George Osborne

Michael Gove comes up with fantastic ideas. This one has real merit especially for Hekia Parata to try out on stroppy teachers in Christchurch. the only question is whether or not John Key has the stones to take on the unions. I’ll clue him in on something though…they sure as hell are going to take him on…so if there is going to be a fight then at least make it over something worthwhile rather than just letting the teacher unions cause endless grief.

Teachers should have their pay docked if they “work to rule” in protests against the Government’s school reforms, the Education Secretary has said.

In an escalation of tensions with trade unions, Michael Gove has written to head teachers urging a “robust response” towards all staff who take part in a new wave of industrial action.

The Cabinet minister condemned the “irresponsible” unions for telling teachers to stick narrowly to their job descriptions and refuse any extra tasks. This disrupts the education of children and causes long-term “damage to pupil outcomes”, he said.

Mr Gove said pay can legitimately be docked from teachers who attempt this kind of behaviour, which he described as “damaging the reputation of the profession”.

The Government’s relationship with the teaching unions has deteriorated since George Osborne outlined plans to link teachers’ pay to classroom standards in the Autumn Statement last week.

The unions are already angry at the Government’s “erosion of working conditions and pay” and ministers’ “daily criticisms” of the profession.

Yeah well boo hoo to the teachers.

Britain has embraced fracking…and the results are stunning.

Meanwhile the Green taliban prevent and oppose all forms of progress here in New Zealand.

The huge shale gas deposit around Blackpool is 50pc larger than previously thought, according to reports.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) is currently carrying out a review of the UK’s shale gas reserves, which will be published in the new year.

The Times newspaper reported on Friday night that the BGS will conclude that the the 1,000 square kilometres covered by the Bowland Basin to the east of Blackpool contains 300 trillion cubic feet of gas. This is roughly 17 times more than the known reserves in the North Sea.

In 2011, exploration company Cuadrilla estimated there was 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in the area.

The news comes just two days after George Osborne said shale gas could make a “substantial contribution” to UK gas supplies from the 2020s. The Chancellor also revealed in his Autumn Statement that the development will be overseen by a dedicated Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil. He is looking at tax breaks to encourage its development.

The Green Taliban are attacking George Osborne, from the evidence supplied so far it looks like he is a top bloke:

The peer, a Government minister until September’s reshuffle, was secretly videoed by green campaigners suggesting that Mr Osborne was behind the about-turn.

Eco-campaigners have been alarmed by an apparent policy shift, with sceptic Tory ministers like Environment secretary Owen Paterson and energy minister John Hayes appointed to key positions in the Government.

In a seven-minute long video posted by Greenpeace on the internet on Wednesday, Lord Howell said that it was Mr Osborne, not Prime Minister David Cameron, who was behind the changes.

He said: “The Prime Minister is not familiar with these issues, does not understand them. Osborne is of course getting this message and is putting pressure on.”

Lord Howell, the father of Mr Osborne’s wife Frances, was a foreign office minister until September’s reshuffle and is an adviser to foreign secretary William Hague.

The peer also was recorded suggesting that Britain was relying too heavily on Qatar in the Middle East for liquid gas supplies.

He said: “Qatar is a great place and it’s full of skyscrapers and rich people. But it’s also rather near to a lot of Jihadists … If Qatar was just to – it’s about the size of Guildford – go into chaos, we would be up s— creek we really would.”

The Conservative party is getting with the times:

George Osborne last night placed same-sex marriage at the centre of the Tories’ bid to win the next election.

Invoking the politics of Margaret Thatcher, the Chancellor urged his party to get in step with “people and how they want to live their lives” if they wished to stay in power.

His call came in an analysis of why Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the US election despite rising unemployment and even polls suggesting that the Republican candidate was trusted more to turn the economy around.

Mr Osborne said that the Republicans had lost “swathes of voters” because of their traditionalist positions on social issues.

His comments represent a break from conventional political wisdom about what wins elections summed up by the strategists behind Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 campaign: “It’s the economy, stupid”.

Christopher Brooker looks at the immense waste of “green” energy projects:

The Poms are finally fed up with bludgers and David Cameron’s government is now moving to address the belief that many on welfare are there from a lifestyle choice rather than need.

He also made clear that the welfare budget will take the brunt of the next round of cuts. That is inevitable. There isn’t a major western democracy that isn’t grappling with welfare spending. There is simply no longer the money to fund the kind of entitlements that became commonplace during the boom. It seems to have come as a great surprise to Osborne and to David Cameron that hard-pressed working people – the very people whose votes they are trying to attract – loathe with a vengeance people who milk the welfare system.

Someone in the UK Cabinet room must have been googling “Welfare Reform Ideas” and up popped a few Paula Bennett press releases.

Jobless parents who insist on having more children may face losing benefits.

Writing in the Daily Mail Chancellor George Osborne and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith unveil the radical proposal as part of their plans to slash the welfare budget.

After months of wrangling, the pair have agreed to find £10billion in savings, to follow the £18billion already cut from handouts.

Their most controversial suggestion is that unemployed parents could be deprived of extra support if they have another child. Treasury sources said child benefit, income support or tax credits could be withheld, putting the jobless in the same position as struggling working parents who simply cannot afford to have larger families.

No figure is put on the maximum number of children that a jobless family could have before state support ended.

Cameron’s Government could do with a few dry policies; thanks to their timid surrender to their soaking wet coalition partners the Liberal Democrats they have been pretty poor successors to the mantle of Maggie Thatcher.

George Osborne speaking about welfare reforms in the UK:

“How can we justify that people in work have to weigh up the costs of having another child when those out of work don’t?”

David Cameron is facing internal pressures to start making an impact, particularly in the economy. It can’t be far off from similar calls being made for John Ley to likewise do something rather than sit on his hands.

David Davis, the standard bearer for the Tory Right, has made a wide-ranging attack on the Government’s economic strategy, warning that another round of cuts before the next General Election is now “unavoidable”.

Mr Davis told The Sunday Telegraph the Government must draw up an “alternative”, pro-growth policy with radical cuts to tax, regulation and public spending.

“The Coalition’s cuts should have been earlier and deeper,” he said “This is not about individual policy areas. This is about something more fundamental… something deeper. There is an alternative economic policy.”

In a wide-ranging interview David Cameron’s former leadership rival said George Osborne is wrong to blame Europe’s debt crisis for “killing”Britain’s recovery.

He also said Mr Cameron and the Chancellor should stop pushing for the survival of the European single currency in its present form.

“A managed reduction in the size of the eurozone would be much less harmful to our economy,” said Mr Davis, adding that the “controlled” departure of Greece and perhaps Portugal would be less damaging for Britain than a chaotic default.

Mr Davis said many Conservative MPs are “nervous” and “uncomfortable” about the compromises made while in Coalition. “Their greatest worry is the economy – they realise it will decide the next election,” he added.

ᔥ The Telegraph

Unions really take the cake with self-importance.

Border guards who disrupt the Olympics could be fired, Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has suggested.

The Culture secretary disclosed that some ministers wanted a “Ronald Reagan” approach to dealing with this weeks- eve of Olympics strike.

The comments lift the lid on the concern at the top of Government over the planned strikes by the PCS union on Thursday, the day before the start of the Olympic Games.

A split has emerged in the Coalition, after Chancellor George Osborne suggested laws at the weekend could be changed to make it harder for public sector workers to go on strike.

One idea is only to allow a strike if more than 40 per cent of the officials vote in a ballot. In the PCS’s strike ballot, one in five border guards voted.