back to basics campaign

   Originally the name of a platform adopted by John Major as Prime Minister which placed emphasis upon a return to traditional ‘core values’ – sound money, respect for authority, individual responsibility and public services which work for people and not the other way round. However, rightwing Conservatives, some of whom were in the Cabinet, converted the policy into a campaign about personal morality. This worked to the party’s disadvantage when it became apparent that a number of Conservative ministers were involved in various forms of sleaze, some financial and others sexual. Journalists were only too keen to expose ministerial wrongdoing, so ‘back to basics’ disastrously backfired. Barnett formula A formula devised by Joel Barnett, the Treasury Secretary in the Callaghan government, which was used to allocate public expenditure between the four countries of the United Kingdom. The mechanism provides that any change in public expenditure in one of those countries leads to a readjustment of the total public expenditure in the others – in other words, a change in England and Wales has repercussions for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

   Originally adopted as a short-term expedient, the formula remains in operation today. It is controversial, because it is based on population rather than on needs or costs in any particular area: it does not apply to differences of expenditure between the English regions and in particular it has allowed Scotland to benefit from greater expenditure than its level of population merits.