Eaten by missionaries

Why Cameron should be insisting that Brown DOESN'T need to apologise

2009-04-12T20:18:00.009+01:00

As I listened to the media coverage of the Damian McBride/Derek Draper affair this morning, I knew for certain what David Cameron's reaction would be.

We could confidently expect a terse statement along the following lines:

As Mr McBride no longer works for the government, the Conservative Party fully accepts that Gordon Brown and the Labour party can't reasonably be expected to comment and as far as we are concerned that's the end of the matter.

How could I be so sure? Well, when former Conservative candidate for Watford Ian Oakley was convicted for spreading anonymous smears against political opponents (of a rather worse nature than those in the McBride-Draper email), and mounting a sustained campaign of harrassment and criminal damage against them, the Conservatives were reported as saying the following:

A spokesman for the Conservatives said they could not comment on the issue as Oakley was no longer a member of the party.

It is rather odd, therefore, that the BBC website reports Cameron as being 'furious' and calling on Gordon Brown to 'give a guarantee that such messages will not be sent again'. Meanwhile William Hague has 'demanded an apology from the prime minister'. It seems that the official Conservative view about smearing political opponents has temporarily slipped their memories and perhaps the Conservative Central Office aparatchik who released the statement on Oakley should remind them.

By any standards, however repellent McBride's behaviour may be, it pales into insignificance when compared to Oakley's. Unlike Oakley, McBride did not personally make his poisonous material public, he has offered some kind of public statement of regret, and a Labour cabinet minister has repudiated his behaviour (albeit with in my view quite a bit of dissembling).

In contrast, none of Oakley's erstwhile colleages in Watford Conservatives have expressed regret for his behaviour. Cameron now has apologised, but not until seven months after the conviction, and even then only after being directly asked by a member of the public in a way that meant he could hardly avoid doing so. And he certainly didn't offer a guarantee that it wouldn't happen again along the lines that he now demands of Gordon Brown.

Of course the BBC news report cited above probably doesn't quote the whole of the Conservative party's statement on this matter. Perhaps in full it reads:

The Conservative party are furious and believe that Gordon Brown should apologise for Mr McBride's behaviour, but we accept that first of all he should pretend it's nothing to do with him, that any apology should only be made after several months have gone by and even then issued only if the prime minister is put in a position by a member of the public where it would seem churlish and mean-spirited not to express regret.

Why we should welcome the launch of the Social Liberal Forum

2009-02-14T11:21:00.005Z

Along with many others, I have generally rejected the all-too-easy attempts to categorise Lib Dems as either social or economic liberals (although this was clearly a bit of an aberration.) As I have said before, the Orange Book in fact lacked ideological coherence and really was just a collection of essays by individual authors, hardly suggestive of a right-wing or any other kind of project. In addition, the supposed social liberal riposte, Reinventing the state, had many contributors in common with its supposed adversary.

I suspect that virtually all Lib Dems would sign up to the appellation ‘social liberal’, but would differ as to the extent to which they might use, variously, the free market, individual choice, decentralisation and variations in taxation as mechanisms to achieve a fairer and better society. One can certainly see differences of emphasis between the editors of the Orange book, David Laws and Paul Marshall, and those of Reinventing the state, Duncan Brack, Richard Grayson and David Howarth on these issues. But all have clearly been arguing within a Liberal framework. For myself, I tend to agree with any one or group of the above depending on the issue under discussion. For example, I find Laws’ begrudging attitude to local democracy and Reinventing the state’s lack of attention to wealth creation, as opposed to distribution, equally frustrating.

My real problem has been with Paul Holmes/Tim Farron/Evan Harris and the Beveridge Group, who seem stuck in a rut of defending public sector professionals, higher taxation and greater state intervention in all things, regardless of context, to the exclusion of actually finding liberal solutions to social or economic problems. To them, more or less any fresh thinking appears to be a sign of a right-wing conspiracy and if they don’t exactly stifle debate, they sour the atmosphere in which it is conducted.

I have long lamented the lack of an authentically Liberal forum what for the sake of brevity we will call the left of the party, and I give a cautious but nonetheless warm welcome to the Social Liberal Forum. I certainly think that Charlotte Gore and Alix Mortimer who seem keen to damn it from the start ought at least to give it a chance. If in a year’s time SLF turns out to be a mere vehicle for calling David Laws and Lib Dems who agree with him crypto-Tories then such criticism might be warranted. But let’s wait and see.

There are various reasons why my welcome is both warm and cautious. In the first place, when I notice the presence of Tim Farron and Paul Holmes, contributors of embarrassingly bad chapters to Reinventing the state, on its advisory board, my heart sinks. But the majority of those associated with SLF are not by any means of that stamp. They represent a diverse range of Lib Dem opinion and at least one leading light, James Graham, is more than aware of the shortcomings of the collectivist left of the party.

Likewise I wince a little when I read Richard Grayson’s reference to ‘two approaches’ to Lib Dem policy, ‘Orange Book' and ‘social liberal’. This makes me feel more uncomfortable as I, and no doubt many other Lib Dems, don’t fall neatly into either camp, and don’t find them mutually exclusive. It smacks of a ‘them and us’ attitude to internal debate. But I am sure that is not Richard’s intention and this is confirmed by the reprinting on the SLF website of David Howarth’s generous and inclusive chapter from Reinventing the state.

Both Richard and David appear to place great importance on the rise of so-called New Liberalism a century or so ago as a vital point of departure for social liberalism. If anything, recent historians have called this into question, suggesting that Victorian Liberals may have been rather less and Edwardian Liberals a little more sceptical of state intervention than is often imagined. My hope is that SLF might draw emphasise the democratic element of Liberal social policy, looking to traditions of citizenship, individualism, participation and decentralisation rather than simply advocating collectivism and greater state intervention.

Last but not least, I fear there is a tendency among those who stress ‘social liberalism’ to ignore economics altogether, to consider only how to spend taxes and not how to generate wealth. I always want to ask those who noisily proclaim that they are social not economic liberals: ‘So how would you describe your economic views then – illiberal/social democratic/conservative/Stalinist?’ In current economic circumstances, liberals of all stripes need to think about reinventing rather more than just the state.

SLF has the opportunity to engage in new thinking about liberalism and Lib Dem policy, stimulate genuine debate with a different perspective from, but without hostility towards sister/rival bodies such as Centre Forum. I look forward to seeing how this new initiative develops.

A man's a man for a' that

2009-01-25T16:52:00.002Z

The 250th anniversary of Robert Burns' birth provides me with an excuse to revive this blog, but sadly it has been neglected elsewhere - at least if the publications I read are anything to go by. History Today, the New Statesman, Guardian and Observer have all arrived with little or no comment on the anniversary, a poor recognition of someone who is not only only Scotland's national poet, but also one with a worldwide reputation and who speaks powerfully of the human condition.

How to explain such neglect. Perhaps it is that with Burns celebrations on 25 January every year, the novelty of a big anniversary doesn't seem that great. I suspect that the London media are tempted to leave Burns to their Scottish counterparts. Secondly, there is a tendency, connived at by at least some Scots, to coat Burns in an aura of tartan tweeness, along with sporrans, Baxter's soup, shortbread and oatcakes.

Whichever way, few enough of us were around for the 200th anniversary or will be for the 300th. This is an opportuninity to celebrate a great lyric poet and a political radical whose writings should be an inspiration to Liberals and everyone with progressive values.

The BBC, under fire from so many quarters just now, has taken the Burns anniversary seriously, so you can watch or listen to any of the programmes listed here. Strangely not listed are is today's edition of Poetry Please on Radio 4, which you can listen to here.

And perhaps also take a little time to read at least one Burns poem, possibly even this one:

Is there for honest Poverty

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a cuif for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that:
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

Underdogs 2: Montrose FC

2008-12-24T20:07:00.002Z

One of the delights of my childhood was the occasional visit to Links Park to watch Montrose FC, then, during the mid-1970s, enjoying the most successful years in their history, including finishing one spot off gaining promotion to the Scottish premiership.

Having moved down to Watford, I never had occasion to go back to Montrose and watch the 'Links Park Dynamo' again. But a few years ago, visiting old haunts, I was disappointed to see that the ground had changed out of recognition since the 1970s.

To my delight, therefore, I have found a series of short videos showing Scottish football grounds in the 1980s. Possibly I am the only person in the world (or at least outside Montrose) who is interested in this, but just in case, here is the link. We used to stand in the terrace (now demolished) that ran along the side of the pitch.

Underdogs 1: George Harrison - This Song

2008-12-24T19:59:00.002Z

In all things I root for the underdog, so naturally I have always believed that George Harrison was the true genius of the Beatles, and I have been rediscovering his solo output recently. To support my case, I cite this early (1976) video This song, a humorous response to being sued over his hit My sweet Lord's resemblance to The Chiffons' He's so fine.

The Cruiser versus the tabloid bruiser

2008-12-21T12:15:00.007Z

Why is it that when someone dies who was not quite in step with its editorial line the Guardian feels the need to trash them? It isn't big and it isn't clever and merely makes the liberal left look every bit as nasty and mean-spirited as the right.

The most notorious case was Polly Toynbee's attack on Auberon Waugh, which however wrong-headed of itself, at least had the merit of appearing heartfelt and reflecting a genuine clash between opposing styles of journalism.

There is rather less excuse for setting tabloid bruiser Roy Greenslade (editor of the Mirror under Maxwell and assistant editor of the Sun during the Falklands era) to flay the earthly remains of Conor Cruise O'Brien.

Mick Fealty of the Slugger O'Toole website commented on negative postings about O'Brien that 'the answer is not that people should not speak ill of the dead, but that people say something of value about them'. This is the test that Greenslade's piece fails. There is an air of the Guardian feeling that because O'Brien was an apostate from the liberal consensus, they needed a hired gun to dole out a verbal beating, even if it is as ill-informed as Greenslade's article.

He starts by describing the obituaries as a 'hagiographic outpouring', which I suppose they may be if you are a republican-sympathising tabloid journalist unable to recognise the subtleties of nuance and qualification in language. My reading of the obituaries, inluding the one published in the Guardian, was that while they were mostly respectful, as they should be to someone who had had such a long and varied career, few were unqualified by criticism.

On the substance of O'Brien's career, the best Greenslade can do is accuse him of 'flip-flopping', particularly over the partition of Ireland. Where to start here? I suppose some people may regard it as a damning indictment that over the course of 60 years, someone should alter their opinion at all on a given issue. Possibly Greenslade has never had occasion to change his 'mind' on anything. But given that O'Brien had engaged with Northern Ireland, its politics and history alternately as a historian, diplomat, politician and newspaper columnist, over several decades, it is no surprise that his thinking evolved, a concept that Greenslade clearly finds hard to comprehend.

In this case, the criticism is that in the 1940s O'Brien organised anti-partitionist propaganda, then became opposed to irridentist nationalism, then in the late 1990s 'he disavowed the very unionist viewpoints he had been prosyletising for'. At face value, hardly a case of serial flip-flopping, but even less so if we consider the reality. Greenslade article offers a link to the book he cites as justification for this claim, but in fact it just turns out to be the Wikipedia entry on O'Brien. Greenslade appears not to have read the book he cites, or if he has has not understood it, and gives no clear evidence that he even knows which one it is.

In his various publications including States of Ireland and Ancestral Voices (links given in previous posts) O'Brien explained how as a civil servant in the 1940s he conducted anti-partitionist propaganda. At the time opposition to partition was almost a given for anyone involved in politics or administration in the Irish republic. O'Brien realised that the propaganda was not doing much good given Unionist hostility to a united Ireland, but felt it was probably not doing much harm. When the Provisional IRA begin its armed campaign in the early 1970s he concluded that the prevailing anti-partitionism of the Irish state offered a kind of moral justification for the Provisionals and began to re-think his view of partition, defending the rights of Unionists not to join a united Ireland. In the late 1990s, fearful of excessive repulican influence in the peace process, and Sinn Fein gaining power in Northern Ireland and the Republic, he argued in his book Memoir: my life and themes that Unionists should consider whether they would stand more chance of sidelining Sinn Fein and wielding greater influence by joining a united Ireland. It was certainly not a case of returning to old-fashioned nationalism. So while his views hardly remained unchanged between the 1940s and 2008, it was more a case of his opinions evolving in response to the course of events (a practice supported by his hero Edmund Burke) rather than of constantly changing his mind.

Certainly he has been more consistent than republican apologists who made excuses for a quarter of a century of violence and thousands of deaths aimed at creating a united Ireland, only to find Sinn Fein accepting a partitionist settlement after all.

Next Greenslade attacks O'Brien for having the 'temerity' to complain about lack of free speech in Nkrumah's Ghana while denying terrorists and their apologists access to broadcasting airwaves in Ireland. Again, I suppose nuance is lost on Greenslade, although the rest of us might understand the difference between the general proscription of free speech in an incipient dictatorship and specific restrictions on organisations dedicated to overthrowing the state. (In the 1970s at least, the Provisional IRA regarded itself of the legitimate government of the 32 counties and did not recognise the 26-county republic.) Whether or not one agrees with O'Brien's solution to this (although the subsequent Fianna Fail government did not repeal his legislation), it is a genuine dilemma for any democratic government faced with a campaign of paramilitary violence.

Bizarrely, Greenslade claims that such restrictions helped to delay the peace process. While he offers no evidence for this, the implication is that if only people had understood republican arguments sooner, all would have been well. But of course the Provos only formally became part of peace talks once they had declared a ceasefire and on the basis of a partitionist settlement. Republican arguments of the mid-1970s bore little or no relation to the discourse of the peace process. In any case they were never lacking for 'useful idiots' in the British left and liberal media to plead their cause. One does not have to be an unswerving follower of the Cruiser to recognise this. Indeed the Guardian's own Northern Ireland correspondence has just written a book about it, Gunsmoke and Mirrors.

In a final display of petty-mindedness, Greenslade chooses to quibble about O'Brien's exact title when he worked for the Observer, nearly 30 years ago. Goodness knows, that there is enough to disagree with Conor Cruise O'Brien about. Even as a stong admirer of his, I might mention his Euroscepticism, regarding Islam as a monolithic force, support for George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, and his opposition to David Trimble's role in the peace process combined with a misplaced confidence that Ian Paisley would not do a deal with Sinn Fein, as examples of where I part company from him. (Although of course one should make allowances for his advancing years and declining health.)

There was certainly room for considered criticism of O'Brien amid the obituaries, but Greenslade's piece isn't it. It is best regarded as the homage that a bad writer unintenionally pays to a much better one. O'Brien's reputation is enhanced rather than diminished by Greenslade's attack.

PS: In the heat of the moment there I forgot to acknowledge Jonathan Calder for drawing my attention to the Roy Greenslade article.

'We don't do relationships'

2008-12-20T16:35:00.003Z

I never did quite get round to posting properly on the Haut de la Garenne case in Jersey, nor on the Haringey Baby P issue, as I had intended.

This article by Edinburgh University academic Mark Smith, on the Good Enough Caring website run by my father Charles Sharpe, sheds much light on the current difficulties faced by the social work profession and possibly therefore on both the aforementioned controversies.

It begins:

Having spent almost 20 years working in residential child care I now teach social work. I was horrified (although sadly not altogether surprised) when a student reported back from a field visit that she had been told by a children and families social worker, ‘we don’t do relationships anymore”. It wasn’t even said with regret apparently, just a statement of what the social work role had become.

On the death of Conor Cruise O'Brien

2008-12-20T16:29:00.002Z

‘He was never afraid to take up unpopular positions, with the result that few ever agreed with him all the time’ was the verdict of Irish Labour party leader Eamon Gilmore on Conor Cruise O’Brien, who died on Thursday.

This is reflected in the ambivalence of many of the obituaries. The Cruiser defied easy ideological categorisation. As a former Irish Labour party politician and a member of that party when he died, he can be seen as a man of the left, the more so in the light of his championing of secular values in Ireland and his hostility to the influence of the Catholic Church. His career in the United Nations, and in particular his involvement in the Congo places him as an anti-imperialist. His long-standing opposition to the Irish republican movement is less easy to pigeonhole, but his strong Zionist sympathies, not to mention his support in his later years for George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, meant that he often drew more praise from right- rather than left-wingers. The more so in view of his later identification with Unionism and his opposition to the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

In truth, once he was freed from involvement in front-line politics in 1977, Cruise O’Brien was that rare thing – an intellectual who did not feel himself bound by the set menu of either left or right, but who was willing to think things out for himself and reach his own conclusions. That is what makes him difficult to pigeonhole and therefore why he is not being mourned as a hero of left, right or centre, however respectful most of the obituaries may be. Of course, some of the reactions to his death have not been respectful at all, and the virulence of some of the comments on, for example, the Slugger O’Toole website from republican sympathisers would no doubt have pleased him as much as the positive tributes. 'A man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies', as O’Brien’s fellow Trinity College Dublin graduate, Oscar Wilde, once said

I hope that at least some liberals will shed a tear for his passing and more importantly should read his work, for however much we too will not agree with him on everything, there is much he has to teach us. In the first place, O’Brien was a scathing critic of nationalism and in particular of the dangerous cocktail of nationalism and religion. In Ireland he exposed how republicanism, even when dressed up in secular language, was closely linked to religious notions of blood sacrifice, which enabled its adherents to see themselves as being on a more profound moral plane than those forced to make the shabby compromises of democratic politics. He was particularly critical of ‘sneaking regarders’ - nationalists who formally opposed violent republicanism but nonetheless were ambivalent about confronting it. O’Brien’s critique of Irish nationalism was all the more powerful because he came from a strongly nationalist background, but the wider message is that we should look upon all national movements with scepticism rather than simply assume that national conflicts are a matter of victims versus oppressors and back the ones we regard as the good guys.

When he was a minister in the 1973–77 Fine Gael–Labour coalition, he was much criticised for extending the ban on representatives of and apologists for the republican movement appearing on state broadcasting channels. This was seen as compromising his liberal credentials and was criticised as an attack on free speech. Yet O’Brien justified it on the grounds that an organisation which did not recognise the legitimacy of the Irish state, formally claimed to be the legitimate government, and used violence in order to undermine the state, should not be granted access to the airwaves by the government which it sought to overthrow. In doing this, he tackled head-on the reality that free speech can never be an absolute and that democracies will in extreme circumstances have to protect themselves from their enemies.

Indeed, one of the threads that run through O’Brien’s writing, is that in general order is better than anarchy and that attempts to overthrow governments by violence generally leads to more bloodshed rather than greater justice. This led him, for example, not only to oppose the republican movement in Ireland, but also American attempts during the Cold War to destabilise hostile governments – he was a strong opponent of US funding of the Contras in Nicaragua during the 1980s.

It is perhaps no surprise therefore, that the historical figure with whom O’Brien most closely identified was Edmund Burke, the eighteenth century Whig reformer who became the earliest and most trenchant critic of the French revolution. His biography of Burke, The Great Melody, is a brilliant, though highly personal study of his fellow Irishman, which argues that in supporting reform of British rule in America, India and Ireland, while opposing revolution based on abstract theory, Burke was being consistent by objecting to abuse of power, no matter from which quarter it came. As I am inclined to think that liberals too easily cede Burke to the ranks of conservative thinkers, I would recommend The Great Melody to Liberal readers of this blog as a way of gaining an insight not only into the mind of one of the great thinkers of the eighteenth century, but also one of the most important public intellectuals of the twentieth.

It is the fate of writers of non-fiction that books go out of print very quickly, but for those who wish to understand the conflicts in Ireland over the last century in its emotional and spiritual as well as political dimensions, it is worth tracking down O’Brien’s States of Ireland, his response to the start of the Provisional IRA armed campaign and also Ancestral Voices, his later reflection on the links between religion and Irish nationalism.

If nothing else, at least read the obituaries, which are many and various, including those in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Irish Times, The Times, New York Times.

There is also a very interesting interview from the 1990s in the UC Berkeley Conversations with History series on Youtube.

Coverage of Jersey in the press

2008-11-20T13:33:00.002Z

Richard Webster's blog inlcudes an interesting discussion of the treatment of the 'murder inquiry that wasn't' in last week's press. He pertinently points out that

...the invocation of evil is too often used to justify all manner of shortcomings on the part of those who crusade against it. Because, in our own culture, we seem to have adopted child abuse as our ultimate evil, the assumption is frequently made that actions which are less than entirely scrupulous can be justified so long as they are aimed at defeating this evil.

While the conspiracy theorists are letting rip about cover-ups and the like, it is perhaps pointing out one more plausible explanation for the nature and timing of the police's announcment. A couple of weeks ago the Jersey Evening Post reported that defence lawyers for the two people so far charged as a result of the child abuse inquiry were arguing that their clients could not get a fair trial because of the media publicity about the case.

Perhaps the police hope that by separating the specific evidence in individual cases from the falsehoods of the 'House of horrors' media sensation they are more likely to achieve successful prosecutions in those cases where there is compelling evidence of abuse. Whichever way, the tactics adopted by Lenny Harper and his supporters have probably hindered rather than helped the victims of abuse and reduced the likelihood of bringing abusers to justice.

Jersey revelations should come as no surprise

2008-11-14T09:23:00.005Z

At Spiked online and on his own blog, Richard Webster points out that the conclusions of Jersey police's recent statement 'could in fact have been reached by any journalist who had sceptically studied the evidence about Haut de la Garenne already in the public domain'.

Webster was of course responsible for exposing the falsehood of the police's original claim that a child's skull had been found at the former children's home.

I hope to post at greater length on this issue (when I get around to it, as the saying is), but suffice to say for now that given the horror we all feel about child abuse and the sensitivity needed to investigate it, it's best if the police don't go out of their way to encourage media sensationalism on the basis of (at best) suspect information.

Prescott, privilege and class prejudice

2008-10-29T22:06:00.002Z

I have just finished watching the first part of John Prescott’s programme about class. Although it was at times both fascinating and quite moving, in the end I find Prescott’s chip on his shoulder about class, his visceral resentment of anyone who appears too posh or privileged, hard to sympathise with.

This was particularly so at the moment when he began sounding off at a teenage lad at the Henley Regatta who went to a private school. It turned out that the young man had two-thirds of his fees paid by the state because his father was in the army, at which point Prescott demanded to know why the government paid for the education of officers but not of other ranks. To which the obvious answer is ‘Well you tell us that John. You were in government for 10 years and in a better position than most to change it and you didn’t. You were the one with the power, not the young man you were berating.’

Prescott’s bête noir Simon Hoggart, who regularly made fun of the way the former deputy prime minister tortures the English language, is certainly not the archetypal toff that Prescott seems to imagine. His father, Richard Hoggart, may have been a university lecturer, but he grew up as a working class boy in Leeds and his most famous book The Uses of Literacy is a discussion of working class culture. I have heard Hoggart père speak (he received an honorary degree when I graduated from Leicester University many moons ago) and he doesn’t sound any posher than Prescott.

I suppose part of my irritation with Prescott is that I entirely lack the strong class affiliations that he has. I could with equal accuracy describe my antecedents as middle class (or at least petit bourgeois) business people or working-class factory hands. I could portray my own upbringing either as a privileged existence at prestigious private schools or a difficult one spent living on council estates and attending evening classes at a further education colleage to get into university. Whichever way, I am automatically suspicious of anyone who too obviously wears their class loyalty on their sleeve or who appears to judge people according to class.

One prejudice I do confess to, though, is against people who boast of not reading books, as Prescott appeared to do at one point in the programme. This is not something I have picked up from a supposedly privileged education, but from my four grandparents, and in particular from my maternal grandmother who left school aged about 13 virtually illiterate, yet whose voracious reading habits in the course of a long life have taken in most of the great works of literature. She has always taken a particularly dim view of people who can read but don’t.

Perhaps if Prescott had spent more time reading and less time talking he wouldn’t mangle the English language so much, and it is this latter point that is what really seems to bother him. Interestingly, it emerged that Prescott grew up in a private, semi-detached house and came from a rather less deprived background than that of his wife Pauline. Yet Mrs Prescott now speaks with a less pronounced accent than her husband.

Which puts me in mind of the story told about Henry Kissinger’s elder brother, who had entirely lost the distinctive Austrian accent that was so marked in his younger sibling. When asked why this was, the brother commented, ‘Unlike Henry, I listen to other people’. It would be unfair to say this was wholly true of Prescott. His meetings with the three unemployed young women from London revealed his genuine concern for the poor, an ability listen and to communicate with them on their level. But Prescott clearly judges people according to his perception of which class they belong to, and this is something I find unsavoury from whichever direction it comes. Perhaps that is one reason why I am a Liberal and not a socialist (or, for that matter, Tory.)

Why do Watford Conservatives refuse to condemn Ian Oakley?

2008-10-19T22:14:00.000+01:00

This week’s Watford Observer states that the Chairman of Watford Conservative Association, Steve O’Brien, has refused to comment after former Conservative parliamentary candidate Ian Oakley received a suspended prison sentence having admitted 75 charges of harassment and criminal damage.

I have commented before about the bizarre silence of Watford Conservatives over the whole Oakley affair. The most charitable, albeit unlikely, explanation was that they were waiting for the whole legal process to be complete. Now there can be no excuse.

Just to be clear – there has been no official comment by Watford Conservatives on Oakley’s arrest, resignation, conviction or sentencing. They have not condemned Oakley’s offences, not expressed regret that these acts should have been committed by such a senior Conservative and not expressed sympathy with his victims.

There can now be no innocent explanation for the silence of Watford Conservatives. For avoidance of doubt, I refer to those who are in charge of the local Conservative Association. I am sure that ordinary Conservative supporters and members in Watford and elsewhere do indeed abhor what Oakley has done.

The official Watford Conservatives’ silence suggests ambivalence about the whole affair. It implies that they are not really sorry that Oakley did what he did, believe that at some level the Lib Dems deserved it and are not willing to condemn the criminal behaviour of a Conservative if there is any danger that this will give comfort to the Lib Dems.

The Conservatives no doubt believe, perhaps rightly, that the media attention has passed and the story will soon be forgotten about. But questions remain about Watford Conservatives, foremost among which are: what is their real attitude to using criminal methods for political advantage? and why do they feel unable to condemn Ian Oakley’s actions?

Until such questions are answered, Watford Conservatives will rightly remain tainted by the suspicion that they tacitly condone Oakley’s behaviour.

Is this Brown's Darlington?

2008-09-24T13:37:00.004+01:00

Older readers will remember how in 1983 Labour's unexpectedly good result in the Darlington by-election extinguished any threat to Michael Foot's leadership, leaving him free to lead the party to its disastrous general election defeat in the same year.

The broadly positive reaction to Gordon Brown's speech at the Labour conference in Manchester might just about have saved his skin too - although Ruth Kelly's resignation won't help Brown.

As with 1983, the problem now is both about the leader and the party - changing leaders now might do some good but not much. Back then, if Dennis Healey had taken over as leader, he might have saved a few Labour seats, but not much more. The scale of the Foot disaster probably helped to make the more sensible members of the party realise that things had to change.

I note that back in 2006 this blog pointed out the many negative precedents for lieutenants taking over from long-serving and electorally-successful party leaders. Rosebery, Balfour and James Callaghan and Alec Douglas-Hume all led their parties to catastrophic defeats, Neville Chamberlain never got as far as a general election. Anthony Eden and John Major who did win general elections are hardly happy precedents either.

So the odds were always against a successful Brown premiership. Let's face it, if Brown had been good enough, he would have been chosen ahead of Blair in 2004 - he was older, more experienced and had greater intellectual depth. The fact that those who dreamed of New Labour New Britain went for Blair not Brown was an unequivocal vote of no confidence. Elevating Brown to the top job was a bit like a football team replacing a top striker with a dependable centre half.

The problem, however, is not just one of leadership. Despite fears among the political classes about the fickleness of the electorate, in fact at five of the last six general elections they have re-elected the governing party. This, too, is unprecedented. In the previous six elections, the incumbent government won just twice, and these - 1966 and October 1974 were snap elections called while Labour were still in honeymoon periods.

Of course, for much of the last 30 years the party in power has faced an official opposition that looked unconvincing, if not impossible, as a party of government. If we return to a period when both Labour and the Conservatives inspire doubt and confidence in equal measure then we are likely to see changes of power happen more regularly.

So Labour are probably best advised to stick with the devil they know. Brown has probably earned the right on the basis of past service to lead the party into the next election. One can't help feeling that the electoral tide has now turned against Labour and they will have to accept their coming defeat with dignity and try to regroup in opposition.

At least, that's what I would probably conclude were I a member of the Labour party. But of course I'm not, but rather a Lib Dem campaigner in a marginal seat where we are hoping to unseat a Labour MP. So instead, I will hope for the anti-Brown campaign to gather pace, a messy act of regicide, continuing bitterness and bad feeling, leading to catastrophic defeat and the ultimate replacement of Labour by the Lib Dems as the main alternative to the Tories.

Whichever way, it's time to get delivering those leaflets.

A lament for the end of Julian Clary's column in the New Statesman

2008-09-22T23:16:00.003+01:00

Recently Jonathan Calder joked about expecting dismissal as New Statesman online columnist for being spotted by the editor carrying a copy of the Daily Mail at conference.

At least I assumed it was a joke. But now I wonder. For I read in this week's magazine that Julian Clary has been relieved of his column (that sounds uncomfortably close to a double entendre) by the Staggers' powers that be. Of course since his piece is humourous, it could be a joke and Clary has just decided he's had enough. But my antennae are always twitching as to whether the NS will retain its sense of humour.

Back in the 1980s it was virtually unreadable - a steady diet of left-wing politics, unleavened by humour or light relief of any kind. So, despite its right-wing leanings, I became a Spectator reader.

A few years ago, however, I changed loyalties and took out a subscription to the Staggers having begun to find the Spectator too conventional in its right-wingery, while the NS seemed to have rediscovered its lighter side, stopped taking itself too seriously and engaged an eclectic range of contributors. Not everyone liked its use of comedians as columnists (This Week - Kelly Monteith on the US Presidential Elections), but both Julian Clary has really been very good at doing humour for a serious readership (as has Shazia Mirza whose column appeared on alternate weeks from Clary's).

Now I'm worried that the humourous bits of the magazine will be given over to worthy articles by Polly Toynbee or Jackie Ashley and their like and the magazine will become unbearable for all who don't spend their whole lives dreaming up schemes to organise the poor. Fortunately, if that does turn out to be the case, my subscription is due shortly and I can always decide not to renew. But let's hope not! I have got to like the Staggers over the years and feel that reading it is a kind of insurance policy against developing excessively right-wing views as I advance further into middle age.

Frank Luntz - an apology

2008-09-19T23:34:00.002+01:00

Liberal Democrat bloggers may have in the past given the impression that they consider American pollster Frank Luntz as a wholly inappropriate person to be used by the BBC because of his clear right-wing bias.

In fact we now realise that Mr Luntz is a wholly impartial expert, with an unrivalled insight into the popular appeal of political leaders.

Gerry Rafferty missing

2008-09-17T22:37:00.003+01:00

Catching up with emails after returning from conference I found myself listening to City to City by Gerry Rafferty.

Out of curiosity I check on Wikipedia to see what he is up to these days, and was surprised to read that he is missing, having checked out of St Thomas's Hospital on 11 August leaving his belongings behind. Strangely, though there is hardly anything on the major news websites about it.

This seems odd, since although Rafferty is hardly an A-list celebrity these days, both 'Baker Street' and 'Stuck in the middle with you' are very famous songs, so you would expect his sudden and unexplained disappearance to be more widely reported.

There is a brief report here.

Lib Dems still in thrall to anti-GM superstition

2008-09-12T14:04:00.001+01:00

I get these regular email briefings from Cowley Street on various topical issues. In general, I tend to ignore them, partly because as a non-parliamentary candidate they don’t apply to me, but perhaps more in case they plunge me into a gloom because the party line differs from my own view.

But curiosity led me to open the suggested response to enquiries on GM-food, drafted by Roger Williams MP, who is apparently our agriculture spokesman. I hoped our line might have softened since the days when Donnachadh McCarthy used to propose a seemingly annual anti-GM motion at party conference.

My hopes have been raised by the knowledge that some voices – most notably Evan Harris and Dick Taverne – have been raised in favour of a more balanced policy. But clearly there is a way still to go as the Roger Williams' line appears implacable in its hostility.

Perhaps most depressing is the statement that: ‘Liberal Democrats oppose commercial growing of Genetically Modified crops until it is known that they are environmentally safe.’ This amounts to a ruling out of GM food for ever and all time. For it will never be possible to prove that they are environmentally safe. All that can be proved is that there is no evidence of it causing harm. The problem with the anti-GM lobby is that their position has become a matter of faith such that there is no evidence at all that could convince them of the merits of GM-technology. Clearly there is some way to go before the party sees sense on this.

On the government's decision not to list Robin Hood Gardens...

2008-08-18T21:50:00.003+01:00

This blog's pretentions to be topical are generally undermined by the long gaps between postings. During the July hiatus, I missed out on the news that government minister Margaret Hodge has decided not to list the controversial neo-brutalist 'masterpiece' Robin Hood Gardens, Poplar, designed by Alison and Peter Smithson.

Although the building has many champions, the decision not to list it apparently now clears the way for its demolition and a redevelopment scheme.

My late great-grandmother, Sarah Bridges was for many years a resident of Robin Hood Gardens, and made her own valiant attempts to demolish the building.

As she got older, she became more forgetful, but was unwilling to accept the fact. On one occasion she put an unopened tin of sponge putting into the oven, went into the next room and forgot about it until the cooker exploded. To protect her from herself, they removed the cooker, so she then tried heating tins of food in the electric kettle, which again exploded after she let it boil dry. After that she was put into a care home.

I like to think that when the bulldozers move into Robin Hood Gardens (assuming they haven't already) they will merely be completing work that my great-grandmother started many years ago.

'Nasty Russia and plucky Georgia' is a dangerous myth

2008-08-16T21:52:00.004+01:00

I suppose it’s a salutary lesson. Earlier this week I suggested that given my ignorance of a subject, Jonathan Calder’s more informed view would be a good guide to my own reaction. Today I find myself in the unlikely position of agreeing with an article by leftist Guardianista Seumas Milne that is branded ‘disgraceful’ by Jonathan on the Liberal England blog. (Memo to self - don't form opinions by proxy, you'll find yourself disagreeing with everyone sometimes).

The issue is the Russo-Georgian conflict over South Ossetia. Last week I cited with approved the Guardian article by Mark Almond, which warned against a simplistic paradigm of Russia bad, Georgia good. Misha Glenny’s article in yesterday’s New Statesman showed a similar nuanced view.

Sadly, almost everywhere else (other than Seumas Milne’s article) it seems Russia is portrayed as the baddie. It appears that all three of Britain’s main political parties, plus both main American presidential contenders take this view. As I suggested above, I don’t like to think of myself as on the side of unreconstructed leftists, but this episode to me smacks of dangerous western hubris.

As anyone who has read Margaret Macmillan’s book on the 1919 Versailles settlement, Peacemakers, twentieth century Europe has seen any number of minority ethnic, religious or national groups trapped inside often arbitrarily drawn borders. These situations have given rise to tensions that we can only imagine, sitting as we are in a relatively homogenous state whose borders have been pretty well established down the centuries. South Ossetia is one such problem, over which Georgia and Russia need to find a modus vivendi.

Like Russia, Georgia has questionable democratic credentials, although both are clearly a long way from being like the former Soviet Union. Yet Georgia has made a point of cosying up to America, attempting to join NATO and in this instance was at least initially the aggressor. It is very well to accuse Russia of overreacting, but it is not that unusual for a country reacting to an act of aggression to want to make enough impact to deter future acts. This is not to condone everything that Russia has done, but merely to say that Georgia was playing a dangerous game and should have seen that it risked reaping a whirlwind.

It is worrying to see references to that bible of cold war hawks 20 years ago Jean-François Revel’s How Democracies Perish. For we are not in a cold war situation with Russia. The current regime there is not like the Soviet Union. But as liberals all too often fail to recognise, patriotic sentiment is a very powerful force in the world, and one which we can’t simply ignore. We may have seen the break up of the Soviet Union as a case of liberation from communist oppression, but for many Russians it will have also been a national humiliation.

After a decade or more in a kind of international disgrace Russia now appears on the rebound – more confident and successful than it has been since the 1980s. For most of the past 200 years Russia has either been a great power or a superpower, with the exception of the years immediately after the October 1917 Revolution and the period after the end of the Cold War. It was never likely to accept for long being surrounded on its borders by a potentially hostile military alliance.

The current conflict is a warning that the west has pushed Russia too far. International diplomacy always has and always will depend on pragmatism if peace is to be maintained. The harsh reality is that smaller countries take up an overtly hostile and provocative attitude to their larger and more powerful neighbours at their peril. That is what Georgia has done in this case, with the tacit, and triumphalist, support of the USA and NATO.

It is in the interests of a peaceful world to find a solution that saves face on both sides. Let us hope that somewhere within the USA or the European Union there exists enough understanding of statesmanship to understand this and not drive Russia into a siege mentality.

On the death of Jerry Wexler

2008-08-15T22:38:00.002+01:00

The BBC News website reports the death of 'legendary' Muscle Shoals producer Jerry Wexler.

I can't claim detailed knowledge of his career, but he did produce one of my favourite albums, Bob Dylan's masterpiece of bad-tempered spirituality Slow Train Coming, the first record of his born-again Christian era.

The most famous story from the Wexler/Dylan encounter is told as follows:

During the recording Dylan tried to interest Wexler in Biblical matters. Wexler comments: "When I told him he was dealing with a confirmed 63-year-old Jewish atheist, he cracked up." Wexler was tolerantly amused by the whole business: "I liked the idea of Bob coming to me, the Wandering Jew, to get the Jesus feel."

But I see that like all famous anecdotes, its factual accuracy is challenged - see here.

Whatever the truth, their liaison resulted in a great record.

Tenuous top five: my brushes with celebrity

2008-08-15T20:48:00.007+01:00

This blog could do with a bit of light relief, so I will take up James Graham's suggestion in a comment at Liberal Democrat Voice that:

Maybe we should do a list of the top 100 minor celebs that Lib Dems have vaguely met in pubs?

This is a bit like the 'Anyone for Tenuous' feature that used to run in Viz comic.

Anyway, here are my top five:

1. England women's football player Kelly Smith, 'the best player in the world' used to babysit for my stepchildren (she lived just down the road from us).

2. I was taught French by James Mason's brother. Mr Mason used to tell the story of how his father had told his three sons that there were three professions he wanted them to avoid: acting, teaching and the church. And sure enough one became an actor, one a teacher and one a priest.

3. I was at school with Rob Wainwright, the former Scottish rugby captain. My father taught at the school and coached its rugby team, which included Wainwright I as he was known then, (it was a prep. school so we were all known by our surnames) and taught him to play rugby.

4. And I was also at a different school with Jay Rayner, the famous novelist, food critic of the Observer and son of Claire Rayner.

5. The lady who used to babysit for my wife when she was a little girl later married the actor Kenny Baker, R2-D2 out of Star Wars.

Have Watford Conservatives entirely lost their moral compass?

2008-08-15T13:50:00.006+01:00

A week on from the news of Ian Oakley’s conviction being reported in the local press, and we still have no official comment from anyone speaking on behalf of Watford Conservatives – no formal expression of regret, apology, or sympathy for Mr Oakley’s victims.

There is, however, a letter in today’s Watford Observer (letters are not available online) from Gary Ling, former Conservative councillor and former Mayoral candidate, who might reasonably be considered a senior Conservative figure in the town.

His comments are forthright indeed. He describes the episode as ‘a concerted form of collective retribution’, ‘truly disgusting’, a ‘smear’, a ‘spectacular own-goal’ and ‘low-blow tactics’. Unfortunately, these epithets are not used to refer to Mr Oakley, but rather to the Liberal Democrats’ reaction in Watford to the news of Oakley's conviction. Mr Ling attacks us for implying guilt by association, claiming that our response has been ‘as bad, or worse’ as/than Mr Oakley’s activities.

Of course claiming guilt by association is exactly what we have tried to avoid doing, and indeed I don’t see anywhere a suggestion from us that the Conservatives were collectively part of Mr Oakley’s criminal campaign. What we have said is that it ought to be investigated by the Conservatives to find out if anyone else knew/was involved or whether there was any negligence in failing to detect what he was up to. Given the extent and timescale of the hate campaign, I think it is fair enough to ask for this. It is not the same as asserting that individual Conservatives or their local association were complicit. It is saying no more than that they need to be asking themselves some tough questions.

To be fair to Mr Ling he does leave the reader in no doubt that he condemns what Mr Oakley has done. But while he states that this view is agreed with by the chairman of Watford Conservatives, the latter has made no public statement at all on the subject. Or rather, after the arrest, but before the conviction, he described the whole thing as a ‘little hiccup’ and appeared primarily concerned with its effects on the Conservatives’ electoral prospects. Before the court hearing he noticeably sat next to Mr Oakley, who was also seen to be embraced by two other leading Watford Conservatives.

So let’s say it one more time. No one actually thinks that Watford Conservatives as a body endorsed what Mr Oakley did. But they gave him positions of responsibility in their organisation. By his own admission, the Conservatives were the intended beneficiaries of his criminal campaign. And so close were the margins that they held their three borough council seats, that it is legitimate to feel that they did derive some benefit from this (even though, no doubt the candidates themselves were unaware of what he was doing).

In the wake of what has happened, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that the Conservatives investigate the whole affair. Other Conservatives have endorsed such a call. It would have been the decent thing to do to express some degree of regret and sympathy and an apology for having introduced Mr Oakley into Watford politics.

So far, in the wake of the conviction, we have had official silence from Watford Conservatives. This fact, combined with the comments from Mr Ling, suggest that some local Conservatives have entirely lost their moral compass.

Gaffe culture and that Policy Exchange report

2008-08-14T12:52:00.002+01:00

The controversy over the Policy Exchange Cities Unlimited report pretty much passed me by until reading today’s postings from James Graham and Jonathan Calder highlighting the role of Lib Dem academic Tim Leunig as co-author of the report.

James described at length the media circus associated with this and wonders whether Policy Exchange has engineered this.

My problem with the whole episode is different and concerns the media (Guardian in this case) attempt to link the report with the Conservative leadership through phrases like ‘Tories’ favourite think tank’ and a claim that David Cameron had been ‘forced to distance himself from the report’.

I don’t pretend to know exactly how close Policy Exchange is to the Tory leadership. I have only come across it concerning Simon Jenkins’s pamphlet on localism and Martin Bright’s (Labour-supporting political editor of the New Statesman) work on the government’s engagement with Islamists.

It seems to me that the quality of political discourse is already reduced by ‘gaffe culture’ whereby if politicians try to express a view out of the mainstream their words are pounced on and quoted out of context by hostile media and political opponents. Now it seems politicians must feel obliged to dissociate themselves from reports published by independent bodies, which they have not commissioned and whose authors may not even belong to their political party.

PS: It is perhaps worth saying that I haven’t read Cities Unlimited, so can’t comment on its contents, but my views are normally very similar to Jonathan Calder’s on such matters and his comments (see link above) seem to me on the right lines.

Dawkins' false dichotomy between Darwinism and religious belief

2008-08-10T21:21:00.002+01:00

Thanks to the magic of TV on demand, I have just watched the first part of Richard Dawkins’ series on Charles Darwin. Although Dawkins’s preoccupation with what he sees as the evils of religious belief is not quite to my taste, he ought to be interesting and informative on Darwin and evolution.

Yet the whole programme was punctuated by the false dichotomy between religious belief and acceptance of the facts of evolution, as if the two were necessarily mutually exclusive. Dawkins appeared to be putting these as antagonists to a school science class. Either he managed to find the largest concentration of creationists in the country, or there was some editorial sleight of hand going on to portray the students’ religious faith as rejection of evolution.

When I was at school in the 1970s and 80s, I was taught that there was no contradiction at all between evolution and religious faith. One was a scientific reality, the other a matter of faith. The mainstream Christian churches had learned to take Darwin in their stride, and generations had grown up accepting both Darwinism and Christianity. When I decided to join the Roman Catholic Church, a quarter of a century ago, the priest who gave me instruction was quite clear that the creation story in Genesis is a benign myth – inspiring of itself but not to be taken literally.

My problem with Dawkins’ incessant attacks on religious belief is twofold. First, there is something of the spirit of religious fundamentalism about insisting that we must choose between God and evolution and the accommodation that has developed in western secular society between the two in the last 150 years has to be denied. The second is that there is a battle between rational science and fundamental religion, how does it help the former to alienate those who would naturally line up on that side of the debate simply because they continue to derive comfort from religious faith.

So one feels there is a degree of intellectual dishonesty at work as Dawkins asks whether his teenage science students have emerged from their a walk on a beach looking at fossils believing in evolution or still believing in God. This viewer remained quite happy believing in both. Dawkins will have to explain why they are mutually antagonistic rather than taking it as a given.

This is perhaps a good time to highlight this excellent review of the God Delusion by American biologist H. Allen Orr.

South Ossetia - not just a question of good guys versus bad

2008-08-09T18:57:00.003+01:00

Just occasionally I find newspaper commentators expressing my thoughts on a topical issue expressed almost exactly (and far better than I could have done.)

This applies to the article by Mark Almond in today's Guardian: 'Plucky little Georgia? No, the cold war reading won't wash'.

National/ethnic/border conflicts are usually complex and rarely have right all on one side. Yet, often prevailing left/liberal/democratic sentiment casts one side as the aggressor and the other as the victim. Closest to home this has been the case in Northern Ireland where Unionists were stereotyped as the bigoted oppressors and Nationalist claims to supercede sectarianism taken at face value.

The demonisation of the Serbs and the way in which the EU, following Germany's lead, uncritically supported the Slovenian and Croation bids for independence, contributed to the disastrous course of the Balkan wars.

In any situation where a minority ethnic group exists within one country, particularly if members of that group feel a degree of allegiance to a neighbouring country, the potential for conflict exists. No solution will ever be satisfactory to everyone.

The best option for the west in South Ossetia is to encourage the parties to make peace, and to avoid getting involved.