. And so should banks. We need to re-examine an economic model that seems to work much better for investment banks than for businesses and workers.It is this challenge that a meeting I am chairing tomorrow is seeking to address. Together with senior officials from G7 finance ministries, the IMF, World Bank, the Financial Stability Board, and leading academics, the government will be exploring ways to shift the burden of financial sector support from the public to the private sector.There are several options – among them a global insurance levy, the use of innovative contingent capital instruments developed in the UK, and a global transactions tax. But this problem can only be dealt with through global agreement, as we know all too well that banks can use gaps in regulation to game the system. We have seen that we are all vulnerable to the failures of firms in other nations, and we all benefit from the actions of national authorities to support their financial systems.Finding a new way to keep taxpayers from shouldering the bill for future bailouts will be far from easy, but the UK will continue to lead the international effort to do so. A global agreement on this issue would be the most important legacy of our response to this crisis, and it is a prize all governments have a duty to pursue.BankingFinancial crisisEconomic policyPaul Mynersguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |