Hug A Hoodie

Drink-driving: how to send completely the wrong message

2008-07-14T11:54:00.004+01:00

The government's Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has urged ministers to cut the drink-drive limit to zero - but only for young drivers. For anyone older than 20, the current limit of 80mg per 100ml of blood will still apply.

At first glance, it seems like a good idea. Fewer young people will drink and drive, and we'll all be much safer.

But there's a very serious flaw in the plan. Even with the current 80mg limit, it's impossible to judge how much you can safely drink and still get behind the wheel. Every single piece of official advice says the same thing. I quote this from the Department for Transport's own website: "... the only safe option is not to drink alcohol if you plan to drive ... You can't calculate your alcohol limit, so don't try."

Unfortunately, if you have two separate limits in force, what you're doing is sending the message that it's somehow possible to tell between them. So whilst the under-21s might start to avoid alcohol completely when driving, older drivers will get the impression that it's alright for them to drink a little bit, so long as they stay within an 80mg limit which they can't possibly judge with any accuracy. Sir Liam may have his heart in the right place, but his comments seriously undermine the government's own campaign against drink-driving.

Just imagine the slogan - "Think! Don't drink more than a pint (give or take, depending on your height, weight, sex, ethnicity and personal alcohol tolerance) and drive."

Surely the right strategy would be to set a nominal but very low limit, perhaps half of the current one? It would be impossible to have an alcoholic drink worthy of the name and still be allowed to drive, but it would also protect people from getting arrested for having a trace level in their blood from a drink they'd had hours before. You could then send out a strong and consistent message to drivers of all ages: don't get behind the wheel unless you're completely sober.

This sort of thing happened during the debate on the smoking ban, and we're seeing it again. Government medical advisers may well be good at explaining the science to ministers, but they're extremely bad at coming up with actual policy!

Talking at cross-purposes about Sharia

2008-07-12T13:24:00.002+01:00

When our most senior judge, the Lord Chief Justice, said about a week ago that British Muslims should be able to use Sharia law to settle legal disputes, he provoked a storm of controversy. "We've got a perfectly good legal system (or more accurately, set of legal systems) in Britain," people said, "and if Muslims don't like it, there are plenty of countries governed under Sharia law that they can go to instead." Many scared Britons seemed to think that a Sharia Act was on its way through Parliament, burkhas would become compulsory, and stoning introduced for capital crimes.

So much for the knee-jerk, gutter press reaction. The truth is a lot more mundane, and a lot less controversial.

What Lord Phillips is talking about is the use of Sharia to settle civil disputes. If two Muslims get into a civil case - an argument about money, perhaps - they have, like anyone else, three choices. They can settle it using the civil courts, costing themselves and the taxpayer vast sums of money. They can come to some sort of personal agreement outside of court, and let matters rest. Or they can go to a mediator, someone they can both agree on, who will look at the dispute and come up with a compromise settlement which both sides are then required to accept.

That third-party mediator could be anyone. Usually, it's a dedicated organisation or profesional problem-solver. But it could be anyone that both sides are happy with. And if both parties are practising Muslims, and if they both agree, then why shouldn't they ask a Muslim religious expert to resolve their case using Sharia principles? It's perfectly legal as things stand. So when you think it through properly, the Lord Chief Justice's comments aren't particularly radical - they're just calling for formal recognition of something which people are quite entitled to do already.

So why, if all of this is so mundane, has it sparked such a poisonous and heated controversy? The main problem in debating this issue is that we're talking entirely at cross-purposes when it comes to the word "law". To most people, a law means a legal rule, which everyone has to follow. As soon as you float the idea of Sharia law in the UK, people get the impression you're proposing actual legislation, which would affect all of us, whether we follow Islam or not. Or even worse - legislation which would only affect practising Muslims, creating a parallel legal system.

But a religious "law" is something quite different to a normal law. It's a personal, voluntary commitment made by an individual. For example, it's against the Jewish law (known as Halacha) to eat pork, and thousands of British Jews, including myself, follow that law. Nobody in their right mind would suggest that we're living in a parallel legal system by avoiding certain kinds of food. It's not really a law; it's more of a personal lifestyle choice.

One of the beauties of English Law is that, unless you're doing something that's actually illegal, you can do what the heck you like. That means that British Muslims are free to make the personal decision to follow whatever religious "laws" they wish, as long as it doesn't bring them into conflict with the actual law of the land. I don't believe Lord Phillips has said anything more radical than that. Unfortunately, the argument he has sparked off has degenerated into a comedy of misunderstandings, rather than a meaningful debate.

Licensed to discriminate: Jewish school wins controversial court case

2008-07-06T18:52:00.000+01:00

The JFS, a Jewish school in North London, has just won a significant court case over admissions. They'd refused a place to an 11-year-old boy, because they didn't consider him to be Jewish, even though he'd been brought up and raised in the religion. The father took the school to court on the grounds of racial discrimination, and has just lost.

I think this is a very significant case, which people outside the Jewish community need to pay attention to. It throws up some very major questions about the relationship between the State and all kinds of religious groups.

A bit of background. There are around 250,000 Jews in Britain, and the majority belong to Orthodox Judaism. The other main group, Progressive Judaism (which splits into Reform Judaism and Liberal Judaism), is still a pretty significant denomination, with about 50,000 members. Orthodox Judaism is in a dominant position, however, because it runs most of the key institutions, like the religious courts and the office of Chief Rabbi.

Orthodox Judaism generally cooperates fairly well with the two Progressive movements, but there's one big area where they can't agree: people converting to the faith. If you convert to Orthodox Judaism, you're recognised as a Jew by everyone, no problems. But if you convert to Progressive Judaism, the Orthodox community won't accept you as a Jew.

It's this little theological spat which has landed the JFS comprehensive in the dock. The boy's mother had converted to Judaism, but in a Progressive community. From the Orthodox perspective, she's not Jewish at all, and therefore her son isn't either. That's why the school wouldn't accept him, and that's why this whole argument has ended up rather messily in court.

I have some sympathy for Justice Munby, who made the ruling. A British secular court isn't the place to decide religious questions like "who is a Jew?". I'm sure he just wanted to get the issue out of his courtroom, and pass it back over to the community. What he's actually done is handed total control over Jewish status to one particular, theologically very conservative Jewish denomination. So perversely, whilst trying to avoid making a religious decision, the judge has come down on the side of one main Jewish group, to the exclusion of the other one.

If you're going to have state-funded Jewish schools, they ought to be open to anyone who practises the Jewish religion, in any of the Jewish denominations. I'm really uncomfortable with a movement that represents 80% of British Jews being able to force its views on the other 20%, and to hijack state funding away from members of Progressive communities. I'm even more worried to see this happen with judicial approval. It sets a very dangerous precedent, and people of all religions and none should take notice.

Hugs all around!

2008-07-04T21:32:00.003+01:00

I got my degree result today. I now have (well, technically, am entitled to claim at some point) a BA (Hons) in Modern Languages, class 2:1. Really pleased with it.

Now I know I've done fine, I'm off to celebrate as befits a ginger Liberal Democrat - with copious alcohol.

And then, on to the next great adventure ...

David Davis resigns from Parliament

2008-06-12T13:26:00.001+01:00

In an unprecedented decision, Conservative shadow home secretary David Davis has announced he plans to resign as an MP, trigger a by-election in his constituency of Haltemprice and Howden, and stand in that by-election. According to his press conference just minutes ago, he's planning to campaign on the issue of 42-day detention, and give the people an opportunity to vote against the erosion of our civil liberties. The BBC suggested that the Lib Dems (in second place in the constituency) had agreed not to stand against him.

Right now, it's very hard to analyse what's going on. The announcement seems to have come as a bolt out of the blue, and Davis refused to say whether or not he'd discussed it with David Cameron. Since Davis lost out to Cameron in the Tory leadership election, he might be trying to grab a bit of attention, but this resignation seems too committed and too drastic, to me, for that to be the sole reason. Maybe, coming up to his 60th birthday, and a senior frontbencher, he feels he's reached the pinnacle of his career, and has nothing to lose by risking his job on an issue he clearly cares about a great deal. Or maybe something more sinister: a massive argument behind the scenes. It's all speculation right now, but I'm sure it'll all come out over the next few hours and days.

One slightly (no, very) anoracky point about the resignation. I'll keep it brief:

MPs technically can't resign, because of archaic rules that go back to the 17th Century. The way they get around this is by asking the Chancellor to appoint them to one of two official positions (in Davis's case, it'll be Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds) which no longer exist in anything but name, but which technically disqualify you from being an MP.

Here's the problem: Davis will be appointed to the Chiltern Hundreds. He'll be barred from sitting in Parliament, and thus deemed to have resigned. There'll be a by-election, and he'll stand in it. But as Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, he'll be barred from taking his seat if he's re-elected. Presumably the Chancellor will have to agree to appoint someone else to the role in the interim, to let Davis stand again - something he's under no obligation to do, as I understand it, and given that Davis is planning to clobber the government, Darling may be less than pleased to have to jump through hoops to help him do it. I don't think there's any precedent here. Should be interesting!

A bit of restraint ...

2008-06-05T16:40:00.003+01:00

The leader of the Conservative Euro MPs, Giles Chichester, has resigned over a serious error with his expenses.

The leader of our own Euro MPs resigned for making anti-Semitic comments. And then had the cheek to stand for re-election.

I suggest we keep very, very quiet about this story.

The intolerant left: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown goes bonkers

2008-06-02T05:34:00.005+01:00

Like all liberals, I think of myself as being on the progressive side of British politics - but you've got to choose your allies carefully. Every once in a while, an article comes along that reminds me that the "progressive" left can be every bit as dangerous as the "conservative" right. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has an article in the Independent which strikes me as one of the most ill-judged bits of commentary I've ever read - from someone who's allegedly on the same side as I am when it comes to civil liberties, foreign policy and social justice.

Her basic thesis is that the right is on the rise, the left is in freefall, and it'll take another generation for progressive politics to come back. Not only does she manage to completely misread the significance of the Tories' recent successes, but along the way, she comes up with some arguments which border on the offensive:

"The sun now rises on the right and those of us on the other side are left despondent as we anticipate a prolonged winter of discontent. We, who believe in fairness, equality, human rights and universal justice, are of no consequence."

This sort of attitude really does hack me off. Nobody of a conservative bent remotely cares about fairness, equality, human rights and universal justice, do they? I may not agree with people on the centre-right on much, but to say that right-wingers hate human rights and justice is ignorant and simplistic. We don't live in a cartoon world of goodies and baddies. Do my Conservative friends really get up in the morning thinking "Haha, how shall I undermine social justice today?"

From experience, most people who get involved in politics, whatever their political persuasion, do so because they genuinely want to work for the common good. We may disagree about how to create a better Britain - or even what a better Britain would look like - but that's the whole reason for having a political debate in the first place! This sort of attitude, branding one's opponents as haters of fairness and justice, does nothing but promote cynicism towards the political process as a whole.

In Yasmin's world, like in any good cartoon, the normal rules of logic don't apply:

"Local election results show the country lurching right, in some parts even embracing the BNP. Instead of condemning the scum, Britons are instructed to 'understand' why these voters are 'driven' to vote for neo-Nazis. We are simultaneously warned to show no such understanding of young Muslims who are seduced by hate-filled Imams. White resentment of 'foreigners' is no more respectable than Muslim hatred of Westerners. Yet in our unequal world it is."

Please, please, tell me how we're ever supposed to beat the racism of the BNP unless we engage with the people who vote for them? How can we possibly win people back to the political mainstream if we refuse to understand what's made them drift away in the first place? It's bonkers. We help the BNP immensely by the hysterical way we react to them: condemning as "racist" anyone who tries to debate against them; accusing politicians of "pandering to racism" when they try and understand what motivates people to vote BNP. How else, pray, are we supposed to campaign against them?

The biggest problem with this argument, though, is that both halves of it are mutually exclusive. Either you can say that BNP voters and radicalised terrorist sympathisers are both "scum" to be hated and ignored, or you can say they're normal people with legitimate concerns who are exploited by extremists. But you can't have a paragraph that simultaneously condemns attempts to engage with the one group, yet calls for greater understanding of the other!

"The coup was complete when Boris took over our London ..."

Again, it's this breathtaking cynicism towards the whole democratic process! Look, I may not like it any more than you do, Yasmin, but Boris was elected legitimately by the people of London. He didn't march into City Hall with guns and tanks; he won the popular vote. What's the point of having a democratic system in the first place, if you're going to cry foul play the second it produces a result you don't approve of?

I think this is how most dictatorships start out, you know. An initially well-intentioned belief that the people sometimes make the wrong choice, and that they need to be controlled for their own good.

But then Yasmin moves on from cynicism to something far, far worse:

"Almost more depressing is the sight of black and Asian Britons following the wind blowing the Tories to victory. Boris has recruited Afro Caribbean 'leaders' who believe in physical chastisement and smart young Asians who deny the existence of racism and want an end to political correctness. The more old-fashioned Uncle Toms and their female equivalents are now expediently making themselves known to the Tories and right-wing think tanks."

Yasmin is effectively saying "If you come from an ethnic minority, you should vote for a left-of-centre party". I think this borders on outright racism, and it's equally insulting to both ethnic minorities and to white people. Why should your ethnicity have any bearing on how you vote? I'd like to live in the sort of tolerant and neutral Britain where people's ethnicity isn't an issue. The sort of Britain where we make up our mind on how to vote by reading the parties' manifestos and making our minds up, rather than on the basis of our skin colour.

Conservatism, whether you love it or hate it, is an ideology based on economics, on a particular social model, on a particular philosophy. If a person happens to agree with that philosophy, surely they're justified in voting Conservative. Exactly the same goes for Liberal Democrat and Labour voters. There's something very distasteful about putting emotional pressure on someone to vote against their intellectual viewpoint on the basis of their skin colour.

The comment about "following the wind blowing the Tories to victory" is pretty distasteful, too. It's suggesting that people are only voting Tory because it's somehow fashionable; Yasmin can't get her head round the idea that someone might make a positive choice to vote Conservative for reasons of principle. When people vote Lib Dem or Labour, fair play to them, we respect their views; but if they vote Tory, they're apparently doing it for spurious reasons rather than from genuine political belief. That's an undemocratic attitude.

As a Lib Dem, I believe in trusting the voters - and that means respecting them even when they make the "wrong" decision. The correct response to recent Tory successes is not to insult, patronise and emotionally blackmail the voters. It's to accept the people's decision, to work hard, campaign hard, and do our best to win the national debate in the future.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is supposed to be from the same end of the political spectrum as I am, but this article makes me feel every bit as far removed from the left as from the right. I may share her views on many of the key issues of the day, but when it comes to fundamental and underlying attitudes, I think she's on a totally different planet. Choose your allies carefully!

Give me a hug!

2008-05-18T08:52:00.003+01:00

My exams start tomorrow. I'm taking my finals in French and German, which run until a week on Thursday. Understandably, blogging will be quite infrequent, probably non-existent, for the next week and a half.

The brutal truth about Lib Dem candidate selections

2008-05-16T10:55:00.006+01:00

I've had an anonymous comment, taking issue with the Lib Dem candidate selection in Crewe & Nantwich, and arguing against my own comments on Iain Dale's article.

(It's actually posted off-topic under my David Icke thread - I hadn't blogged about the by-elections myself until now - but I thought I'd reply by starting a new post. No point in having a discussion about the by-elections buried under a thread about lizard men taking over the world.)

Anyway, this is what Anonymous thinks:

With regard to your comment on Iain Dale. It is not standard practice to reopen selections after a by-election is called; the Tories don't do it (hence E. Timpson in Crewe).

The Libs do it, not out of any principle (this is the Libs! "Having no principles here"), but out of a cynical-and if C&N goes right, touch wood, completely unsuccessful-attempt to hoodwink the voters with a "name" or local somebody. Doesn't detract from it being completely nauseating though.

I thought you were meant to be the non-political party for local people? So what happens to the hard-working PPC who's got on first-name terms with the council officers and knows the place like the back of their hand? Tough - we can get a few more inches in the papers with a "face" who gets elected and then can't find his way round Westminster or his constituency in the next 2 years before the election.

And that's all that matters to the Libs - stuff the residents, if we can get our man in and do down the Tories, all to the good.

Sorry but it's still sick-making.

I've got to hold up my hands here, and apologise. I got it wrong when I said that re-opening selections was standard practice in all parties when a by-election is called. Apparently, it's just us. To be fair, I posted a follow-up comment on Iain Dale, acknowledging the error.

Still, that doesn't change the fact that it's standard practice in the Lib Dems, and has been for years. I think Iain's point was that re-opening the selections in C&N and Henley was a short-term and cynical political move, based on the circumstances of the time. I only wanted to point out that it was entirely normal Lib Dem procedure.

I disagree with Anonymous that there is some sort of anti-Tory conspiracy going on. I think the truth is a lot more mundane. The Lib Dems are a relatively small party who can't afford to fight every seat properly in a general election - we haven't got the money, and we haven't got 600 really top notch willing candidates to go around at any one time. (And if we do, they're generally not too keen on being paper candidates in seats where we're not campaigning properly.) The entire strategy revolves around putting the resources and the best candidates into the key marginal seats. I'm not saying that's a good thing; it's just part of the political reality.

All that changes when a by-election is called. A normally unwinnable seat like C&N or Henley suddenly becomes important because there's only one constituency to put the entire party's resources into. At the same time, we can go on a fundraising drive specificially for the by-election, and match the other parties' spending more closely. It also means that our candidate will come under far more national scrutiny than a normal Lib Dem candidate in a no-hoper of a seat in the middle of a general election. Consequently, we have to be careful to run a much more stringent selection process and hopefully get a better candidate than we normally would for such a seat.

On that basis, I think it makes sense for a party like the Lib Dems to re-open selections whenever there's a by-election. I don't think it has anything to do with hoodwinking the voters, it's just a question of trying to get the best out of limited resources.

If that sounds cynical to you, why not try supporting a change in the voting system? Surely getting rid of first-past-the-post is the answer ...

David Icke

2008-05-10T11:33:00.000+01:00

The Oxford Mail - always at the cutting edge of local news - has finally got round to publishing a review of a talk by conspiracy theorist David Icke, who spoke to Oxford students last February. I vaguely remember being collared by a journo on the way out and asked for a comment.

Nearly three months later, I now find myself being quoted as saying: "It's interesting. I wouldn't say I agreed with much of what he said. There's a point up to where it made sense and a point where it was getting silly."

It's odd. I could have sworn I actually told the journo (after the obligatory liberal blurb about free speech and so on) that Icke was talking a load of complete and unadulterated tosh. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me later in life ...

Cannabis reclassification: what have the government been smoking?

2008-05-08T00:44:00.004+01:00

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has confirmed that cannabis is to be reclassified. Currently a class C drug alongside the likes of Temazepam, the weed is due to be upgraded to class B, putting it in the company of Speed. Possession will now carry a maximum prison sentence of five years, whilst dealers face 14 years behind bars.

This doesn't come as a great surprise; it's been in the pipeline since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister and immediately launched a review. And as recently as last month, he said that he wanted to change the law, so as to "send out a message to young people" about the dangers of cannabis.

Hang on a second. We're supposed to change the law - to send a message? Since when has the criminal law been there to send messages to people? The law is there to tell us what we can and cannot do, and to tell us which punishment fits which crime. It isn't there for sending vague moral messages to the population. (That's exactly the sort of misguided attitude that gave us laws like Section 28, for example.)

Let's get this clear. Cannabis is illegal at the moment, and it always has been, whether class C or class B. Messing with the classification doesn't change that in the slightest - it's always been against the law. So we can dispense with this nonsense about sending the wrong signals to people.

There's a counter-argument to that, of course. Supporters of the PM will say that by keeping cannabis illegal but downgrading it to a lower category, people have got the impression that weed is more acceptable than other drugs. And I understand the logic there. But if that's your view, then surely you'd have to dispense with the entire drug classification system altogether? As long as drugs are sorted into different categories with different legal penalties, there's always a risk that people will take certain drugs to be somehow "less illegal" than others. If that's how you feel, then have the guts to make a consistent argument, and call for a scrapping of drugs classification.

I think the classification system is a very good idea indeed. Different recreational drugs have very different effects, both on the health of the users and on wider society. People who use them and traffic in them should be penalised at different levels. Just as it would be madness to give the same sentence for shoplifting as for rape, it would insane to dole out the same punishment for cannabis as for heroin. The classification system, far from sending waffly messsages, is there solely to make sure that drugs offences are punished proportionately.

Which brings me to the main point of my argument here. Brown's supporters argue that the reclassification of cannabis is there to protect young people from the scourge of drugs. So which is a better way of keeping our kids safe when they start to experiment with weed? To confiscate the drugs, give them a stern warning, and a chance to rethink? Or to arrest them, drag them through our criminal justice system, and give them a criminal record which will hang round their necks like a millstone for the rest of their lives?

A drugs conviction can stop you from visiting the USA on the visa waiver programme. It'll show up on a CRB check, and stop you doing voluntary work. You have to declare it on your UCAS form when applying to university. It can bar you from a career in the professions. And our politicians want to inflict this disproportionate punishment on our kids, for the heinous crime of having a couple of spliffs - as a way of protecting them?!

I'm sorry, but this really just beggars belief.

Paddick has flipped his lid

2008-05-02T20:55:00.002+01:00

According to Iain Dale, Brian Paddick has given his second preference vote to Lindsey German, the Left List candidate who in 2004 stood under the RESPECT banner. I am shocked speechless.

Don't get me wrong, I think Paddick has been a very impressive mayoral candidate. He may not have the slickness of a career politician, but his interview performances have improved dramatically over the course of the campaign. His refusal to name a second choice was absolutely spot on. Quite why he's broken his silence now is beyond me.

But that's not the real problem. I suppose, now the polls are closed and the results are being counted, that Paddick's entitled to tell the media whom he cast his second preference for, that's his business. But a vote for Lindsey German? Is he mad, in a coma, or back in time?!

If Paddick had cast his second ballot for Ken or for Boris, I'd say fair enough. It may not be an appetising choice, but you've got to pick the least worst of the two. If he'd backed the Greens, he'd have thrown away a vote in a truly misguided fashion, but I could just about understand his decision. But what business does a Lib Dem have voting for a socialist, far-left, RESPECT candidate? A candidate who believes that economic freedom is the greatest threat to social justice? A candidate who supports Iraqi insurgents in their attacks on our own armed forces?

There should be a blacklist of parties that Lib Dems will never cooperate with, under any circumstances. The BNP and RESPECT (and its derivatives) should be on there without any question.

Harman endorses Lib Dems as second choice

2008-04-25T19:28:00.003+01:00

I've just returned from a meeting of the Oxford University Labour Club, where Harriet Harman was speaking to students. The South London MP was elected deputy leader of her party last year in front of a surprised and dismayed conference hall, but whatever people think about Harman, she's a decent public speaker. She had a good rapport with the 40-strong audience, and although I couldn't find much to agree with in her talk, she at least managed to say it all without sending me to sleep, which is a start.

She spoke initially about immigration policy, but her main aim was actually to chivvy along the young Labour activists ahead of next week's crucial local elections. The latest YouGov poll with its apparent 18-point Tory lead hasn't gone down too well with the grassroots, and Harman wanted to tell them that the situation is far, far better than the facts suggest.

The more time I spend following politics, the more convinced I become that you can spin literally any story in any direction, if only you're brazen enough to keep a straight face whilst you do it. The Labour party in Oxford are campaigning against the minority Lib Dem administration because apparently, below-inflation rises in council tax are putting public services at threat. (And there was me thinking that Lib Dem councillors had simply delivered good value for money ...) Harperson was equally brazen with her spin today. I have no idea how she managed to convince a roomful of students that the economy was in rude health, and that an 18-point deficit in the polls was certain to translate into a clear victory and a 4th term in office at the next general election - but somehow she managed.

In the question and answers session, I asked her whether she'd feel more comfortable going into coalition with the Tories or with the Lib Dems, should there be a hung parliament next time round. I'm fed up of commentators asking this question relentlessly to the Lib Dems, but never putting the same question to the other two parties. I was quite keen to see what the Labour deputy leader would have to say on the subject.

I was actually quite surprised to get a straight answer: she prefers us. She feels we're ideologically closer to her, and wishes the Lib Dems would just join her party so that the combined political "left" could just get on with fighting the Tories.

That answer should be a serious warning to the odd few Lib Dems who fall into very much the same trap. The idea that we're part of a wider progressive movement in British politics, with the common aim of beating the Tories, is exactly the way the Labour Party top brass want us to feel. The real situation is very different - rather than forming a progressive alliance with Labour against the Tories, we need to seek to build a liberal alliance to battle against two authoritarian, instrusive and statist parties that are, in their different ways, just as bad as each other. Labour's commitment to social justice can't justify their invasive style of government; the fact that they share many of our ends can't justify their means.

I have to give the Labour Club members a mention. The students did give Harman a genuinely hard time, with tough, intelligent and analytical questions on the 10p tax band, party political funding, and especially the scandal of the Saudi arms deal. I was very impressed with the young woman who asked why on earth we were going to such great lengths to preserve good commercial relations with Saudi Arabia in spite of their atrocious record on human rights. I don't often go along to the Labour Club, but when I do, I'm usually very impressed by the standard of the debate there. Credit where credit is due.

The three-year-old terrorist from Dorset

2008-04-11T11:27:00.002+01:00

Poole Borough Council has just admitted using anti-terror laws to spy on a family. Who were these neighbours from hell, you may ask. Did they stand accused of stockpiling nitroglycerine? Hijacking a superjumbo? Receiving illicit shipments of heroin from Poole Harbour at 4am, and donating the proceeds to Hezbollah?

No. They were suspected of lying about their address, to get their three-year-old daughter into a better school.

Now, this may well be a gross overreaction by one individual local authority, and I'm sure the government will try to write it off as the work of one loony council, rather than a fault with the legislation. But there's an important lesson for our MPs: if you want to vote in greater powers to curtail our civil freedoms, just ask yourselves who else might be using those powers. I'm sure MPs who back 42-day detention assume it'll be used under the watchful eye of Labour. But who has a good enough crystal ball to predict the day when a corrupt or even a malevolent government (as opposed to merely a misguided one) will walk into Downing Street?

This case from Dorset brings home an even more scary lesson - it doesn't even need evil people to be in power for this sort of legislation to be abused. It only takes a handful of well-meaning second-grade local politicians with a major common sense deficit.

"Wall of Sound" to drown out Blair - when will the anti-free-speech left ever learn?

2008-04-03T15:28:00.002+01:00

Tony Blair, recently converted to Catholicism, is giving a lecture at Westminster Cathedral this evening. His talk, at 7pm, is entitled Faith and Globalisation. He'll be arguing that we risk driving religious groups to the margins, and even into extremism, unless we're prepared to engage with them in the mainstream of public life.

Unfortunately for Mr Blair, Stop the War Coalition are planning to come along to the lecture as well. They're holding a demonstration outside the Cathedral, and are planning to create a "wall of sound" to drown out the ex-Prime Minister's speech. They've asked supporters to bring along every possible kind of musical instrument and noise-making device, with the stated aim of "drowning out the speech of a man who should not be in a cathedral pulpit but in the dock of a criminal court".

Far be it from me to defend Mr Blair. I have a lot of sympathy for the calls for Blair to face the consequences of his disastrous foreign policy. His appointment as peace envoy to the Middle East stretches the definition of a bad joke beyond breaking point. And Stop the War Coalition are right to point out how utterly hypocritical it is for a man who has done so much to damage good community relations in Britain to stand on a pulpit and lecture us about religious tolerance.

But for all that, I am completely exasperated by the hypocrisy and idiocy of the anti-free-speech left. In the run-up to the controversial Irving/Griffin debate at the Oxford Union (which I've already debated to death on this blog, and will try to avoid returning to now), anti-fascist campaigners continually reminded me that free speech is one of the most highly qualified rights we hold. They argued (correctly) that fascists often misuse their right to free speech to incite harm against innocent people, and that it was legitimate to stop them when they threatened the rights of others. They then argued (incorrectly, but using the same logic) that Irving and Griffin should be pre-emptively barred from debating because of the risks to other people. In all of that argument, they appeared to accept the principle that your own rights end where the rights of others begin.

Now, of course, the far left has decided that such lofty and justifiable principles are inconvenient, and can be cast aside. However wrong Tony Blair may be about a great deal of things, there is no risk whatsoever of him inciting tangible harm against others from the pulpit. Surely by the logic these same lobby groups used to oppose Irving and Griffin's right to debate, it is clear that Tony Blair has a right to be heard? By all means protest against him - you're quite right to - but if you explicitly try to drown him out, you're trampling all over his entitlement to free speech, just as badly as the fascists trample over the rights of minority groups.

The truth is starting to dawn on me slowly. The anti-free-speech left doesn't have anything approaching a consistent and justified approach to the acceptable bounds of freedom of speech, and I was wasting my time in sifting through the rhetoric looking for an argument to engage with. They're just after a licence to shout down anyone they don't like.

The EU treaty saga rumbles on ...

2008-04-01T23:58:00.001+01:00

Lord McNally, Lib Dem leader in the Lords, is opposed to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Lib Dem peers are going to vote against holding a public vote. This could be crucial: no party has a majority in the Upper House, which makes it quite possible for the government to be defeated. However, if the Lib Dem peers vote with the government, instead of abstaining as our MPs did in the Commons, Labour should comfortably avoid a referendum.

The fiasco over the Commons vote has cast a shadow over Nick Clegg's leadership, after an otherwise very promising start, and this latest development makes it far worse. We are now quite literally facing in two directions at once. Having an unpopular position isn't great, but appearing to have no position at all is far, far more damaging.

No doubt Lord McNally will come in for serious flak for this. The Eurosceptics will blame him for denying the British people a say on the treaty, and within the party, he'll be criticised for making us look inconsistent. But in truth, McNally comes out of this rather well - certainly better than Nick Clegg. Because, whether or not you agree with Tom Mcnally on this issue (and I don't), he has at least come to a clear viewpoint, and defended it in public. Clegg has deliberately abstained, and made himself look hesitant, petulant, and worst of all, weak.

My own view is this: our initial call for an in-or-out referendum was entirely right. People are kidding themselves if they think there would be a detailed, clause-by-clause public debate on the Lisbon Treaty. Much better to put the entire question of our EU membership to the people. But as soon as it became obvious that an in-or-out referendum wouldn't be forthcoming, we should have backed a referendum on the treaty instead, albeit as a second-best option. It would have been the closest we could have come to fulfilling our manifesto commitment, and would still have allowed us to debate many of the same issues as we would have discussed during an in-or-out ballot.

Alternatively, we could have taken the Tom McNally line of opposing the Lisbon referendum, and whilst I'd have disagreed with that position myself, we would be in much better shape now if we'd decided on it at the time and stuck with it consistently all the way through - because it is, at the very least, an actual position.

This continuing saga will reflect badly on the Lib Dems - but it says far more about Nick Clegg than about Tom McNally. McNally's decision may have led to a serious inconsistency in our approach, but only because he has deviated from the previous position of sitting on our hands and hoping the problem would go away. And the one person to blame for that is Clegg.

Tsvangirai to offer Mugabe amnesty

2008-03-31T10:59:00.003+01:00

Tracy McVeigh in the Observer has a video interview with Zimbabwean Presidential challenger Morgan Tsvangirai. He confidently announces that he expects to win the election, but interestingly, he also appears to offer Robert Mugabe immunity from repercussions if there's a change in government. This quotation is taken from about two minutes in on the video:

If Mugabe would accept the result peacefully and say 'Look thank you very much, I accept the result', I think a lot of people would find it very hard to pursue the man through the deep holes and all these hidden places. I think a lot of people would say 'Look, let bygones be bygones, let's move on'. I think the man has committed so many acts of ... so many crimes against his own people, but personally I am not vindictive.

There you go. Not entirely explicit, but he's certainly floating the possibility of an amnesty for the (hopefully outgoing) President.

It's a clever tactic from the MDC. One of the biggest fears is that Mugabe will simply ignore an opposition win, and declare himself elected regardless - and today's farce, with official results delayed long past the end of the counting, makes that possibility seem even more likely. His motives are not just political, but personal: if he stays in power, he avoids the legal consequences he so justly deserves. It gives him an extra impetus to retain the Presidency at all costs.

These comments from Tsvangirai appear to offer the 84-year-old ruler a slim lifeline - go quietly, and we'll let you retire in peace. And although I hate the idea of a criminal and serial abuser of human rights escaping justice, I have to admit that if it leads to a smooth and peaceful transfer of power, it may be justified. It may be the only way to get rid of Mugabe once and for all.

Gore for President?

2008-03-30T13:58:00.002+01:00

The Telegraph reports that Al Gore - who isn't actually running for President - has a "sporting chance" of beating both Clinton and Obama to the Democratic nomination. The battle between the two remaining declared candidates is turning more bitter by the day, with accusations, smears and attack ads being launched in both directions - to the point where Democrat chief Howard Dean has had to tell Hillary and Barack to cool down their rhetoric for fear of them damaging the party as a whole. And he has good reason: a sizeable chunk of Democrats from each camp are saying that, once the primaries end and the real election begins, they would refuse to vote for the other candidate as President.

The Telegraph suggests that the Democrats might call off the damaging Clinton/Obama battle and appoint Al Gore as a peace-keeping compromise. This would require about a hundred of the so-called super-delegates to abstain from voting. That would stop either candidate winning mathematically, and could pave the way for Gore to be appointed. Gore's an attractive choice in some respects - although he lost last time, he still won a majority of the popular vote (that's FPTP for you ...) and with a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar under his belt, he may just go one better this time, given the chance.

But I can see some serious holes in this rather gripping theory. It would need a large group of determined super-delegates to organise themselves, which is a bit of a stretch - and even then, one of the declared candidates would have to throw in the towel and agree to the plan, which is even more of a stretch. It would still allow the nomination battle to continue right up to the DNC in August, by which time the majority of damage will have been done anyway.

But the biggest problem is this: the battle for the nomination has been genuinely exciting, and Americans have felt a real sense of purpose in turning out to vote. It really has done wonders for voter engagement, especially as the later Democratic primaries, usually an irrelevance, have suddenly become crucial. If a small group of Democrat bigwigs take the decision out of the hands of the electorate, and appoint their own candidate, there will be a lot of disaffected voters feeling very cheated.

Still, it's a nice theory.

Sarkozy comes to Britain

2008-03-26T11:58:00.003Z

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is in the UK today. He'll be chatting to Gordon Brown, addressing both Houses of Parliament, and most importantly of all, he'll be meeting the Queen.

This is quite an important visit for the French premier. Back in the Hexagone, detractors accuse him of lacking gravitas, so this is an key opportunity for him to play the dignified statesman abroad.

Of course, there's nothing more dignified than being photographed with the British Royal Family. Ever since the French guillotined their own royals, ours have held a special fascination for them. Sarko will be keen to put on a good performance, and really impress Her Majesty.

Incredibly for a European head of state, Sarko's English isn't really up to scratch. He's apparently been practising it intensively over the past few weeks, so he has something to say to the Queen when he meets her. (She does, however, speak fluent French!)

I wonder if Sarko's language skills will be as impressive as this fellow's:

Clegg ditches Lib Dem commitment to PR

2008-03-10T00:29:00.012Z

Yesterday, on the quiet, Nick Clegg scrapped the Liberal Democrats' long-standing commitment to reform Britain's electoral system. So it appears, anyway, from his speech to the party's spring conference in Liverpool. He may not have meant to do it, but the following paragraph, buried in the middle of a 50-minute note-free oration, destroys the long-held liberal hope of a fairer voting system:

The day before I was elected leader, Mr Cameron suggested we join them, he talked about a “progressive alliance”. This talk of alliances comes up a lot, doesn’t it? Everyone wants to be in our gang. So I want to make something very clear today. Will I ever join a Conservative government? No. Will I ever join a Labour government? No. I will never allow the Liberal Democrats to be a mere annex to another party's agenda.

I may be very naïve, but I had always been under the impression that Lib Dems were in favour of coalition government, on a matter of principle. Coalitions are supposed to be more effective, more representative, and more democratic, especially in a country where even the most popular political party can only muster 35% of the vote. Democracy doesn't mean the largest minority group in society getting to steamroller their views over the heads of the rest, and Lib Dems have always rather liked the idea of forcing parties to work together. But here's Clegg, perhaps two years before a general election, ruling out a coalition with either of the other two. What on earth is he doing?

Yesterday's announcement fatally undermines our most identifiable policy position. If we refuse to work constructively with parties that don't share our ideology, yet still support proportional representation, what on earth are people supposed to conclude, if not that we want to see permanent minority government? That surely can't be tenable.

Now to be fair to Clegg (and he's had a rough time lately), I can think of at least one excellent reason for this announcement: the coalition question always screws us over. In the buildup to an election, all it takes us for somebody to ask us who we'd rather go into coalition with, and our campaign goes off the rails. We've never yet found a satisfactory answer.

If we declare a preference for one of the other parties - say, Labour - we throw away our ability to set an independent liberal agenda. Suddenly, there's no point in voting Lib Dem: if people know we're only going to prop up Labour anyway, they might as well vote for Labour in the first place, if they support them, or the Tories if they don't.

But suppose we decide to keep our independence, and refuse to declare a preference for Labour or the Tories. Suddenly, we become the sleazy party of backroom deals, who've already sewn up the result of the next election behind closed doors, without ever consulting the people.

And suppose we say, quite sensibly, that we'll wait until the next general election, chat to the other parties, and try to thrash out the most liberal policy programme we can under the circumstances, without any predetermined favourite. Well, people switch off and don't listen. That sort of message takes a bit of explaining, and is almost impossible to get into a catchy soundbite.

It seems whichever way we turn, we can't win. And so Nick Clegg is going for option four: to refuse to go into government with either Labour or the Tories, instead promising us the nebulous waffle of "a new type of government ... based on pluralism instead of one party rule" - frankly, I struggle to see how that ambition could ever be put into practice without a coalition-based system, even if it's expressed in English so hazy as to require fog-lights.

Don't get me wrong: I sympathise with Clegg a great deal. PR is one of those awkward areas where we have a very coherent and justified position, but one which is too nuanced to be explained simply, and which can be undermined with depressing ease by one well-aimed jibe from our opponents. But Clegg needs to watch out. There's no point countering those jibes if the only way to do it is to sacrifice all the coherence that made our position worthwhile in the first place.

Ed Davey – the hardest question

2008-03-04T19:28:00.002Z

Last week, I was privileged to be able to interview Ed Davey, Lib Dem Shadow Foreign Secretary, alongside James Graham, Gavin Whenman, Meral Ece, James Schneider, Linda Jack and Millennium Elephant.

In typical final-year student style, I’ve left it quite late to write up my report, not unreasonably judging that my essay on Erich Kästner was a slightly more urgent priority.

In the meantime, a diplomatic row complicated enough to give the Foreign Office a headache has broken out amongst Lib Dem bloggers. Nich Starling has problems with the way the bloggers’ interviews are arranged; Alex Wilcock has problems with Nich Starling’s behaviour; Iain Dale sits back and titters. I’m not at all keen to add fuel to the fire, and won’t pass comment, but it’d be wrong to blog about the Ed Davey interview without at least drawing attention to the spat it’s generated. People can look at the posts in question and draw their own conclusions.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs (and I’ll keep my opinions on this private), it’s depressing to see Lib Dem bloggers at each other’s throats. The blogosphere suffers enough as it is from allegations of being petty, personal and self-obsessed. We’re at our best when we manage to have our disagreements in a civilised way, and when we concentrate on politics rather than on each other. Sometimes, I’m afraid, that means holding back and staying calm, even when you feel that somebody richly deserves to have their spleen massaged with a heavy rolling pin.

Coincidentally, that’s more or less exactly what Ed Davey said at the interview, when Gavin asked him – with reference to Uganda – whether he preferred justice to peace. For the recently-appointed foreign affairs spokesman, sometimes it’s necessary to put justice to one side for the greater good. He spoke passionately about the Northern Ireland peace process: one of the hardest things he’d had to do as an MP was to vote for an amnesty for “terrorists – no, murderers”. It “stuck in [his] throat” as he walked through the lobby, having to let them get away with cold-blooded killing – but he could rationalise it to himself because the lives that would be lost, if the peace process failed, would be an even greater injustice.

Gavin’s question was in fact a follow-up to one of my own. I asked Ed how he could balance respect for other people’s cultures – not ramming Western values down the throats of the Arab world, for example – against concepts like universal human rights. To what extent should we let countries like Iran do things their own way, and to what extent should we be prepared to stand up and say: no, some of our values are objectively better than yours?

Ed didn’t have a comprehensive answer to this, but he was open enough to say that he was still grappling with the issues. He called it the “most difficult philosophical question for liberal democrats”, and I agree entirely. He did point out, quite fairly, that engaging in illegal wars in the name of democracy doesn’t do anything to help us find the balance.

It’s a question which fascinates me, and which I haven’t completely resolved in my own mind either. At a student political meeting last autumn, I chatted to Tory (and former SDP) MP John Horam about this. He argued that in many cases, there’s not much we can do to influence the internal affairs of sovereign countries. According to Horam, we can often do more good by turning a blind eye towards human rights abuses in the short term, and trying to influence things slowly over a longer period.

That argument would square very well with Ed’s answer to Gavin’s question. If the main aim is to do as much net good as possible, then presumably we can justify being polite to abusive regimes if that allows us to improve things in the long term? It’s uncomfortable territory for Lib Dems, and needs more thought – but Ed’s position on the IRA amnesty may just begin to suggest an answer.

Of course, the question also highlights the major difference in perspective between a party of government and a party of opposition. When you’re running the country, or likely to take over after the next election, you’re constrained by all the realities of diplomacy. When you’re the third party, albeit a third party with serious ambitions, you have a much freer reign to say what you think, safe in the knowledge that you won’t start a major international incident that will cost innocent lives.

One thing that was especially noteworthy, throughout the answers to all the questions, was Ed’s caution, his tendency to talk in generalities, and his polished, measured delivery. This wasn’t a chat amongst Lib Dem activists in a pub (well, the House of Lords bar) – it was a press interview, and Ed treated my dictaphone like a loaded gun, just as he’d have done for any journalist. He didn’t relax his guard just because we were on the same side as him.

To my mind, that says something quite positive about the Lib Dem blogging scene. The frontbenchers don’t see us as a mouthpiece or as a convenient way of disseminating the party line – we’re regarded as independently-minded commentators who examine the MPs sympathetically but critically, and are prepared to challenge them where we disagree. That can only be a good thing.

Cynical sniggering ...

2008-02-28T13:59:00.002Z

Apparently, for the last 24 hours, it's been "energy saving day" - or E-Day - in the UK. And compared to a normal day, they saved ...

minus 0.9%.

(as of 1.16pm)

There's a flashy website with counters and dials, which measure the day's energy consumption and compare it with the "normal" baseline figure used by the National Grid. It's a good job they programmed it with the ability to display negative energy savings!

Hat-tip: Jon Ayling

World Champion: racist abuse justified

2008-02-28T12:28:00.001Z

These comments from so-called F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso are truly disgraceful. He tries to justify racial abuse against Lewis Hamilton, and to make excuses for the people who shouted racist slogans at the British driver. He should be kicked out of motor-racing immediately. I'm embarrassed to have him in our sport.

Unpresidential behaviour from Sarkozy

2008-02-24T21:58:00.007Z

Monsieur le Président has been behaving badly. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, was caught swearing on camera yesterday morning. He visited an agricultural fair, and had a bit of a tiff with someone, as you can see from this footage, courtesy of Le Parisien.

He turns up and starts doing exactly what you'd expect a President to do: walking up and down, saying bonjour, shaking hands. Then, somebody heckles him:

Heckler: Ah non, touche moi pas ...
Sarkozy: Casse-toi alors!
Heckler: ... tu me salis!
Sarkozy: Casse-toi alors, pauvre con!

The heckler is shouting "No, don't touch me, you'll dirty me!" The BBC rather generously translates Sarkozy's resonse as "Get lost then you bloody idiot, just get lost!"

My Collins-Robert French Dictionary has a neat little labelling system for French slang words, to help English speakers avoid causing offence (well - more offence than they cause anyway, simply by daring to set foot in France whilst in possession of a UK passport):

* means that whilst it isn't standard French, and not acceptable for essays or formal letters, it's "used by all educated speakers in a relaxed situation".

** means a word should be "handled with extreme care" unless you're totally sure of the company you're in.

*** means "Danger!" - "liable to offend in any situation" - "to be avoided".

"Casse-toi" gets two asterisks, which probably puts it on about the same level as "sod off" in English. "Pauvre con" gets three asterisks, and I suspect the translation "bloody idiot" doesn't quite do it justice.

However you choose to translate the outburst, it really isn't very dignified behaviour for someone who, as Head of State, is supposed to represent his country to the world. You really couldn't imagine the Queen telling anyone to sod off in public, still less call them a - well, whatever translation you've settled on for "pauvre con".

More to the point, it's surprising that somebody could spend as long in politics as Sarkozy has done without learning how to deal with hecklers. He was elected to the Assemblée nationale in his early thirties, and held a number of cabinet posts, including minister for the interior and finance minister. By the time he ran for President, you'd expect he'd have had to deal with a lot of troublemakers, especially in a country with such a colourful and highly polarised political scene as France. Surely the best and most dignified strategy is to ignore them?

UPDATE: I spoke to my language tutor, a native French speaker, about this. She reckons that "pauvre con" is on about the same level as "f***ing idiot". Apparently, putting the "pauvre" in front of it makes it about ten times worse. That's the subtleties of the French language for you.

More political than the politicians

2008-02-22T23:59:00.002Z

Sorry to sully what ought to be a purely political blog with yet another Formula 1 story, but I saw this article and couldn't resist. This is such hilariously-bungled spin that it almost feels more at home on a political website than a motor-racing one.

Formula 1 driver Ralf Schumacher, less talented and more annoying younger brother of world champion Michael, was fired last season by his team, Toyota. He's spent the whole of the winter break desperately trying to find himself a team for 2008. He sucked up to McLaren in the press when they were looking for a second driver to partner Lewis Hamilton, only to be told he was "not under consideration". He even went so far as to test-drive for Force India, the outfit which came dead last in the 2007 championship. You might have reasonably concluded that he was pretty desperate to carry on racing.

But now that even the worst F1 team on the grid has turned him down, we suddenly learn that Ralf never wanted to race this year, and that even if he'd been offered a drive, he'd have refused it. All the bleating to the media, and all the begging at the feet of the team bosses was in fact an elaborate trick. Ralf wanted to retire quietly and without a fuss, and this was apparently his way of creating a diversionary tactic, to allow himself the most dignified exit possible:

"I just said that [I would remain in F1] because there were a lot of people talking, and the situation was difficult at Toyota, so I just wanted to finish the season in peace. I did test [for Force India] over the winter, but that was just something for a friend."