Or could there be another explanation?

Yesterday's Telegraph informed us that 'Service-cutting councils are hoarding £10.8bn' and oddly that:

'The figures show that some of the biggest increases in reserves come from the Labour-led Wakefield council, which is expected to have more than doubled its cash pile from £21million to £51million by March. Labour-run Bolton council is likely to have more than tripled its reserves of £23million to £81million'

Now why might a Labour council prefer to cut services, and blame the cuts on a Conservative government) rather than dip into reserves?

David Miliband understood the truth about deficit reduction unlike the two Eds

The Telegraph have a fascianting article based on a leak of David Miliband's leaked labour leadership speech, a speech he never gave. The apearance of this along with the recent Ed Balls leaks leads me to believe that this is not a clever Conservative attack on Ed Balls, something I doubt the Conservative leadership could organise anyway, but an attack by Labour Blairites on the two Eds.

Here's part of The Telegraph's article:

'A leaked copy of the victory speech Mr Miliband planned to deliver last September showed that he wanted to tell his party it had to promise “lean government” and could not be “in denial” about the deficit.

The speech was never given because the leadership was won by his brother, Ed Miliband, who has since taken a different line on the economy, opposing the Coalition’s plans for gdp100 billion of public spending cuts.

The publication of his speech means David Miliband, an ally of Tony Blair, joins the list of Labour figures opposed to Ed Miliband’s economic policy, a list that also includes Alistair Darling, the former chancellor.

Had he won, David Miliband planned to tell Labour that the deficit “is the biggest argument in politics, and the biggest danger for us. George Osborne (the Chancellor) says we are in denial about the deficit. Because he wants us to be. So let’s not be. It is a test.”

Labour would only regain power when voters believed it was prepared to tackle public spending, David Miliband wanted to say. '

'The best armed forces in the world'?

I have often pointed out that the NHS is not 'the envy of the world' despite what our politicians say. So let's nail another lie, the British armed forces are not the best in the world and haven't been for quite a while. They do their best with the limited resources they are given, a situation that worsened horribly under the parsimonious (when it came to defence) Gordon Brown. So I am not surprised to read at The Register that

'Pakistani pilots flying modernised versions of the 1970s-vintage F-16 Falcon fighter have beaten the RAF's brand-new Eurofighter Typhoon superfighters during air combat exercises in Turkey, according to a Pakistani officer.'

The article in The Register quotes an interview with an unnamed but evidently experienced Pakistani Air Force (PAF) F-16 pilot on exchange with the Turkish air force, posted on the official site of the PAF display team, which includes the following intriguing and rather damning passage. (Hat tip to the excellent DEW Line blog for flagging this up.)

Q: Any memorable experiences that you would like to share? A: On one occasion – in one of the international Anatolian Eagles - PAF pilots were pitted against RAF Typhoons, a formidable aircraft. There were three set-ups and in all three, we shot down the Typhoons. The RAF pilots were shocked.
Q: Any particular reason for your success?
A: NATO pilots are not that proficient in close-in air-to-air combat. They are trained for BVR [Beyond Visual Range] engagements and their tactics are based on BVR engagements. These were close-in air combat exercises and we had the upper hand because close-in air combat is drilled into every PAF pilot and this is something we are very good at.

 An underfunded army with inadequate equipment, a massively underfunded navy short of ships and submarines & having to contemplate sharing an aircraft carrier with France and an air force so starved of modern equipment that relevant skills may have been lost. It's almost as though the last Labour government was deliberately trying to destroy the UK's ability to defend itself and operate an independent armed force; now why would that have been the case?

Did you know that Labour were committed to scrapping the EMA (Educational Maintenace Allowance)

You'd be hard pressed to guess it given all the heat generated by Labour about how the government's plans to replace the EMA with different support for 16-18 year olds. But here, from 2007 and being passed around on Twitter and Facebook today, is what Labour was planning to do:

An incentive scheme that rewards 16- to 18-year-olds for staying in education post-16 will be abolished when the leaving age is increased to 18.
The Secretary of State for Education said last week that education maintenance allowances (EMAs) would no longer be necessary when the age is raised in 2015.
Giving evidence to the Education and Skills Select Committee inquiry into 14-19 education, Alan Johnson said: "The EMA is there as an incentive to stay on. We will not need to incentivise after 2015."

Not that anyone who gets their news from  the BBC would know this a they have a pro-Labour narrative to spread.

Many thanks to Mark Pack for the spot.

13 years of Labour's inadequate funding of the armed forces mean this...

The Telegraph reports that:

'Vintage VC10 pressed into service with RAF's transport fleet
A vintage aircraft that has been banned from flying passengers bar “exceptional circumstances” has been pressed into service with the RAF’s transport fleet at breaking point.'

Thank you Gordon Brown.

Massive Labour 'fail' - ignored of course by the BBC

The Labour party's 2010 general election manifesto included this on page 2:3 (page 20 of pdf):

'Our goal is to make responsibility the cornerstone of our welfare state. Housing Benefit will be reformed to ensure that we do not subsidise people to live in the private sector on rents that other ordinary working families could not afford. And we will continue to crack down on those who try to cheat the benefit system.'

Let's look at the central part of that again in bold:

'Housing Benefit will be reformed to ensure that we do not subsidise people to live in the private sector on rents that other ordinary working families could not afford.'

Does the phrase 'bloody hypocrites' begin to describe the Labour shadow cabinet, Labour MPs, Labour supporting columnists and the BBC who have attacked the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition for doing just what Labour promised to do?

Are the BBC unaware of this extract from the Labour manifesto? If so then why are they so out of touch? If they are aware then do they not consider it to be newsworthy?

Deepest cuts since when?

The BBC last week and earlier this were pushing the 'deepest cuts since 1921' narrative so what will they say now that the IMF have said the Coalition's cuts are the deepest since April 1976. The 1976 cuts were of course carried out by a Labour governmenmt. Somehow I don't think the BBC will be reporting the IMF's analysis that often today.

Labour's frontline health service cuts

Dizzy Thinks has uncovered that Labour are introducing means testing for child dentistry. I do not expect the BBC to cover this story, after all there is an election to be won.