The Times tears up its credibility

The Times has the latest spin story about government capital spending plans with a story whose feeble headline, Rachel Reeves to spend big in redwall — what could it mean?, belies a preposterously overblown opening line.

Rachel Reeves is preparing to tear up Treasury spending rules and announce a multibillion-pound investment package in the north and Midlands to combat the threat of Reform.

Is she really preparing to "tear up" Treasury spending rules? Obviously not:

Across the country Reeves is likely to have up to £100 billion of capital investment to announce, having changed the fiscal rules in her budget last year.

So she already has more scope for capital spending, having changed the fiscal rules in her budget last year to allow more borrowing.

So what is new? You have to go a long way down the piece to find the substance to the story:

Reeves ordered a review of the Treasury’s Green Book, which sets out the rules that determine which capital projects qualify for approval, in January.

The review is expected to conclude that the government should give greater priority to public sector investment in areas of lower economic productivity.

The Times has been told that it will be published on the same day as the comprehensive spending review. A ten-year infrastructure plan will be published a week later by Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury.

So, more rules being tweaked, rather than torn up.

And how new is all this? In January Civil Service World reported that:

Reeves outlined the aims of the government's Green Book review, which is set to report back at the conclusion of this year's Spending Review. The SR is due to conclude on June 11.

She said: “As the metro mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotherham, has called for, we will review the Green Book and how it is being used to provide objective, transparent advice on public investment across the country, including outside London, and the South East. This means that investment in all regions is given a fair hearing by the Treasury that I lead.” 

But here’s a “source” in the Times to provide the spin, not by giving new information but by reminding us of what Reeves said previously:

A government source said that Reeves had been clear that she wanted to review the Green Book to provide “objective, transparent advice on public investment across the country, including outside London and the southeast”. This would mean that “investment in all regions” was given a “fair hearing by the Treasury”.

Cut the crap

This Guardian article Reeves in standoff with ministers over proposed cuts to public services by Jessica Elgot is spoilt, not so much by spin (of which there is plenty) as a basic misunderstanding of the meaning of words.

Let’s start with the opening line:

The Treasury is in a standoff with some ministers over proposed cuts to public services including policing and social housing.

So there are proposed cuts to social housing? Well, no. Leaving aside the fact that capital funding for social housing isn’t really a service, it becomes clear that what is in question isn’t a cut at all but a proposal for extra cash that falls short of what Angela Rayner, whose brief it is, would like.

There are also clashes between the Reeves and the housing secretary, Angela Rayner, over funding for social housing.

[…]

However, Rayner is understood to be dissatisfied with the level of funding for the next phase of the programme.

The reference to the “next phase”, as Elgot explains, is a potential increase on £2bn for 2026-27 announced in March, which “was described as a “down payment” on further funding to be announced at the spending review, which Reeves said would mark a generational shift in the building of council homes”.

Some of the “further funding” to be announced at the spending review will top up this £2bn in 2026-27, which is currently less on an annual basis than the £11.5bn on the 2021-26 programme. And chancellor Rachel Reeves will have to put in quite a bit more to deliver what she promised would be “the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation”.

Elgot points out – probably after someone who thought it was a get-out pointed it out to her  – that when Reeves “said housing will be one of the key beneficiaries of the £113bn in capital spending”, she “did not specify social homes”.

This is, if you will forgive the pun, beside the point. The affordable homes programme has always been about “social and affordable housing”, as the Reeves quote above illustrates. 

The distinction does not detract from the suggestion in Elgot’s previous piece of spin that the £113bn that Reeves conjured out of thin air will include “significant cash for housebuilding as Labour strives to meet its 1.5m homes target” and the anonymous assertion from an spin doctor masquerading as a “source” that “These will be Labour homes built by a Labour government.”

Governments often pretend that continuing spending on something at the existing rate is new money (Labour has made this worse by branding things that the Tories were already doing as part of a "Plan for Change") and it is arguable that not continuing a funding stream at the existing real-terms level would be a “cut”.

But here, while the extra money for housing may not be quite as much as Elgot previously led us to believe, or as much as Rayner would like, nothing in this story justifies calling it a cut.

 

 

"There is £113bn that was not there"

 

This piece Reeves to champion £113bn of new capital investment in spending review by Jessica Elgot in the Guardian does exactly what it says on the tin - talks about the things the chancellor wants to talk about.

Rachel Reeves will put £113bn of new capital investment at the forefront of the spending review and argue that the billions of investment in homes, transport and energy would only have happened under Labour.

The billions unlocked by the change to the fiscal rules, which will be spent over the next parliament, will be at the centre of the government’s narrative in a fortnight’s time in an acknowledgment that Labour MPs need a better economic story to address rising discontent among the public.

So, just to be clear, that’s £113bn of free money that has been magically “unlocked by the change to the fiscal rules”? No, it will (probably) be additional borrowing.

And the claim that the money will be spent “over the next parliament” is as dodgy as it is lazy, not just because the next parliament will probably begin in 2029, but because Reeves doesn’t actually specify a time period, despite implying one with a dodgy "and":

“At the spending review coming up in June, we will invest more in capital, and we’re going to invest £113bn more in capital spending than the plans we inherited from the previous government.”

In fact:

“Reeves will hope details of how the government will spend the £113bn package will be enough to stave off further disquiet over harsh cuts to day-to-day spending expected in the spending review. Departments had been asked to model reductions in their budgets of as much as 7% over the next four years.”

So, not only is this the point of the story – “to stave off further disquiet” – the cuts to day-to day spending might be the source of some of the extra capital spending. In fact, some resource (revenue) spending might just be reclassified as capital.

There is a lot of self-serving guff from people who Elgot chooses to call “sources” but who are in fact spin doctors speaking on behalf of the government. Here, a “source” gives advance justification for the recycling of announcements:

Treasury sources said Reeves understood that the government needed to set out anew how the billions would be spent.

See what they did there?

The rest of the story is full of the usual scripted quotes:

One source said: “That is real money. It’s not empty promises, or the unsigned cheques the Tories used to do. It’ll be proper money, and this investment in Britain’s future will be a part of the theme of the spending review.

“There are trade-offs in spending reviews. But she’s made a clear political choice to invest in the long-term projects that will make a real difference to people’s communities. These will be Labour homes built by a Labour government. All this investment is Labour – no one else would have done it. We changed those rules and now there is £113bn that was not there.”

Pass the sickbag.

U-turn if you want to

Hacks so love a cliche that they have universally declared what Keir Starmer said yesterday to be a "U-turn", despite having no idea how much, or how little, the policy to restrict winter fuel payments will be tweaked.

This is what the prime minister actually said at PMQs: 

we want to ensure that as we go forward, more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments. As you would expect, Mr Speaker, we will only make decisions we can afford. That is why we will look at that as part of a fiscal event.

If you look at any sensible definition of  U-turn, it would involve reversing a policy or changing it so substantially that it can be seen no longer to be operative. But Starmer didn't actually say that anything would change, only that he wants to ensure that more people get the payments - a garbled mix of aspiration and certainty. And a decision will be sometime in the future "as part of a fiscal event". 

You are eligible for the winter fuel payments if you get certain means-tested benefits as ministers pointed out after restricting the payments. They launched a campaign to encourage people to apply for pension credit, which could be described (not by me) as seeking to ensure that more people will get the payments.

But I suspect that hacks were briefed in advance to interpret Starmer's statement as saying a lot more than he actually said, much like when Tony Blair didn't actually announce a review of Clause IV.

In an excellent piece in the Guardian, Labour MP Jon Trickett only says Starmer "indicated he may U-turn", which is about right.

The important point about all of this is that, if hacks use words that overstate what has happened they don't just con their readers in the short term, but devalue those words for when they might actually apply. 

The next time a government completely reverses a policy, hacks will have no way of stressing that it really is a U-turn. 

A language deficit

This piece by Will Dunn in the New Statesman Why George Osborne still runs Britain is fascinating in its analysis but ultimately flawed in its adoption of Osborne's language.

The premise is that Osborne's narrative about "the deficit" still pervades the political orthodoxy, boxing in current chancellor Rachel Reeves and the government as a whole.

But it begins with a crass error: 

Fifteen years ago, on 11 May 2010, George Osborne arrived in the Treasury with a mandate to change the British economy. The deficit had reached more than £100bn, a hole in Britain’s finances twice the size of the armed forces.

And 

Part of the reason Osborne’s cuts to the state were so deep was that he planned to eliminate the deficit in four years.

There's no such thing as "the deficit". In recent years, governments have spent more than they receive in tax or other income but, as Dunn acknowledges without realising in the second quote, a deficit is not a permanent fixture so as to require the definite article. 

Despite setting out clearly how Osborne managed to make his story about public spending the dominant narrative since 2010, Dunn has failed to realise that Osborne's presentation of "the deficit" as an inevitability was his ultimate lie.

As the Tories continued to spend more than was coming in, increasing the country's debt, they convinced the media and therefore the public that because they had reduced "the deficit" their management of the public finances was a success. 

It is of course possible to run a surplus and for the national debt to go down, but Osborne presented a slowing down of the rate at which the debt went up as if that was what he had achieved.

The lie continued for the whole of the decade as the Tories continued to run a deficit and the national debt ballooned. 

In 2020, Rishi Sunak, then chancellor, said the Tories would "always balance the books".

There's another strange lack of sensitivity to language elsewhere in the piece:

The first and most important means by which the British economy would be healed, he said, was “active monetary policy”. Or, as a normal person would put it, cheap debt.

Economists use "debt" as synonym for borrowing in a way that normal people don't. Economists, and business journalists like Dunn, talk about corporate acquisitions for example as being financed by debt, by which they mean borrowing. 

But for normal people debt not borrowing itself but the outcome of it. 

In attempting to translate the euphemism, Dunn has merely given the reader another euphemism.

Normalising fascism

This shocking piece by BBC political editor Chris Mason Starmer's robust language nods to immigration failures is a classic example of how the corporation's twin obsessions of balance and sucking up to the government of the day end up normalising extremism.

Let's start with the word "robust" in the headline, for which Mason is unlikely to be responsible. It's a euphemism that no journalist should ever use, designed as it is to disguise aggression. 

But the gist of the piece, for which Mason is wholly responsible and which BBC hacks have done for years, is to tell the story from the government's point of view, which inevitably leads to crassly justifying its actions.

So we get this bullshit:

Sir Keir Starmer's language felt like an acknowledgement of that central point: here was a Labour prime minister, a former human rights lawyer, claiming "we risk becoming an island of strangers."

It is a phrase some, particularly on the left, regard as repulsive.

Others counter that it is a widely held perception which it is high time those in high office shared.

Too polite to raise the similarities with Enoch Powell, Mason does the usual trick of associating repulsion with this kind of language with people "on the left" - a minority whose views we can dismiss.

Then the classic BBC balance, that "others counter" this view. I certainly haven't heard this from anyone. Probably government spin doctors.

Then Mason brings in the fascist Farage, who the BBC has boosted "for years and years".

Nigel Farage argues, as he has for years and years, that politicians have been far too slow to get how much immigration matters to so many people.

Labour are acutely aware of Farage's capacity to communicate in a way that resonates with those who feel successive governments have not just ignored them on this issue, but belittled and demeaned their views too.

That is why the prime minister is using the language he is now.

So, that's all good Chris.

Less of this sort of thing

In another excellent column for the New Statesman, Hannah Barnes criticises the way the equality impact assessment for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill does away with any concerns about its potential impact on vulnerable adults:

The safeguards provided for in the bill, which apply at every stage of the process for seeking an assisted death, would help to minimise the risk of any eligible person, including disabled people, from being coerced or pressured by another person into requesting or proceeding with an assisted death. 

I've reproduced the sentence in full here but I must beg to differ with Barnes: the sentence does not do away with any concerns but merely pretends to.

Look at the key phrase "help to minimise". What exactly does that mean? Almost nothing, and at best, "reduce".

The word "minimise", sometimes with "help to" in front of it as a kind of admission that it is not true, is much loved by spin doctors and press officers but should not appear in any serious government document unless it is meant literally.

"Minimise" means to make as small as possible but is often used as a synonym for "reduce", which it isn't.

Putting "help to" in front of it is only really justified if you know for sure that something or someone else will complete the job of minimisation. If not, you are really just saying "reduce" with the slight of hand of pretending that something is being reduced as far as possible. 

And of course there is a long way between the risk being "minimised" - reduced as far as possible - and being reduced to an acceptable level.

It's just spin.

Similarly, the equality impact assessment has other misleading phrases based on "help": 

steps a doctor can take to help ensure information is understood and retained

the government has a duty to the statute book and has offered technical support to the sponsor to help ensure the legislation, if passed, is technically and legally workable

What does "help ensure" mean? You either ensure something or you don't. You don't leave your outcome dependent on the contribution of others if you want to "ensure it". It's nonsense.

It's very worrying that the language of overstatement and spin has made its way into what should be objective assessments in official documents. It needs to be minimised. Someone needs to ensure that it doesn't happen. 

A drop in the ocean?

 My friend (from way back) Sandra Laville reports that:

 "There is very little evidence that protections for nature are a blocker to development, the government has admitted in its own impact assessment of the controversial new planning and infrastructure bill.

...the central reason given by the government for the new legislation, that nature is a blocker to development – promoted by prime minister Keir Starmer, chancellor Rachel Reeves and housing secretary Angela Rayner – has been undermined by the government’s own impact assessment." 

Absolutely brilliant journalism, but unlikely to be picked up by the tabloids who love stories about bats, newts and owls blocking new infrastructure and housing.

Meanwhile, the government is putting a more positive spin on the impact assessment:

 "The Planning and Infrastructure Bill’s Impact Assessment, published today (Tuesday, May 6) has shown the government’s pro-growth changes to get Britain building could benefit the economy by up to £7.5 billion over the next 10 years."

So, first of all, "could" does not mean "yes", but lets assume it will happen.

£7.5 billion over 10 years compares with UK GDP of nearly three trillion last year.

A drop in the ocean? Insert your own environmental metaphor.

Stringer nails the "difficult decisions" lie

Labour MP Graham Stringer made a plea this morning for ministers to stop using the George Osborne line that punishing vulnerable people constitutes “difficult decisions” – the political equivalent of “this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you".

He told the Telegraph:

“They keep saying these are difficult decisions, they are decisions they’d prefer not to do. Those decisions are difficult for the people on the receiving end. If you need the winter fuel allowance, that’s a really difficult decision for you. If you need Pip [personal independence payments] payments which are going to be attacked this autumn, that’s a difficult decision for you.”

But, because those around the Labour government are basically Tories at heart (or worse, Blairites) they are addicted to their cliches.

Today, people speaking for Labour have wheeled the difficult decisions line out again and again.

To be fair, Labour chairman Ellie Reeves mixed tough and difficult, although I’m not sure the message, if you don’t like it, tough is an appealing one.

“Well, interestingly, none of the other political parties have said how they would fund the NHS. They might criticise Labour’s policies and the tough decisions we’ve taken but none of them have put forward solutions about how they would fund the NHS, how they would get those waiting lists down, how they would recruit the extra GPs that we need so people can get appointments when they need them.

 “We’ve had to make tough decisions to stabilise the economy, to invest in the NHS, where waiting lists were at record highs.

“There have been tough and difficult decisions, but they’ve been the right decisions to stabilise the economy and to get those waiting lists down.”

As I have said before, from now on, every time a politician claims to have taken a “difficult decision”, s/he should be asked to clarify – difficult for you or difficult for the people who will suffer the consequences?

Meanwhile Starmer was rightly asked whether he is a coward after not campaigning in Runcorn and Helsby where Labour lost a parliamentary seat by six votes.

To prove he isn’t a coward, he dodged the question:

“The results are disappointing and I could stand here and say to you opposition parties always do well in by-elections like this, it was very close in Runcorn, et cetera, et cetera.”

So glad he didn’t stand there and say that.