Coalition only has Pointless politics

The Coalition government has run out of steam.

It’s a sign of how little business there is at the moment and how insular the Westminster bubble can be that the picture of a so-called diplomat strolling down Downing Street and displaying the Government’s strategy on the Crimea crisis was only the third most talked about photo in Westminster this week.

First was the Prime Minister looking serious while on the phone to Washington which led to lots of jokes about superglue, call centres and chat lines.

Second was Danny Alexander appearing to inhale rather than eat an ice cream on a trip to Hull. Though, to be fair to the Chief Secretary, choking on ice cream is perhaps preferable to a day of glad-handing by the Humber.

The Coalition has, to all intents and purposes, run out of steam.

The date for their last Queen’s Speech has been announced as June 3 but it’s anyone’s guess what they are going to put in it.

All Governments front-load their programme so that new laws come on stream and people feel and see any benefits before the next election. After that and faced with the need to actually do something, they dream up pointless projects to pass the time.

But the Coalition partners don’t share the same view of what’s pointless and what’s not.

For example the Lib Dems think an EU referendum is pointless.

Conservatives claim George Osborne “ambushed” the Lib Dems in Cabinet last week with a call for a European referendum bill in the next Queen’s Speech. The enraged Lib Dems at the table told him simply to get lost.

The only way it could’ve constituted an ambush is if Osbo had gone Rambo and leapt camouflaged from the bushes outside the Cabinet Room window to make his demands.

With the Budget due next week the Chancellor would be better employed keeping an eye out for ambushes from his own side.

With little else to occupy them, MPs are impatient for the Budget as something which they can get their teeth into.

And it’s the last Budget that will allow Osborne to make much difference. This time next year he’ll be reduced to making promises reliant on re-election a few weeks later.

The importance of this year’s Budget has attracted the attention of every two-bit backbencher with a pet plan.

But the idea that’s attracting a few followers is to raise the threshold at which higher rate tax kicks in.

Fiscal drag doesn’t involve politicians stealing each other’s economic clothes, but is the term for a phenomenon Gordon Brown was rather keen on. By not changing the levels at which different tax bands apply, inflation pushes up wages and tips more people into the top rate, channelling more cash to the Treasury. Osborne’s done little to tackle it.

There’s a decent argument to be made that holding tax bands is not fair. The who’s who of backbench headbangers advocating a rise are not making a decent argument.

Lead among them is Kwasi Kwarteng, once described as “The Black Boris” because, like the London Mayor, he also looks permanently dishevelled and went to Eton.

He claims raising the top rate of tax threshold to £44,000 would reward strivers in the squeezed middle.

Yet the Government set its benefits cap at £26,000 the average salary.

Can people earning £18,000 more than average income reasonably be described as the squeezed middle?

Labour will argue the squeezed middle are earning something around the average income and struggling with the rising cost of essentials such as food and kids clothes.

Remarkably, some Tories want to see VAT raised on those items making them even dearer. Chief proponent of that idea? One Kwasi Kwarteng.

Any more half-baked ideas from Kwarteng and he could find himself being squeezed out of mainstream politics.