Skipper

Unlock Democracy's Campaign for a Citizen's Convention

2009-11-25T17:43:00.003Z

Unlock Democracy is a campaigning body resulting from the merger of Charter 88 and the New Politics Network. Charter 88 did much to put constitutional reform on the agenda-Devolution, FOI and the HRA- during the dog days of the 1980s and 90s. Its present campaign is to campaign for an elected panel to act as an alternative 'jury' on such reforms, taking evidence all over the country and establishing a genuine connection with voters.

I support the initiative because:

1.It's a positive step at the right time. In the wake of the expenses scandal there has been much disillusion, anger and talk of reform. Yet suggestions made some weeks ago seem to have faded along with the initial momentum.

2. It would represent an alternative to the 'establishment' attempts to reform our ailing political system.

3. The current system is discredited and an alternative approach offers advantages.

4. Gordon has offered some initiatives like his attampt to kick off a 'conversation' with the nation and his constitutional reform proposals back in June 2007 which have mostly come to nothing. Before that we had the 1998 5000 strong People's Panel, through incompetence and lack of political will, a complete damp squib which which was wound up in 2002.

5. I like the idea of a representative panel taking evidence rather than a retired civil servant issuing sonorous platitudes as the prelude to doing very little. I've been studying the political process for over forty years and have lost so much faith in its fundamental good faith, let alone its efficacy.

Realistically, however, I don't expect MPs to support the embryonic bill: it probably sounds too radical and alternative and suggests the convening of an elected body which MPs wuld probably see as a rival rather than an ally. More's the pity.

Something, at Last, to Cheer Up Labour

2009-11-23T15:35:00.004Z

The run into the election, slated for 6th May 2010, promises to be gripping for more than just the political anoraks. Hitherto it had rather been assumed Cameron would promenade through the winter months and early spring to stroll into Downing St come the summer. His poll leads of 20 points a few months back all pointed in this direction- not to mention his high personal ratings and Brown's disastrous ones- and eager politics watchers like me or even depressed members of the Labour Party, like me, had more or less accepted it was 'game over'. But then came Sunday's poll. To say this changes everything would be to overstate the case but then again, maybe it does as it must have rudely shaken up growing Conservative expectations they would win at a canter come polling day. A lead of 6% (37-30% with Lib Dems on 17%) would leave them short of an overall majority by a couple of dozen MPs or more. Oh dear! Time for a Tory rethink.

Of course this is only one poll and it could be a rogue one but it does follow a shortening of the lead in recent weeks and the surprisingly solid Labour win over the SNP in the Glasgow by election. Maybe Cameron's gamble on being upfront about cuts in public spending was a bit too, well, upfront? Maybe, also, the economy is turning the corner. Maybe we're in 1992 territory when a government came apparently from behind, to win a famous victory. I'd settle for a hung parliament to be honest and this is now what all the buzz is about in all the columns.

Bob Worcester (pictured) in the Observer offers his experienced and expert perspective:

Four of the seven polls taken so far in November have given the Tories less than the magic 40% share they will need for an overall majority. None, until now, has had Labour over 30%, its traditional "core" vote. The 37% Tory share to 31% for Labour suggested by the poll – with the Liberal Democrats languishing at 17% – will alarm David Cameron a little, and his candidates standing in marginal seats a lot. On a uniform swing projection, such a close result would suggest that, while the Tories would be gaining a respectable 82 seats, this would still leave them 35 seats short of the 117 they need for an overall majority. They would still form a government, but would struggle to govern. These new figures show a 4.5% swing from Labour to the Conservatives compared with 2005.

Such a swing is 4 whole points below the average during the year so far of 8.5%. Is it a blip? Maybe, but maybe not. Worcester adds a telling coda to his article:

The projections show just how precarious the likelihood of a stable Tory majority is. Bring the Tories down one percentage point to 40% and Labour up a percentage point to 28%, and Cameron's majority falls to just 30 seats (7.5% swing). But if the Tories fall by another point, to 39%, and Labour comes in at 29% (holding the Lib Dems at 18% and others at 14%), then Cameron would be two seats short of a majority on a swing of 6.5% from Labour's 2005 result, even though he would enjoy a lead of 10 points over Labour.

Nick Clegg, after playing the coy m aiden for a while has let it be known he will fall for the man who clearly has won a mandate from the people either in seats or votes. So a coalition possibility is now there but I wonder:

a) would Cameron accept a deal on voting reform ?

b) would Clegg accept Cameron's euroscepticism?

c) is there any way Clegg would give Brown a chance of extending his career as prime minister given the poor fist he had made of it since 2007?

Maybe Jackie Ashley is right today when she suggests a sharp change of leader might be the price Labour have to pay top stay in power. Whatever the status of this poll- rogue, a blip, anomaly- it's certainly warmed up the contest and given Labour supporters something at last to feel more cheerful about.

Lady Ashton and the 'Talent Pool'

2009-11-20T07:55:00.005Z

Already sections of the press are rubbishing Kathy Ashton because she is an unelected politician. As Neil Kinnock has just argued on Today, I'm not sure this is anything to worry about. US Cabinets have been unelected ever sinced 1787 and, whilst there have been arguments over many of them, some have proved to be very effective. Thed key thing is that they are appointed by people who are elected, as indeed was Lady Ashton. I honestly feel our 'talent pool' of members of the legislature is too restricted.

I once interviewed Tristan Garel-Jones, the former Tory Deputy Chief Whip who left me in no doubt that such resources are always distinctly finite. These figures are approximations but it is usually assumed that a third of a governing parliamentary party are not available by virtue of their total unsuitability: excessive drinking, incapable of running anything, let alone a ministry, too old and enfeebled, too young and inexperienced; too ideologically extreme; or too much of a risk to any government because of bizarre attitudes or personal habits. There could be other reasons. Depending on the size of its majority a government might therefore have around 200 MPs who can realistically be put in charge of Whitehall departments and fill the around 100 posts any prime minister has at his or her disposal. This is a much smaller group than one might have originally thought, to be sure.

Given that ministers need time to prove themselves in the job and display signs they are suitable to go on to higher things at cabinet level, even this number has to be qualified. In addition a prime minister has to be mindful of other considerations, representing: Welsh and Scottish interests, especially in their respective ministries; a fair number of women, given their under-representation generally in parliament; a few racial minority MPs; maybe one or two gay MPs; as well as the major ideological or ‘tribal’ interests in the parliamentary party.

Put like this, Sir John Hoskyns’ jibe that ‘governments are formed from a talent pool that could not sustain a single multi-national company’ seems less a spiteful swipe than a bleakly accurate analysis.

Despite New Labour’s huge majority of 179 and 419 seats, Blair did not find it easy to discover much talent within their number. Astute columnists often attested to this fact. Peter Riddell, 19th June 2003 commented on the recent reshuffle, that it revealed ‘the sheer mediocrity of much of the Government… which has ‘few potential stars. On a generous estimate there are at most ten possible Cabinet ministers among middle ranking and junior ministers, mostly competent managerial types like Beverley Hughes, Hazel Blears and Nick Raynsford.’

Andrew Rawnsley, whose Servants of the People, chronicled Labour’s early years, recalls a conversation with a senior official from Number 10 about

‘….the shallowness of the junior ministerial gene pool and how few really good people there were available to the Prime Minister for promotion to the top table.’(Observer, 4/4/04).

We should abandon the narrow notion that all ministers should be drawn from the legislature and look further afield for ministerial talent. The case of Kathy Ashton supports this analysis in my view.

Climate Change Denial a Cause for Real Concern

2009-11-17T20:08:00.005Z

Given the widespread publicity given to it is really is extraordinary that so many people reefuse to accept the central findings of climate change scientists. According to The Times 14th November, only 41% of the cpountry believes climate warming is the consequence of human activity:

poll, undertaken last weekend, found that only two in five people in Britain accept as an established scientific fact that global warming is largely man-made. ..

Among the public as a whole 41 per cent agrees that it is established that climate change is largely man-made. Tory voters are more dubious, at 38 per cent, than Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters (at 45 and 47 per cent). A third of the public (32 per cent) agree that climate change is happening but believes it has not yet been proven to be largely man-made, while 8 per cent think that the view that climate change is man-made is environmentalist propaganda. Fifteen per cent believe that climate change is not happening. Only 28 per cent believe that climate change is happening and is “far and away the most serious problem we face as a country and internationally”, while 51 per cent think that it is “a serious problem, but other problems are more serious”.

Occasionally one's faith in the good sense of one's fellow countrymen takes a hard knock and this is one foe me. How on earth can people deny the resuilts of careful scientific studies by world experts in theior field? No major newspaper questions these facts yet a hard core of deniers insist it's all not so, a figment of environmentalists' selfinterested imaginations. I have to quote The Times again, this time the editorial which says the case is 'overwhelming' and that the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was written by 152 scientists from more than 30 countries and reviewed by more than 600 experts. It concluded that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is due to the observed increase in man-made greenhouse gas concentration. Concentrations of CO2 have increased by more than 35 per cent since industrialisation began, and they are now at their highest for at least 800,000 years. Natural factors alone cannot, on any but the most extraordinary assumptions, get anywhere close to the temperature rises that have been witnessed. Hardly any serious scientists dispute this any longer.

One can only conclude from this that many people just do not want to believe these inconvenient facts and are so addicted to consumption of cars, cheap travel and so forth they are just closing their minds to what might happen to our grandchildren and great grand children.

'There are no Votes in Pity' and Yet More Plot Rumours Scarcely Credible

2009-11-15T12:55:00.007Z

Another cracking article by Andrew Rawnsley today, the final sentence of which leads this post. He reprises the saga of the Jacqui Janes letter, the resultant phone conversation with Brown and the evident reality of a Sun determination to belittle Brown and besmirch his name and reputation.

That The Sun overdid it is now palpable with even his enemies like Iain Dale- a Conservative (blogger) but a humane one- Mathew Parris- ditto- and the rightwing Spectator all agreeing Gordon has been pilloried unfairly as a busy man of poor eyesight. A more deserving target would have been his private office which allowed the letter to go out unchecked. Number 10 apparently is pleased the pendulum of sympathy has swung in Brown's direction by the end of the week.

Rawnsley points out us however that Brown was never going to be a leader we'd love and so had aimed to win our respect:

You don't achieve that from having people feel sorry for you. Voters want a leader who feels their pain, not one who asks them to experience his. Countries do not want to be led by people they pity.

Most of us felt sorry for John Major- a 'decent' man- as his party imploded around his ears, but we didn't vote for him 'Leaders who attract our pity simultaneously attract our disdain.'

Finally, a word on the 'plot'. It seems MPs are plotting to elected an anti-Brown candidate as chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party in place of Brown loyalist Tony Lloyd. If either Barry Sheerman or the impressive young Parmjit Dhanda, are elected, then according to Observer sources, 'the prime minister would have little option but to stand down'. Well, I've heard so much about plots and each time it's been 'Brown's last warning'; I really don't think there is either time enough to do the deed or anything like the necessary bottle in the PLP to do it.

Free to Air Sports Poses Critical Dilemma

2009-11-13T19:57:00.003Z

So the independent review body has reecommended that the Ashes cricket series and other sports be made free to air, rather than remain the preserve of Sky Sports, accessible only to those who can afford the subscriptions. Owen Gibson today gives the details of how Sky will be stripped of its broadcasting monopoly, possibly as a tit for tat regarding The Sun's change of party allegiance.

However, such a move, if the advice is taken will cause much consternation:

The England and Wales Cricket Board has claimed plans to add Ashes cricket, home and away international football qualifiers, Wimbledon and Open golf to the list of events reserved for live broadcast on free-to-air TV will have a "disastrous impact" on grassroots funding for every sport.

Cricket coaches have complained the loss of the Sky deal will lose the game £75m in funding and will lead to scores of staff being sacked. The county game is all but moribund, as anyone who has visited one will testify; it is only the lifeblood of Sky cash which is keeping the game breathing. It's a nice dilemma. Most viewers would love to see international cricket, rugby and soccer free to air, yet most administrators in these sports will shed anguished tears about the viability of their sports without those huge dollops of Sky money.

So who should be heeded: the masses of sports lovers or those who run them? One argument is that free to air will inspire so many youngsters to play the sports their respective futures will be assured. On the other hand, loss of fundsing might mean futuree stars might mature to find the infrastructures of these sports have melted away in the meantime, leaving no clubs for them to join and pursue a sporting career. As a hopeless sports addict, I hope some compromise solution can be found.

[Don't you think the Ashes urn is such a pathetically small trophy to brandish and brag around? Compared with, say the Rugby League Challenge Cup it's a joke but that's whny cricket, with its quirky eccentricities is such an enduringly addictive past-time to some of us I suppose]

More Thouhghts on That Letter and Afghanistan

2009-11-10T18:46:00.005Z

I maybe sounded a bit too critical of Brown in my last post and have been roundly taken to task by my blogging colleague Paul Linford in the comments box:

"I think the way the Sun has hounded the Prime Minister over this is quite scandalous and I'm surprised to see you giving succour to it. Gordon is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't in these situations. For goodness sake give the guy some credit for good intentions."

Having observed the awful hounding of Gordon Brown yesterday and today I have to ruefully agree with Paul. It is so obviously a Murdoch press operation to wound Brown via exploiting a mother's grief for her dead son. Nick Robinson added to my regret for criticising today when he pointed out that the PM is blind in one eye and has only 50% vision in ther other. His hand writing is poor because of this and not through carelssness and certainly not callousness.

He is a very well intentioned and highly moral person. This doesn't mean he should not resign and let someone else lead the party to a less catastrophic defeat, but it does mean he's been picked on unfairly. Incidentally, while on the subject of Afghanistan, I emailed Simon Jenkins regarding Ashdown's warning that our withdrawal would lead to the collapse of Pakistan, give nuclear weapons thereby to the Taliban and destroy NATO. His reply began by dismissing Paddy's scant knowledge of the area and concluded as follows:

"The idea that Pakistan "will fall" is rubbish. As for the Taliban having nuclear weapons, that depends on the truth of the first statement. As for staying in Afghanistan indefinitely in order to prop up Nato, that has to be the worst reason of all!"

Gordon's Unfortunate Letter of Condolence

2009-11-09T06:36:00.005Z

It's a nice touch for prime ministers to write personally to the families of sevicemen killed in action, but Gordon Brown's effort(pictured) has attracted harsh contumely from the mother of Jamie, the soldier concerned and the now officially hostile Sun newspaper. The Sun condemns such sloppy drafting counting twenty spelling and other errors.

Maybe this is nit-picking by a rightwing newspaper, criticising a desperately busy man, but it does seem sensible not to send out letters of condolence which make matters worse rather than provide comfort. One thing which strikes me is Gordon's handwriting. Mine has never been good and I'm no graphologist, but I such an expert has interesting things to say about the character of someone who writes such tortured, cramped and indecipherable characters. If you check out the linked article, you'll find the thoughtful Sun has provided just such expert in the person of an Elaine Quigley. She concludes 'I think he means well but he winds himself up so much it comes out all wrong'. Too true Elaine.

Afghanistan: the Case for Staying the Course

2009-11-07T10:45:00.004Z

Having given my account of why we should get out of the war in my last post, here is my version of the arguments why we should stay.

1. Nuclear threat: if the west withdraws it will give the Taliban a golden chance to win not just Afghanistan but Pakistan too and access their nuclear weapons. Al-Qaeda did terrible things with commercial aircraft- imagine what they might do with nuclear weapons. Possibly Pakistan might be persuaded to render their nuclear arsenal unobtainable but this is still a major danger.

2. NATO might collapse: such a break up of NATO unity might ruin the alliance and UK would lose the basis of its defence since 1949.

3. Afghan people: we would be condemning a benighted people another dose of extreme Islam- something which 70% of them say they oppose.

4. US Alliance: we might ruin our close connection with the USA, again a major aspect of our security since the middle of 20th century.

The case for withdrawal seemed to me to be irrefutable when I first constructed it but further thought produced the above points of which I think maybe the first is the clincher. But, like Jackie Ashley today I do think the war in unwinnable and that an exit strategy will eventually have to be found, if not by Brown, then by Cameron when, as seems likely, he becomes prime minister.

Afghanistan: Looks Like Time to Get Out

2009-11-05T09:14:00.002Z

It was hard not to agree with Kim Howells yesterday, the former Foreign Office minister and respected voice among Labour MPs. Between them US and UK have spent $230 billion on the war and lost over 1500 young lives, 229 of them British. And what have we to show for it? Continuing support for a hoplessly corrupt administration propped up by war money, war lords and the drug trade. Simon Jenkins has been sending in broadsides against the conflict for some time: see his latest. But Howells' revolt is of a differnt order, for here was a man who once believed greatly in the rectitude and winnability of this war. This extract neatly summarizes his case:

"Sooner rather than later a properly planned phased withdrawal of our forces from Helmand province has to be announced. If it is an answer that serves, also, to focus the minds of those in the Kabul government who have shown such a poverty of leadership over the past seven years, then so much the better. Seven years of military involvement and civilian aid in Afghanistan has succeeded in subduing al-Qaida's activities in that country but it hasn't destroyed the organisation or its leader, Osama bin Laden.

Nor has it succeeded in eliminating al-Qaida's protectors, the Taliban. There can be no guarantee that the next seven years will bring significantly greater success and, even if they do, it is salutary to remember that Afghanistan has never been the sole location of terrorist training camps."

Given that we can not defeat the Taliban on their home ground- what army ever has in Afghanistan?- and that al-Qaeda can easily re-establish in places like Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea or Uzbekistan- we should take seriously Howells'alternative 'Fortress Britain' approach: defend ourselves more effectively in our own home, even at the cost of more intrusive surveillance of the Muslim community. Not ideal by any means, but surely a more cost effective policy than the hiding to nothing we're receiving at the moment? Both party leaderships have painted themselves into a corner here, just as Obama has. They may find in a short while that they have a noose around their necks as tight as Vietnam- so best start the rethinking now, as Howells correctly suggests.

Further Questions Regarding 'this Shoddy Shaming Alliance'.

2009-11-03T07:22:00.004Z

Further to my last post, The Economist has weighed into the debate in the form of its columnist Bagehot. Recent days have seen Conservatives intent upon damage limitation regarding their odd new friends in the European Conservatives and Reformists(ECR). While Bagehot accepts that history has made parties in Eastern Europe, with its tragic 20th century history more complex than our own, this does not mean that no judgements whatsoever can be made about Kaminiski's homophobia and views on the massacre of Jews at Jedwabne; he goes on to offer a few which do not ideally recommend such alliances to what is likely to be the UK's next government. He also judges that:

Their prospects of influencing European deliberations, on matters that they care about such as hedge-fund regulation, have dwindled. They have alienated and baffled other European conservatives. By abdicating the centre of European politics for the fringe, the Tories have convinced many in Europe that they can legitimately be ignored.

Like Peter Oborne, Bagehot returns to the opportunistic wooing of the euro-sceptic's vote back in 2005 when his promise to withdraw from the EPP, coralled their support against his opponent David Davis. Such true blue members gave their support for the liberal policies which have revived Tory fortunes because they had been 'bought off' by the deal on the EU. Bagehot ends by asking a question which Labour and uncommitted voters will echo as the months to the next election shorten:

It is this: if this shoddy, shaming alliance is the price he was obliged to pay his party for the changes needed to make it seem modern and compassionate, what sort of party is it that Mr Cameron leads? What else will its members demand, and what else—when his popularity and authority wane—will he be obliged to give them, after he becomes prime minister?

Cameron author of Tory Woe over EU Argues Shrewd Oborne Analysis

2009-11-02T06:28:00.006Z

Excellent analysis in an article by Peter Oborne yesterday on Cameron and Europe. He locates the core of the problem with the Tory rank and file. For some reason they perceive Europe as the heart of darkness: a potential supranational dictatorship unlimited by democratic constraints. As they see it, this malign juggernaut- quite possibly the vehicle for revived German plans to dominiate Europe(Oh yes, Dennis Thatcher wasn't the only one to believe that), has to be stopped before this green and pleasant land is suborned and robbed of its identity. Halting the progress of the EU for them is a mission of Churchillian importance.

Mad, I know, but it's a political fact. Oborne claims Cameron used this misplaced sentiment to outflank David Davis in the contest most thought the former council estate Tory would win. In so doing, claims Oborne, it was Cameron who reopened the wound which had kept his party flatlining in the polls since the mid 1990s:

He[Cameron]could gather very little support and the contest looked like turning into a run-off between the two ambitious right-wingers, Liam Fox and David Davis. Suddenly, in a daring move, brilliantly advised by his ally Michael Gove, Cameron outflanked them both by making a promise his rivals felt unable to make. He promised to take the Tory party out of the EPP centrist coalition in the European Parliament, thus securing the support of core Eurosceptics including William Cash, Douglas Carswell and the talented MEP Dan Hannan. Had Cameron not formed this alliance with Tory Eurosceptics, he would never have become leader.

The consequences of abandoning the mainstream for the unwholesome Poles and Latvians have been plain to see in recent weeks. Oborne points to another 'concession' Cameron made to the sceptics, in his 'laborious' efforts to haul the Murdoch press on board.

This wooing was eased by a pledge from Cameron to the readers of the Sun that he would hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. "Today," wrote the Tory leader in September 2007 in an article he must bitterly regret, "I will give this cast-iron guarantee: if I become prime minister, a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations." To dramatically emphasise the point, he wrote his personal signature at the bottom. "Small wonder that so many people don't believe a word politicians ever say," added Cameron, "if they break their promises so casually."

Indeed. We'll see what Cameron's own promise is worth when Vaclav Klaus finally signs the Lisbon Treaty. Oborne makes a final telling point. Kenneth Clarke has been brought in as a necessary heavyweight but is openly pro-EU- the reason why he isn't leader, say some- and is balanced by the formidable euro-sceptic William Hague, the shadow Foreign Secretary, who is the architect of the new non mainstream rightwing grouping. Like John Prescott for Blair, Hague delivers the party faithful for Cameron. But unlike Prescott, Hague is in the first division of politicians and, if things go pearshaped for Cameron in the difficult years which lie ahead, Hague is a genuine rival for the leadership. How Cameron reacts to his earlier promise when Klaus(picture top left) signs will be a first test of how Cameron will deal with a problem of his own making.

MPs' Pay and Expenses- Being Fair

2009-10-31T09:53:00.002Z

I know this topic is already fairly dogeared but I wanted to add a few thoughts to it as I feel MPs have been rather unfairly judged. This is not to say that there have not been shocking excesses which should be condemned. These include:

Shame Column
1. Claiming for Mortgages already paid up. One or two MPs did this(Elliot Morley?) and must have known they were cheating the system.

2. Flipping. Altering the choice of one's 'main residence' to maximise expenses in order to sell on the property falls into the same category. MPs are not voted into Parliament and paid salaries by voters to become property entrepreneurs. Such MPs must have known what they were doing and it was right they were exposed and shamed.

However it seems the public as a whole have extended the obloquy deserved by a few to include all MPs willy nilly. A number of points need to be made in their defense.

Defense Column
1. Many MPs did not exploit their expenses and yet have had to accept the pariah status earned by the recalcitrant minority of their colleagues.

2. MPs arriving in the Comons entered a relatively generous expenses regime. Most people, whatever they might say, when they can claim epenses, do so up to the limit. I've worked in the public sector all my life and know this to be the case. Private sector claiming is even worse. I remember, in the seventies, some television employees asking for restaurant receipts from friends do they could submit them to employers and fraudulently cash them in as expenses.

Journalists are among the worst for doing this and it's ironic they should have lead the charge against MPs. Some tell of when they first joined the payroll of being told by older hands not to underclaim as this would show the rest of them in a bad light.

3. I recall Alan Duncan on that infamous Have Got News For You clip, smugly boasting about how well he was doing out of his allowances. This sort of thing must have done the rounds of the Tea Room and encouraged similar claiming styles. Moreover, MPs' wives, usually running the home, must have disseminated a fair bit about what you could claim in coffee mornings and the like. Once one heard a claim for something was possible and legitimate, they would be likely to urge hubby to do the same.

4. At £64K p. a. MPs' salaries seem pretty good to an impecunious semi-retired academic, but I realise this is relatively low compared with the amounts available in the private sector- law, the media, accountancy- or indeed, many parts of the public sector. To attract the best talent from which our ministers are to be drawn, a decent salary has to be offered. MPs, after all, have to feed their families and live in reasonable comfort. Expenses were used by the whips for a long time as a 'compensation' or 'top-up' to this relatively low headline salary. If it was poffered on this basis, then we should not be too surprised if MPs filled 'their boots'acordingly.

I was amused, on the last point, to read Simon Hoggart this morning who points out the delicious irony inherent in such a whips' tactic:

It's pleasingly ironic that MPs were encouraged to exaggerate their expenses to replace a pay rise which would have attracted public opprobrium. Now they are suffering vastly more contempt than they would from a salary increase which would have been forgotten in a week.

Cameron Likely to Find More Than One Term is Beyond Him

2009-10-28T07:07:00.003Z

A week last Sunday Andrew Rawnsley suggested Cameron might only last one parliamentary session. It seems a trifle early to be gazing ahead like that, but we'll all be doing it soon, so why not. He points out that the last 30 years have witnessed periods in govbernment of quite extraordinary length: 11 years for Thatcher followed by 7 years by Major for the same party. Then 10 years from Blair followed by two more, to date by Brown. Rawnsley notes:

Between 1949 and 1979, Britain got through many more prime ministers. Attlee was followed by Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and Douglas-Home, the last old Etonian at Number 10. Then came Wilson, Heath, Wilson again and finally Callaghan. Not one of those prime ministers achieved more than six continuous years in Downing Street and the average stay was more like four.

The columnist wonders if Cameron will be someone who stays in for two or three terms or if he will be a 'one term wonder'. Is the ealier postwar pattern about to reassert itself? There are reasons to think incumbency might not be the huge advantage it has been in the past.

1. The MPs expenses has created a very 'anti-politics' mood which is likely to make any kind of government difficult.

2. The economy will not be so accommodating as it was for Blair in 1997, albeit on a basis we came to see was unsound.

3. The initial period of any Cameron government is likely to be characterised by deep cuts to bring down the deficit. Paying off the debt is liukely to be an extended and unpopular affair.

All in all, it is going to be tough for any government and Cameron might have to just enjoy his period in Number 10, as it might well be only until 2015 at the outside. For what happens then my crystal ball is entirely and murkily unreadable.

Tony Blair Would be Good as EU President

2009-10-26T09:22:00.003Z

If, as seems likely, the Czech president finally decides to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, the next issue to make Tory Euro-sceptics wet their knickers is whether Tony Blair should be the first incumbent as EU president- well discussed here and here. Oh yes, and here. My view is he would make an excellent choice. This is not because I wholly trust him or think him especially truthful but because I see him as a highly effective politician-Hague's high pitched protests bear testimony to that- who will do a job Europe needs doing.

My position begins as a committed internationalist. I think we need more collaborative action to stem global warming, terrorism, international crime and world poverty. The UN has failed to achieve: the EU has achieved its goal of economic integration and a degree of political unity also. But, as is sometimes said: Europe is an 'economic giant but a political pygmy'. For years Europe has meekly accepted a distant second place to the US and even looks like being shunted into a lesser future role than China as the future shape of the world's power dispositions begin to emerge.

Blair would provide the dynamism and flair to raise the EU's profile, to ensure its voice is heard. True he has been a divisive politician but he has also been a unifier too as in Northern Ireland. I find it hard to accept that the Tories are so viscerally opposed- unless they fear this guy is just too good for them- as surely a Brit in such a high profile position would be a good thing for the UK? To oppose him just because of domestic rivalries smacks of small minded parochialism.
To get the Economist's odds on the competition see here.

Why, oh Why Do we Have to Keep on Putting the Clocks Back?

2009-10-24T11:04:00.001Z

[Last year, about this time, I expressed my indignation at the absurd putting back of clocks every year by that precious hour. I have not heard one single person in favour of this measure-well one, anyway; see comment box- which continues to shroud in gloom a period of the year which does not need any more more gloom than it already has. So I'm republishing my post of last October and intend to do so until this ridiculous outdated practice is done away with(I know, I know).]

No doubt most people in this country have felt the first chill of autumn as recent unseasonably warm temperatures begin to give way. This reminder that winter is at hand is bad enough but what astonishes me is our government's insistence on putting the clocks back by an hour; this year it's on 25th October.

The case against this joyless annual donning of a temporal hair shirt is as follows:

i) studies show that while there might be more accidents in the mornings these would be more than compensated for by fewer in the evenings; The Guardian some time ago, quoted studies predicting a net saving of 140 lives.

ii) 80 per cent of the population want to keep summer time throughout the year.

iii) Many influential pressure groups favour it, including the CBI, the Police and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

iv) the experiment of maintaining BST through the winter 1968-71 was, as far as I recall, a substantial success.

v) It would extend the tourist season, the sporting season and..., perhaps most important of all it would make us all feel a damn sight better about the miserable imminence of winter.

The case against reversing the measure is summed up in the two words: Scottish farmers. They would face much darker mornings as the sun would not rise until 10.0am. However, against this it can be adduced:

i) The rate of decline in accidents would actually be greater in Central Scotland(5.5%) than in the south of England(2.5%).

ii)When I used to visit Northern Sweden regularly, farmers up there did not see daylight until much later than 10.0am and accepted it as part of their cost for living in that latitude.

iii) Now Scotland has its own parliament, why doesn't it set its own regional time and do us all a big favour?

iv) is it fair that a nation of 60 million should suffer merely because a few hundred farmers should be able to see their cows more clearly on a winter's morning?

In the war we had a clocks turned forward two hours- Double Summer Time!- why not return to those good old days? Brown might even find his recently flagging popularity recovering immensely if he introduced this simple yet highly popular measure.

Griffin Exposed by Democratic Debate on Question Time

2009-10-23T05:06:00.004Z

Did you see it? It was woeful I thought from Griffin's point of view. The panel were very well prepared- had read all the damning quotes and had them to hand, had seen the Youtube clips of him actually speaking the offending quotations, so his claims of being misquoted carried little weight.

Baroness Warsi was particularly effective and the Tories clearly have a potential star here. Jack Straw was a bit bumbling I thought but made some telling points in his somewhat wordy way.

I actually felt a bit sorry for the silly man at times, so effectively was his pretence of being 'just a concerned patriot' dismantled. If this is the best he can do British political culture has little to worry about.

For democracy, free speech and British values of toleration, not to mention the BBC's obligation to give every point of view a fair crack, the programme represented 'Job Done'.

He may well think he negotiated the 60 minutes without conceding too many own goals or even, any major gaffe, but the vast majority of the viewers will have seen someone struggling desperately to answer the charges regarding vicious racism and Holocaust denial. He did get some good publicity for his odious views but it was not good publicity.

But I'm fully aware I might be wrong. Many viewers might have ignored the effective kebabbing of his arguments and merely received the thinly disguised racist messages with approval. The future will reveal how effective or ineffective has was, but I thought he was, in a word, rubbish.

NIck Griffin on Question Time

2009-10-21T18:47:00.004Z

Nick Cohen gave us a good run down of Nick Griffin's rise from a Suffolk educated child of a Conservative family, through an early personal rightwing epiphany-he read Mein Kamp aged 14- to a Downing College Cambridge degree in history-to an apprenticeship at the feet of notorious National Front organiser, Martin Webster until he finally replaced John Tyndall as BNP leader in 1999. In June his party polled 6.2% of the national poll in the euro-elections and won two MEP seats from northern constituencies.

That was when the BBC felt it had to invite Griffin to join the Question Time panel, a programme which has become a kind of popular, dumbed down version of parliamentary debates, albeit policed by the benign dictatorship of David Dimbleby. Several questions have been hotly debated arising from the programme which will air tomorrow evening.

1. Should a party which does not fully endorse the rules of democracy, be allowed to exploit such rules when seeking power for itself? The example of Hitler's Nazi party is usually wheeled out to support the negative response to this question.

2. Should a party which advocates and practices violence,['Defend Rights for Whites' with well-directed boots and fists,"] be allowed to benefit from this kind of exposure alongside parties to which such methods are anathema?

3. Will he receive a rigorous interrogation? Cohen suggests this might not happen as the populist context with a studio audience militates against forensic questioning.

My feeling is that we should trust to democracy and hope that the thinly disguised racism of the BNP will be exposed and dismantled. However I have two fears. Firstly that Jack Straw might not be on top form- he's a bit too avuncular and maybe not hard edged enough for this confrontation. Secondly I fear a fair numberr of neanderthal viewers will ignore any intellectual demolition and merely react to the poisonous emotive appeal of Griffin's arguments. But in a democracy it's a risk we just have to take. Please God the panel will be on tip-top form.

Legg Letters Pile on Unnecessary Agony

2009-10-19T07:15:00.004Z

I was in two minds whether to use a picture of Tomas Torquemada rather than Sir Thomas Legg, so closely have their roles appeared to merge. After the shameful idiocy of the expenses scandal we now have its pathetic revival whereby expenses drawn(and approved) years ago are being raked over yet again and some MPs asked to repay substantial sums while others escape virtually scott-free.

Public opinion is being whipped up again over something relatively trivial compared to the huge bonuses the bankers are apparently being allowed to draw again- possibly of the same scale as those which are alleged to have contributed to the near meltdown last autumn. Conspiracy theorists might be tempted to say the expenses scandal is the perfect smoke screen behind which the masters of capitalism can continue to rake in the loot.

But such expalnations are always too simple of course. It's much more to do with the next election, the campaign for which has been robustly in train since the conference season. All the party leaders are terrified of allowing one of the others to establish an advantage by offering a tough macho posture to voters on a matter they are belived to be greatly exercised. They're a bit fed up with it actually in my view. That old columnist warhorse Alan Watkins in the IOS yesterday offered a good analysis on why Brown and Cameron are trying to out 'bully' one another, pointing out that such ridiculous posturing led to the end of that deservedly popular MP, Ian Gibson:

Mr Brown farmed out sanctions-imposing powers to the National Executive Committee: about as suitable a body for imposing sanctions as the social committee of the Millwall Supporters' Club. This body's or Mr Brown's principal victim was Dr Ian Gibson, who had been member for Norwich North and had provided a trifling benefit for his daughter. He was liked in his constituency, highly regarded in the House and a critic of Mr Brown. Accordingly, he had to go. It was a clear-cut case.

Would it not have been far better, in John Major's famous words, to 'draw a line' under the scandal and 'move on' as we are all supposed to after emotional traumas? This farting about with repayments benefits nobody and merely pours more unhealthy contumely over an institution already in intensive care.

Lords Ministers to Play Role in Commons?

2009-10-17T08:54:00.007Z

The revelation that Lords Mandeslon and Adonis will be allowed to take questions from MPs, has interesting constitutional implications. So far such questionings will only take place in the adjacent medieval Westminster Hall, but once and if they become nrmal who knows if m'lords might be seen at the Despatch Box itself. It's only precedent and flummery- of which we have far too much- which prevents it. Tony Ben is against the idea as these two ministers are not elected. But neither are any Cabinet ministers: they are appointed by the prime minister. Whether they are elected by a constituency seems to me a foible of our antque constitution.

Most senior ministers in other countries are appointed because they are thought capable of doing the job. I'd like to see the device of roping in ministers via the Lords used more widely to widen the talent pool available to Cabinets. Bringing in someone of great energy and ability to run a government department, say from business, academe or even the civil service, seems quite logical to me, and sensible too.

I realise this road might possibly lead even further: eventual prime ministers sitting in the Lords? The last one to do so was Lord Salisbury(1895-1902) and one wonders if such a development could usher in a new lease of life for the Lords as an entreport for new talent up to the highest level? Don't think this would be possible because parties run British politics and they function via activity in the Commons. But, maybe Mandy's enthusiasm for this innovation might have its origins in his perception of a circuitous constitutional route to his own elevation to the top job? Too little time, of course, and it would not happen but it's a thought to mull over.

Tax Payers Alliance: Pressure group or Tory Front?

2009-10-16T01:53:00.005Z

‘Since it was launched six years ago the alliance e has become arguably the most influential pressure group in the country..’ So wrote The Guardian 10th October 2009 in a major article on the new phenomenon, written in the wake of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. Indeed, any organisation which presumes to speak in the name of all taxpayers needs to be looked at a little more closely.

“The idea of tearing down the walls of big government as Cameron did in his speech on Thursday is something we have been talking about for years," said its chief executive, Matthew Elliott, yesterday. "The Tory party has moved onto our agenda."

The TPA also claimed authorship of George Osborne’s public sector pay freeze and that no public sector worker should earn more than the prime minister without the Chancellor approving it. The TPA also urge the wholesale abandonment of cherished Labour achievements: the secondary school building programme, child benefit and Sure Start centres for young children.

The media too-especially the rightwing press- have proved deliriously receptive to its messages:

“In the last year the Daily Mail quoted the TPA in 517 articles. The Sun obliged 307 times, once bizarrely on page 3 when a topless Keeley parroted the TPA's line against energy taxes. The Guardian mentioned the group 29 times.”

The term ‘Alliance’ suggests that the TPA has some kind of democratic legitimacy, that it represents the voting public in some kind of genuine fashion. Indeed, it claims to be: ‘the guardian of taxpayers money, the voice of the taxpayer in the media and their representative at Westminster’. The Guardian had investigated the TPA’s sources for its £1m annual funding and discovered 60 per cent of it comprised donors giving £5000 or more to the Conservative Party. Moreover one of the group’s directors lives abroad and does not pay any UK tax.

Perhaps inevitably after this Labour sources called foul. Former Deputy Prime minister, John Prescott, denounced it as ‘nothing more than a front for the Conservative Party’, calling on the BBC-which regularly interviews TPA staff- to clarify its umbilical links to the Tories when its representatives are quoted or interviewed.

The Chief Executive of the TPA, Mathew Elliot, dismissed the attack, claiming it was as hard on the Conservative councils who wasted money as it was on Labour and pointing out its donors had once given to Labour in its earlier days.

Jo Berry and Patrick McGhee Impress with their Journey of Reconciliation

2009-10-14T02:34:00.008Z

I sometimes wake up and listen to the World Service and have just had to profound experience of listening to Jo Berry and Patrick McGhee discussing at length their friendship. And a strange friendship it is. She is the daughter of Sir Anthony Berry who was one of the five people killed by the Brighton bomb and he is the man who placed the bomb which killed her father. They have met some 60 times since the event and have done many interviews like the one I heard. Yet, for me, it was deeply moving. She, a member of the British ruling elite and he a Northern Ireland Catholic community, they have tried valiantly to understand one another.

This despite, I suspect, the powerful opposition of the communities from which they originate. The likes of Norman Tebbitt, whose wife was crippled and who was personally injured has shown nothing but defiant contempt for such terrorists. How would I, or how would you react? I'd like to think it would be like Jo Berry as hers is the kind of bravery required if communities at war are to learn to live with one another, not just in Ulster but in the Middle East and other places where sectarian hatred and murderous violence drive the agenda. But I suspect I'd seek the all too understandable refuge of hatred and desire for revenge.

The two make a strange couple: she seeking to extraxct something good from her personal tragedy and he overcome with remorse and sadness for what he did. He admits to feeling 'relief' when the bomb went off 'successfully'. I suspect, like other bombers, he also felt delight but that would have been a bit too honest. Jo explained she did not forgive him but said she did 'understand' him, how someone from his background and upbringing could be drawn into the IRA and its struggle. For his part he admitted he was sorry for what he had done and how he too wished to move on from the savage feelings which had created the tragic impasse in his home province.

It was a strictly limited reconciliation but both people were so sincere and humbly desirous of escape from the prison of negative passions, I was moved by their journey towrds mutual understanding. And if it wasn't a total healing of wounds who could wonder? He had killed her much loved father. Yet without such extraordinary behaviour and emotional bravery, I cannot see how either side in the conflict- still bubbling on under ther apparent surface calm in Northern Ireland- will ever transcend its history and achieve the liberation required to live properly again.

Tory Support For 'Good Friend' Kaminski Truly Shameful

2009-10-11T08:43:00.007Z

David Miliband is right to attack the Conservatives' rightwing flank just as Jonathan Freedland suggested a few days ago. Miliband says in The Observer:

"There will be incredulity in Washington, Beijing and Delhi, never mind Berlin and Paris, that a party aspiring to government in Britain – the party of Winston Churchill, no less – chooses allies like this,"

The 25 Tory MEPs sit alongside Kaminski and other equally unsavoury Latvian and Lithuanian rightwingers in the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), the group they moved to from the more orthodox previous rightwing grouping because it was deemed too close to being 'euro-federalist'. Kaminski has refused to apologize for his country's role in the massacre of 300 Jews at Jebwabne in 1941 and his party is openly homophobic. Miliband is himself of Jewish extraction, of course, and many of his relatives-possibly as many as 80- were killed in the Holocaust.

William Hague, Shadow Foreign Secretary has described Kaminski in a letter as 'a good friend of the Conservative Party'. If Cameron and his opportunist cronies want to win the 117 seats needed to form an overall majority- something they have not done since 1931- they will have to weigh the value of such alliances when they hit support in two influential groups of voters: the gays and the Jews.

'Ere We Go 'Ere We Go Again

2009-10-08T17:16:00.002Z

I've always been a supporter of trade unions. Without them there would be no Labour Party and pay and conditions for working people would be infinitely worse than they are. But the Communications Worker's proposed strike fills me with a dreadful foreboding that they are displaying the very worst aspect of self destructive union activity.

The Royal Mail is a fine institution delivering our letters in all weathers and, in my experience, with a friendly cheerfulness I have always appreciated. But the business is clearly failing. The internet is reducing the amount of letters we send but increasing the amount of parcels. Because practices are out of date, the Mail is losing custom to private agencies which are becoming ever more efficient; the Mail is sliding into impotent irrelevance.

Mandelson tried to introduce a part privatisation to inject capital to improve efficiency and reduce the shortfall in the pension fund. Labour MPs foiled that sensible objective and the dispute over reorganisation has now reached a crisis which will lead to strikes which in turn will only weaken the business yet further. As Christmas approaches postal workers need not assume the public will be on their side either.

It seems aas if the real culprits are local union militants who are determined to frustrate centrally negotiated agreements as they apply to local areas. In consequence huge piles of mail are building up in urban sorting offices all over the country. Amazon has had enough and has terminated its £25m contract with the Mail. Others will surely follow. The shortsightedness of union activity whereby they are destroying the service they claim to be protecting is quite tragic and hearkens back to the unionism of the seventies.

Skipper Temporarily Silenced

2009-10-06T12:17:00.002Z

This is the say a fault with my BT line has made it impossible for me to post anything for a few days. Sorry about that- not that it has stopped the world turning even to the slightest degree. But as a blogger since 2005 I have tried to keep reasonably up to date and to post regularly.

I hope to be back online once the BT man calls to sort out my landline tomorrow.