The Shadow Chancellor (George Osbourne) just sat down after giving his response to the Chancellor's budget. The highlights of Darling's budget: Economy has done significantly worse this year than expected - contracted by 4.75% rather than the 3.5% expected. A raft of tax changes - an increase in National Insurance tax by 0.5%, a 50% levy on bank bonuses over 25,000 pounds, threshold for high tax rate is frozen (rather than increasing due to inflation) at 43,000 pounds - meaning more people will be in the higher bracket. Public pay increases capped at 1% for two years Deferred the increase of corporation tax for small business Cutting the corporation tax to 10% for those companies who can prove they are using a British patent Increase in pension by 2.5% Child and disability benefit increased by 1.5% Inheritance tax allowance frozen (a big political move to hit the Conservative position on inheritance tax)
The Chancellor has identified approximately 5 billion pounds worth of savings in the economy. That is about a sixth of the savings that he claims will be made. There are obviously a lot of dreadful spending cuts still to be announced...
Although he is trying to ringfence money for hospitals, schools and police (although note that he is not ringfencing the money for Education, Health or the Home Office!), there will be savage cuts to many government departments (more so to those he isn't ringfencing). According to the BBC, the cuts that will be made will undo 3/4 of the increases in spending that has occurred since 1997.
George Obsourne came straight back on the attack in his speech, calling it a total failure and a political budget (who'd have thought?). A very good, robust speech.
At PMQ's last week (and subsequently on TV) we have seen some members of the Government (although some are reportedly very concerned about the strategy) using class warfare language to attack the Tories (particularly David Cameron). The Prime Minister, to laughter and applause from his own benches, hit Cameron with the line that the Conservative economic policy had been 'dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton', while another Labour MP described the Tory policy as 'an Eton Mess' (I admit, I find that one significantly more amusing).
However, what does this mean politically? Well, it appears to show that, consciously or not, Labour have written off this election. Why? Because class warfare, by definition, energises working class Labour stalwarts, while angering middle class southern and middle England. So by engaging in these kinds of attacks, Labour will probably energise their voters in the north and Scotland, and by bringing them out significantly reduce the losses in some of those areas (for example, we may well see far fewer seats north of the Watford Gap going blue than the nationwide swing ought to indicate). However, by doing so, they are turning off exactly the kind of middle class voters in the Midlands and South that they would need to win an election. If it is a conscious decision (and if it is, it is actually a very reasonable one), then Labour strategists have written off the election, and want to make sure their voters come out in the north in order to stop the kind of wipeout that happened to the Conservatives in 1997 - hopefully (in their minds) holding on to 250-odd seats, meaning that Labour can seriously challenge a Conservative Government in the following election.
Will it work? Who knows! In Scotland Labour has been beset by the Scottish Nationalists (although the SNP being in 'government' in Holyrood seems to have reduced their popularity), and the Liberal Democrats seem keen to try to pinch northern seats of Labour (which they will probably fail at). Also there have been comments from more than one commentator that it is a bit rich for Labour to drape itself in the mantle of the working class when they have been a middle class party for the last twelve years (not forgetting as well that conditions for working class Britain have declined and income inequality is worse today than since the 1960's). So whether low-income Britons will 'come home' to Labour on election day is yet to be seen.
One interesting little tit-bit on this point, is to look at polling on who minor party voters want to form the next government. BNP voters (who are predominantly disgruntled ex-Labour voters in safe Labour areas) overwhelmingly want David Cameron to form a government after the election.
Labour is unpopular. There is the obvious reason of why this is; that their policies have caused many of the problems in society - whether the lack of trust between citizens and the government, the enormous deficit and the deterioration of health, police and education services. But there is another reason - one that often plays worse with the public than the policy failures. Arrogance.
At Prime Ministers Questions yesterday, Gordon Brown had a very good day. He got a few good whacks on the Conservatives, disdainfully put down the Lib Dems, and cheered his own side considerably. Cameron also had a very poor day, which further helped. However, because of the arrogance of the government this has already been forgotten in yet another stupid own-goal. During an answer to David Cameron, Gordon Brown claimed Britain was not the only country in the G-20 to still be in recession - Spain was still in recession. The only problem is that Spain is not a direct member of the G-20. Now, in PMQ's a Prime Minister does not know what the Leader of the Opposition will ask him, so it is forgiveable that he might get one fact wrong sometimes. I mean, Spain is not a direct member of the G-20, but it IS a member of the EU (which is a member), and is also an observer. Gordon could be forgiven for getting that wrong in the middle of unscripted debate in the bearpit of the House of Commons. Most politics watchers (and members of the public) would willingly accept this explanation.
However, in an absolutely breath-taking display of hubris, the government has argued today that Brown was completely correct. There is no real justification for this claim. It is pretty obvious that any claim to the PM being correct is disingenuous. So now, after putting some runs on the board yesterday, the Government has stupidly hit its own wicket and now the story around the papers and the blogs isn't "Didn't Gordon do well yesterday", which played nicely into a general story of Labour recovery after a couple of improving polls. Nope, now that story is "Is Spain a member of the G-20, and was Gordon being disingenuous or just ignorant when he claimed they were?" For the love of anything, just suck it up, accept you made a mistake, and move on - it shouldn't be this big a deal!
I've said this before - I am not a scientist. When it comes to the science of climate change I am willing to be influenced by any scientist who puts up a robust and peer reviewed (for what that process is now worth) work on the subject. Some say it is (mostly) natural, some say it is (mostly) man made. I'd love to actually hear pro-climate change people contradict the sceptics with data, rather than waving their arms and yelling 'deniers!', but I guess I'll have to just muddle through.
However, I also know enough to see that there is a large chunk of scientific opinion, and an even larger chunk of public opinion, that either does not believe that climate change is predominantly man-made, or are not overly concerned with the consequences of it. And I know enough about politics to know that when that is the case it is unwise for Conservative Party MP's and supporters to publicly attack members of their own party who do not agree with their position on climate change. In a previous post I mentioned what has happened in Australia. Now, David Cameron is safe. But he would do well to remember that it is likely that, at best, he will have a narrow overall majority, and the last thing he needs is to have a major split inside his caucus room even before he gets into Downing Street! And his minions should remember something else. Much like people who have honest disagreements on immigration do not like to be called racists, people who have honest disagreements on climate change do not like being being referred to as 'the dying gasps of the deniers'. Not least, because if we hark back to the first time climate change scepticism was declared as being 'in its death gasps', we are witnessing a medical miracle!
Cameron does need to be very careful that he does not (between climate change and Europe) turn off his supporters - or send them to UKIP. Capturing the centre is important, but will count for nothing if he can't get the base out as well - especially when there is campaigning to be done!
Political people often decry that political parties do not stand for anything any more. They (often myself included) hark back to a happier time when parties took strong positions on issues and offered voters a real choice. All too often now we see parties becoming mushy groups who offer the barest differences between them as a 'choice', and often ignore issues that seem too hard or too controversial.
However, there comes a time when pragmatism must win. Major political parties are by definition big tents. First Past the Post governments are as much coalitions as proportional representation governments - except the coalition is within the party, rather than between them. And as such there will be issues that will fundamentally divide parties and risk major splits and the flight of support from one party to another. This appears to be happening in Australia to the conservative Liberal Party.
The party has been rent asunder by the Rudd Labor Government's Emissions Trading Scheme, that has already destroyed one leader, as well as a challenger for the leadership. Malcolm Turnbull, the former leader, was rolled after (perhaps imprudently) committing the party to vote for an amended Emissions Trading Scheme, after a very fractious party meeting, and a vote that was, by all accounts, decided by a single member while leading sceptics were out of the room. This is perfectly reasonable. A party leader does not have the right to commit a party to a course of action if the majority of members are opposed to it (are you listening, Mr Cameron?). However, this is where things start to break down.
Mr Hockey, shadow chancellor and the man expected to carry the leadership, decided on a pragmatic policy on the ETS. He said he would offer every Liberal MP and Senator a conscience vote on the issue - meaning there would be no party whip and they could vote however they chose. This was the best solution. There were obviously a large number of MP's who opposed the ETS, and a large number of supporters. With a party so evenly split, the best solution was let each MP and Senator make their own decision, and justify it to their own constituents and local party organisations. However, climate sceptics announced this was unacceptable and backed hard-right candidate Tony Abbott (by a single vote).
Abbott has committed the Liberals to oppose the ETS. It was voted down in the Senate yesterday (where the Government does not have a majority). The Government has announced the bill shall be voted on again in February. Assuming Abbott still has control of his party room, the bill will be defeated again. Under the Australian constitution, multiple defeats in the Senate gives the Prime Minister the right to dissolve both Houses of Parliament and call what is known as a 'double dissolution' election. Which Rudd probably will. The Liberals then risk not only losing more seats in the House (where they are already reduced to a 1997-like rump), but will almost certainly lose seats in the Senate, and probably hand control of the chamber to Labor, ending the ability of the Liberals to at least delay laws in the Senate.
Abbott will certainly not become Prime Minister. Rudd has been handed a second term - and for once, maybe, pragmatism should have trumped ideology...
There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth (or, alternatively, cheering and... not gnashing of teeth) over the Ipsos/Mori poll released on Sunday in the Observer claiming that there has been a six-point swing back to Labour, and they now are only six points behind the Tories. If those results were repeated on election day (with a uniform swing), then the Conservatives would have the most seats (16 seats over Labour), but would be 30 seats short of a majority.
There are a number of reasons why I believe this prediction is wrong: 1) The poll appears to be an outlier. There is no reason to doubt Mori's fieldwork - they have been a respected pollster for years - but the poll has been contradicted by polls before and after it was released. A ComRes poll had the Tories up by 14, and an Angus Reid poll released on Monday had the Conservatives leading by 17 (and Labour and the Lib Dems fighting for second place). 2) There has been some anecdotal evidence that the a part of the increase in Labour's support has come from an increase in their supporters likelihood to vote, rather than a swing from the Tories. Mori, unlike other polling companies, only use people who are 100% certain they will vote. Previously Labour voters have been much less inclined to vote than supporters of other parties. In the aftermath of the Tory refusal to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, there are likely to be a number of Eurosceptic Tories who will tell the pollster they are not sure if they will vote, or that they will vote UKIP, but will vote Tory on election day. Also, the financial crisis has made Labour voters more inclined to vote than previously. However (and this is a BIG however), a lot of this support is in safe Labour seats, rather than marginals. Gordon Brown's government is more popular in Labour heartlands than in the marginal districts in the South and Midlands. Therefore it is very likely that an increase of support would increase majorities in the North and Scotland, while not helping them hold seats in the South and Midlands. 3) The belief that the Tories couldn't win an overall majority on these numbers is based on previous election results that appeared to show an inbuilt advantage for Labour. However, while there is an inbuilt advantage to Labour, it has been exaggerated by tactical voting during the past three elections. Why? Because people in a lot of constituencies were not voting for Labour, but AGAINST the Tories. Therefore, tactical voting meant that Liberal Democrats voted Labour in some seats, and Labour supporters voted Lib Dem in others, in order to keep the Conservatives out. For example, exit polling showed that one in ten Labour voters in the 2005 election voted Labour as a second choice. Next election it is Labour that is the disliked party. Most tactical voting will be based on keeping out a Labour candidate, rather than a Tory. This could see some big swings in some unexpected seats - and maybe some surprising Liberal Democrat victories.
However, it is of course possible that the polls could narrow to the point that a hung parliament occurs. What then? There have been some commentators who have claimed this would be a disaster for democracy. I am not so sure. In the aftermath of the expenses scandal, a hung parliament that meant power lay less in the hands of the government and more in the hands of backbenchers would be beneficial for Parliament as an institution. Each individual MP would have a lot more power in a closely divided House than one with a huge majority either way.
Others have said that a hung parliament would lead to a coalition government and a lot of cabinet seats for either Liberal Democrats or Nationalist parties (and the Northern Ireland parties). Well, looking at Canada, which has had hung Parliaments for the past five years. we have seen minority governments, rather than coalitions. While I certainly do not want to see the same results as Canada (three elections in five years, and probably another one in the next 18 months), it does show that a hung parliament can lead to a minority government.
But, a hung parliament would also be a disaster for government in Britain. A hung parliament, while handing more power to Parliament, would prevent any party from being able to introduce the necessary measures to deal with the financial crisis. Large necessary budget cuts would be opposed. Therefore, while I expect and hope for a Conservative victory, I agree with Ken Clarke that 'a Labour majority would be better than a hung parliament'.
Obama came into office with a policy of leaving Iraq, in order to fight 'the good war' in Afghanistan. Earlier this year he agreed to a 'surge' strategy. However, he has now been sitting on a decision on the number of troops he will commit for a dangerously long time. Why? Because as he dithers over the decision Americas allies are falling away. Without America's leadership more and more countries are finding it difficult to keep public support for the war - and more and more difficult to support the Afghan campaign in the face of that lack of support. In Britain a spate of casualties and a sense of lethargy from government (caused, mostly, from Washington) has seen support for the campaign fall, and the numbers calling for an immediate withdrawal rising precipitously. While the three main parties are still committed to the campaign, the Liberal Democrats have already backed away from wholehearted support - there is a chance they will move to a withdrawal position before the General Election.
Gordon Brown, whatever his faults (and heaven knows there are no shortage of those) has been a strong supporter of the campaign. But even he may be unable to fight public opinion without more obvious and loud support from Washington. If Obama wants to continue the Afghan campaign and continue to have wide support from America's allies in that campaign then for the love of mercy, Mr President, make a decision!
I am not a scientist. I do not know, or understand, any of the science of climate change well enough to say what is going on. But I do know something. The era of climate change supporters saying 'the science is settled' is over. Why? Because the climate change sceptics are starting to make some damn good points, and if the supporters of climate change aren't willing to debate them on the merits of the argument then it just makes them sound like they do not have any answers. What has led me to this point?
Last night I went to a fascinating debate on climate change, with a for and against speaker on the science, and a for and against speaker on the economics.
The 'for' scientist stood up and spoke about policy, rather than science. The sceptic scientist spoke well, giving a number of clear examples of where (he claims) the science shows that climate change is a mostly naturally occurring phenomenon. Then in the rebuttal speeches I fully expected an argument to be made as to why these claims were wrong, or alternative evidence presented. Not at all. Which, naturally, led many in the audience to wonder whether this was because there was no counter-argument.
With polls showing that well under 50% of Britons believe in human-caused climate change, and an economic crisis that has made many think of global warming policy as far less important, I think the pro-climate lobby needs to get off their high horses and have the debate. If they are right, they should easily defeat sceptics. If they won't, it starts to look like they can't.
Well, it is official. The law has completely lost it's sense of justice. Paul Clarke, an ex-soldier, has been convicted of possessing an illegal firearm - after picking up a discarded weapon and taking it to the Police station! When I first came across this story, I thought "oh, there must be more to it". But no, there isn't. He found a shotgun at the bottom of his garden (which backs on to a public park), took it to the police and handed it in. By touching the weapon, he was in possession of it, and as the offence is strict liability (ie, his intention does not matter, only his actions - so the fact he only possessed it to hand it in has no bearing on the case) he was convicted this week. The minimum sentence is five years imprisonment.
Believe it or not, as a rule I am strongly in favour of strict liability offences. But only when you can rely on the discretion of officers to identify dangers to society and act accordingly. For the love of all things, when you have Police handing out caution notices for assault and sexual assault, I would have thought the officer in question would have been smart enough to recognise that Clarke was not a risk to society and acted accordingly. Apparently I am wrong about that - and that is very concerning!
Police officers aren't thoughtless automatons. You often see officers using their discretion - especially with the young (the number of times one hears about drunk university students being given a warning or other summary punishment rather than spend a night in the cells). This discretion helps the justice system work fairly and justly. The police officer in question appears to have forgotten that, and his actions will make other less inclined to help the police serve and protect the people of Britain.
What will almost certainly be the last by-election of this Parliament was held last night in Glasgow North-East, the seat of former Speaker Michael (now Lord) Martin. Labour held the seat, which was expected, but they also won it with a surprisingly large majority. Labour ended up with a majority of 8000 over the Scottish National Party on a turnout of 32%. The Conservatives came third another 3000 votes back, closely followed by the British National Party. In a very disappointing result for the Liberal Democrats, their candidate came 6th with 2.3% of the vote.
So what does this mean? Does it mean anything? Well... yes and no. Glasgow North-East is one of the safest Labour seats in the country. Anything other than a massive victory would have been truly shocking. Coupled with the Glenrothes result from last year, it appears that the Scottish vote will hold up for Labour in the General Election, which might stymie some expected gains for the Tories, Lib Dems and SNP. It could also mean less of a defeat for Labour in a General Election, since they will have a strong base of Scottish seats to fall back on.
However(!!!), there are other readings of this result. This result, coupled with Norwich North and Crewe & Nantwich, may well prove that Gordon Brown is successful in getting hardcore Labour partisans out to vote - but is disproportionally bad at keeping swing voters and casual Labour supporters to the ballot box to vote Labour. This may mean an unexpectedly bad result for Labour - since rather than a uniform fall in their support (so marginal and safe seats lose approximately the same number of votes), Labour is still winning the same number of votes in safe seats, and losing disproportionally more votes in marginal seats, which would see more of these marginal seats fall to the Tories. More importantly, most of these marginal constituencies are held by those on the right of the party. A clear out of these members could see Labour fall into the same position as they did in the early 1980's.
I'm not usually someone who rushes to anger, but in this case I am most certainly angry. Julie Kirkbride, for those of you who do not know, was one of the worst expenses fiddlers. She, along with her MP husband Andrew McKay, set up an elaborate con where they both claimed second home allowances - she claiming for their flat in London, and he claiming for their home in the constituency.
At the time Judy did the honourable thing and announced she would not seek re-election for her seat. But today she has announced that she will seek reselection. Congratulations, Judy. In one foul swoop you have undone the hard line David Cameron took on the expenses saga and also risk becoming a local news story that will lessen the chances of up to eight Conservative gains in seats around the Birmingham area - not to mention risking a safe seat.
And precisely what is your reasoning? Surely you cannot think Mr Cameron can trust you with a ministerial job now? Please, pack up what is left of your dignity and say that it was a misunderstanding and you will not seek or accept nomination for the seat
I really need to stop defending Labour Ministers (and possible leadership contenders), or they will take away my party membership card!
However, Alan Johnson is a special case - particularly regarding the current snafu about drugs. Basically, he sacked a scientific advisor who publicly argued against the policy the Home Office put out on the reclassification of drugs (reclassifying cannabis from class C to class B). Professor Nutt argued that cannabis was less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, and said the government's decision was based on politics rather than science.
Now, whatever the arguments for or against the reclassification (and I happen to believe the government is wrong), what is clear is that a government advisor cannot both be both a government advisor and an active campaigner against government policy. It strikes me as being like being in cabinet - if you disagree with something strongly enough you must resign, but if you remain within the government 'team', you must support whatever policy is decided upon.
ID cards have been in the news frequently in Britain in recent months - the Government was for them, then said only migrants needed them, then said people in Manchester could get them if they wanted. Another example of dither and delay that has been a hallmark of this government since the 'election that never was'. However, I was listening to an old podcast of 'Today in Parliament' (one has to do something on the tube), where Alan Johnson (Home Secretary) was talking about how little ID cards would actually be used - only for travel within the EU.
This got me thinking about the equivalent in the United States of America - the Social Security Card, and how the things you needed it for had increased since it's introduction. Originally the Social Security card was just that - it was the card one used to access social security. However in the years since the number of things one needs to present either a social security card or a social security number has sky-rocketed. It is now a de fact ID card in the United States.
Let me give you an example. I lived in Washington DC for six months. During that time I never actually got a social security card (although I got a number). But I had to present this number in order to get paid, in order to pay tax, and to be able to get a membership at Blockbuster videos.
So don't be contented when a politicians tells you that an ID card won't be used for much - as time progresses they can always find new and interested things to require you to present an ID card for...
I think Baroness Warsi is a very good Shadow Minister. Despite this, I am not sure she is the best candidate for the Conservatives to put on Question Time with Nick Griffin. Why? Well, before I get to that, let me accept there are some very good reasons to put her on. 1) She is a Muslim woman, and as such can more personally speak against Griffin's prejudices. 2) She is a non-white Conservative, and so on a purely political level will make Cameron look like he is really presiding over a multi-racial party, and can also counterpoint the white faces of the politicians on the rest of the Question Time panel (although one of the panellists is Bonnie Greer, a black American writer) . 3) She is the Shadow Minister of Community Cohesion and Social Action, so more likely than not much of what comes up on the show will be within her Shadow Ministerial remit.
However, there are also some very good reasons why she is not the right person for the job: 1) She is (as Nick Griffin would argue) a perfect example of the ethnic minority affirmative action that the BNP bangs on about. She is the youngest member of the House of Lords, having been elevated when she was 36. She had never been an MP, and when she ran for Parliament in 2005, she actually gained a lower share of the vote than the Conservative candidate in 2001 or 1997 (although more absolute votes). None of this means that she is unfit for the job, but it is merely a very easy point for Nick Griffin to make hay on. 2) She doesn't speak to the constituency that the BNP is contesting. The constituency in play here is the white working class, some of whom truly believe immigrants and non-white people are coming to this country and stealing their jobs. I am not certain that Baroness Warsi will be able to sooth these concerns the way someone like David Davis or William Hague could have done (David Davis especially). 3) Again unlike Davis or Hague, I have no idea how she will perform against Griffin. Warsi's previous experiences on Question Time have generally elicited a less than enthusiastic response from political watchers (especially Conservative ones). While I have never seen her on it myself and so cannot judge, the number of negative reviews I hear from others makes me concerned about whether she will be able to go toe to toe with Griffin.
Anyway in a few short hours we will know the result. Will today see the BNP exposed for what it is? Or will Griffin hold his own and make the party look like a real alternative to Labour in some of Labour's inner-city bastions? And more importantly, will the anti-BNP protesters be able to shut the hell up and let a real debate take place. If they heckle and barrack Griffin (especially if Griffin looks reasonable when he tries to deal with them, as has happened on occasion) they will give him the best outcome of all - make him the centre of attention and do not force him to explain his policy.
It is decisions like these that make me wonder about David Cameron. Wonder especially at whether he truly believes what he says, or whether he is merely saying it in order to try to make himself appear more electable.
Conservative Home have an excellent editorial on this, but I must stick my own two cents (or pence) in. This is another example of CHQ trying to further centralise candidate selection. And this does not work well. Labour has discovered with all-female shortlists that spurned men will pop up as independent candidates (and in some cases have won!), and if local members feel that a candidate has been forced upon them they will be less likely to go out and campaign for them. And Labour has a far more centralised candidate selection than the Conservative Party!
The Conservatives discovered in the Bedford Mayoralty election (where a candidate was forced on the local association) the negative effects of not having local associations onside (the mayoralty was won by the Liberal Democrats with 54% of the vote). One local activist in Bedford claimed "I have never known such anger and disillusionment in the party in all my years. Local members have been kicked in the teeth."
This is only a taste of the disillusionment that some Conservative candidates could find if they are imposed on local associations and then discover no-one particularly wants to go out and campaign for them.
Leaving aside the implications for local associations, all-women shortlists are simply a bad idea. The way to make Parliament better is not to force more less able women into seats they couldn't win themselves. The way to make Parliament better is to have more people of any sex, race or creed who are up to the job. More often than not the best people to decide this are local associations, rather than a central office that will be looking to fill quotas for the number of women or minority candidates. Margaret Thatcher did not need an all-women shortlist to become an MP (let alone leader). Barack Obama did not need an all-black shortlist to become Senator of Illinois (or President of the United States). While Conservatives need to guard against racism and sexism in local associations that would prevent a minority or woman candidate who is the best candidate from winning, the solution is not a shortlist that imposes a candidate on those associations.
Finally, there is no reason to think that imposing a woman candidate on a constituency will help the Conservatives with women voters. For that they must concentrate on policy issues, rather than throwing lesser candidates at the electorate as a sop to political correctness.
President Obama - presumably in order to help rehabilitate the image of the United States in the Muslim world - has signed up the United States to a resolution on free speech at the UN Human Rights Council that specifically excludes 'any negative racial or religious stereotyping'.
This is most definitely NOT a good thing. The fear by many free speech advocates is that Islamic countries will use the exception given in the resolution to enact and maintain strict blasphemy laws, as well as prevent the West from using 'free speech' as a reason whenever we get into an argument with the Islamic world over some depiction or discussion of Islam. Obviously there are times when discussions about Islam can become racist or bigoted - or even violent. But these cases should not outweigh the basic and fundamental right to freedom of speech - a right so fundamental that the government should have very limited rights to regulate at all.
So, now we have an exception to freedom of speech for any racial or religious stereotyping (a phrase so unbelievably broad that anyone could be caught in it), and an effort by the UK government to repeal the 'freedom of speech' defence from hate speech laws (a law that is illiberal to start with - if someone is inciting to violence they can be charged and convicted under existing incitement legislation!). And now America, the land of the free, has backed off it's support for freedom of speech. How depressing...
There have been a lot of anger from MP's regarding the Sir Thomas Legg investigation into expenses. The reason behind this is that Sir Thomas has gone back five years and retrospectively changed the interpretation of the rules. Claims that were looked at by the Fees Office at the time and signed off as being 'within the rules' has been re-examined and, in some cases, reversed. This has caused a number of MP's (including the Prime Minister) who believed they were in the clear, being asked to pay back a lot of money (in Mr Brown's case, he has been asked to pay £12,000).
The newspapers and much of the public are, to say the least, unsympathetic. They claim that MP's made the rules and they should have made rules that were stricter.
In my opinion this is a little unfair. If claims were signed off as being within the rules at the time, it is a little rough to retrospectively examine the claims with a new set of criteria. Imagine the Government changing a law today (such as raising the retirement age), then writing to every pensioner and telling them they should have know the age was going to go up, and they need to pay back any pension the got for those years. There would be a justifiable outcry. There is little difference to what is now happening to MP's, in some cases to the tune of tens, or even hundreds of thousands of pounds. For all that we can laugh at how much MP's are paid, they are not actually that well off (unless they are well-heeled Tories). Asking them to stump up with that sort of cash is completely unreasonable.
By all accounts punish those who broke the rules - even have the Police investigate sorts like Jacqui Smith who appear to have acted corruptly by mis-claiming or those caught 'flipping' houses - but to retrospectively change the rules and demand repayment seems a little rough.
An interesting (and potentially worrying) story in today's Metro is that a quarter of young urbanites have not yet made up their mind about who they are voting for. There are two ways of reading this, one of which could lead to Labour holding a lot more seats on election night than current polling indicates.
The first option is that this is no big deal - young people are usually the least partisan (or at least the least pro-Conservative), and they also vote much less reliably than older voters. Therefore, a large chunk of that quarter may just not be planning to vote. Think of the USA - where every election the young will drive the Democrats to victory, and every time the young fail to come out in proportion to older voters (even Obama failed to increase young voters as a percentage of voting population, although the absolute number of young voters did increase). So according to this there is no problem - if they haven't made up their mind, they probably won't vote, so the current numbers should remain steady.
The second option is possibly a very big deal - That young urbanites have never felt a real economic downturn before - let alone had to deal with falling government spending. And because they have never experienced it, they are less likely to understand what would happen to the country without major cuts in spending. Therefore, this 'don't know' could indicate that a large chunk of young people in urban centres (seats the Tories must win if they are to form a government) are unwilling to sign up to the necessary but unpleasant cuts the Conservatives are advocating - and could cast their vote for Labour as the 'nice' alternative.
I have no idea which of these two options is the cause of the number of 'don't knows' amongst young urbanites (although I lean towards the first option). Of course, there is always another option - that despite his efforts to appeal to the young, David Cameron is yet to seal the deal. Hopefully his conference speech today can convince some of these voters, and lay out exactly why people should vote FOR the Conservatives, rather than simply vote against Labour.
I don't know if it was the vast quantities of free alcohol that disappeared down thousands of throats on Tuesday night, but Wednesday appeared much quieter in general, and in the morning in particular. But anyway, highlights of Day 3 include:
I went to an excellent fringe event on the effects of regulation on the banking industry. The speakers debated the level of desired regulation, and two speakers made excellent points for the industry to take over more of a self-regulatory role. It was a very interesting discussion on the effects of bank regulation, and also the rather worrying new role that the G20 has taken on.
Chris Grayling's unfortunate mistake on General Dannatt - Today the Conservatives should be on an even greater high than previous days in the media. General Dannatt, the recently retired British Army Chief, has agreed to be elevated to the House of Lords as a Tory Peer (see how good the appointed Lords is?) and serve as a Defence advisor to a Conservative Government. Unfortunately no-one advised Mr Grayling of this new development, and when he was asked about it by the BBC he (seemingly on the mistaken belief that Labour had offered General Dannatt a job) said that he hoped 'it wasn't a political gimmick'. Cue laughter and eye-rolling of press gallery.
This morning is very quiet. The fringe events are over (for the most part), and there are only a few speeches left, of which only two are high profile. William Hague will speak on foreign affairs, and then the big tamale (David Cameron) will speak at about 2pm on the need to end the 'culture of irresponsibility'. And then we all decamp back to London and leave Manchester behind. Next year - Birmingham!
Well, it's official. All three parties now call for electoral reform. The only problem is that all three have VERY different views of what electoral reform should be passed. The Liberal Democrats call for proportional representation (which is nothing new). Labour jumped into the debate calling for alternative votes (a similar system to what is used in Australia), and the Tories yesterday said they would drastically cut the number of seats and equalise the number of people within each constituency. Naturally each party has chosen the system that will benefit them best. The Liberal Democrats never get the number of seats that their share of the vote entitles them to (although I would argue that if it did, they would get far fewer votes), Labour believes the Liberal Democrats split the centre-left vote, which would mean that in a ranking system they would benefit from Lib Dem second choices (although once again, I don't think they will benefit as much as they think they will - large chunks of Liberal Democrat voters are actually libertarian and would rank the Tories above Labour), while the Conservatives claim many of Labour's seats are in urban areas with fewer people in each constituency (not to mention the Scottish seats have significantly fewer people per constituency - meaning a Scottish vote counts for a lot more than an English one), so by equalising the number of people per constituency and making them larger, they will improve Conservative chances of electoral victory. Of the three, the Conservative one is the reform most likely to get the results they desire.
All this means is that there will be reform of one kind or another after the election - and the people of Britain will be voting not just for a new government, but also what kind of electoral system they want!
Yesterday was another whirlwind. I do not know how the media manage to keep abreast of what is going on. At any one time there can be up to twenty different fringe events on, plus whatever is on in the main conference hall. Inside the eye of the storm it is impossible to try to work out what is going on...
But some highlights nonetheless: The Conservatives were fending off some negative press over their announcement that they will raise the retirement age to 66 in the next seven years (rather than over the next twenty as Labour is intending). Surprisingly most people interviewed on the street by the BBC seemed pretty happy with the changes, most expecting that they would have to work longer than that anyway. Ken Clarke gave a barnstorming speech on the conference floor, writing off the Liberal Democrats as 'dreamers', Labour (and his opposite number Lord Mandelson in particular) as 'schemers', while saying the Conservatives had to roll up their sleeves because there was work to do. A new party group called 'Progressive Conservatives' was launched. This new group is to push for policy from a classical liberal (small government social liberal) point of view. It was a very exciting launch (especially because Dan Hannan MEP spoke - if you ever want to wind up a crowd of Conservatives put Dan Hannan in front of them) and there were a lot of people there considering it was only launched three days before conference started. George Osbourne spoke about the need for spending restraint and laid out some specifics - including a pay freeze for public sector workers (which was naturally immediately attacked by the unions) and removal of some of the middle class welfare that Labour has created.
There were also a very large number of receptions last night - which is where most of the fun happens!
Now the Conservatives have a real 'Europe' problem. Yesterday I sat in a room with a VERY large number of people who bayed in full-throated approval whenever one of the speakers mentioned leaving the European Union, or demanding a referendum on Lisbon no matter it's status.
David Cameron has a real problem. If he were to try to alter the Lisbon Treaty once it came into force (or repeal Britain's acceptance of it), the result for the British economy could be cataclysmic - the loss of confidence in the Sterling and the likely inability of the Government to sell gilts could put the economy into a serious tailspin - and the European Union would be less than keen to help Britain out of the hole it dug itself.
However, if Cameron backs off the hard line on Europe he could have some trouble holding some of the more Eurosceptic elements together within the party, which could lead to his having the same troubles that John Major had over Europe. And if Nigel Farage (from UK Independence Party) wins a seat in Westminter, there would be a vehicle for these disaffected Tories to jump to.
However, there is still a long way to go before anyone has to worry about that. Warsaw and Prague still have to ratify (which they probably will before a General Election can be held), and much will depend on the election result and the size (if any) of a Conservative majority.
Ok, I've found somewhere where I can piggyback off the internet, so I can try to update with what is going on at Conservative Conference. Day One: Francis Maude pledged major changes to how Whitehall Departments are run, including bringing in private sector managers and having fixed term contracts for civil servants to keep more continuity. I sat in on a fringe meeting at which he spoke, and the ideas sound very solid - although more needs to be said about how exactly this will help bring about the radical change that many Whitehall departments require. Boris Johnson (everyone's favourite Tory) landed feet-first into the debate on Europe by saying the Conservatives should offer a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty no matter what the status of the Treaty was when the Conservative Party came into office. I went to a very interesting fringe event in the 'Freedom Zone' about how the Conservative Party was going to combat the 'bully state'. Unfortunately there were only three speakers who were opposed to state intervention in our lives - it would have been very interesting to hear a counterpoint from someone who believes intervention is a good thing, or who subscribes to the 'nudge' theory. Bruges Group held a meeting on 'Have Politicians failed us?', their answer was (unsurprisingly) that yes, they had. This was probably my first experience of the hardline Tory right, especially their feelings on Europe. Needless to say, it wasn't always a comfortable place to be. So, that is just a few of the highlights (one highlight was, without a doubt, the excellent free food put on by Reform!). I'll try to keep more on top of things today and update more often!
We are about a month out from polling day in two major Governor races in New Jersey and Virginia, and the result could have a serious effect on the Obama Presidency, and give us an idea on the extent of any Republican gains in next year's mid-term elections.
Obviously there are still four weeks of serious campaigning, and four weeks worth of events to get through (not least will be the position of the health care and cap-and-trade legislation in the House and Senate), but where would be the fun in predictions if we didn't do them so far out?
Virginia - Likely Republican gain: Looking at the polls (RCP has an average of 7.5% GOP lead), the Republican candidate (McDonnell) appears to be increasing his lead and is by far the favourite to win without some kind of serious game-changer. Also, as a rule the party who holds the White House loses the Virginian Governor's mansion. The state Democratic Party appears split over their candidate (Deeds), particularly over his position on gun control. Not only this, but Republicans finally seem to have reconnected with the campaign strategy that worked for them in previous elections - it's the economy stupid (and before you tell me so, I know the phrase is from Clinton ;-) ). Previous elections the GOP has often run hard on social issues that do not expand their support, but merely excite the base. This turned off independents and meant that when the Democrats put up someone who could bring out independents (*cough* Obama *cough*), the Republicans would be swamped. But in Virginia McDonnell is running a bread and butter campaign. While he is unashamedly socially conservative, he is not making social issues a major part of his campaign. And voters in more liberal Northern Virginia appear to be getting on board with his message.
New Jersey - Toss-up: I was going to put Democrat Hold, but at the last minute I decided to make it a Toss-up. Why? Well, John Corzaine (sitting governor) is currently polling about 40%, which is so awful for an incumbent that I cannot in good conscience give it to the Dems. But why, I hear you ask, do you not give it to the GOP? Simply because the polls are narrowing, and Republican hopes in this state have been dashed too many times where the Republican has appeared to have a narrow lead and ended up losing the race.
What do these races mean? Well, everything and nothing. At the end of the day, both races are for state rather than federal offices. Both will be fought on local issues (for example, had Corzine not been in charge of the state during a period of extreme budgetary crisis and tax increases, it is difficult to imagine him being seriously in danger). However, were both races to go to the Republicans it could not help but have an effect on politics in Washington. If Virginia falls to the GOP, centrist Democrats who will be fighting to hold their seats next year will start feeling even more worried about re-election. If the healthcare bill has not already been passed, centrists may back away from supporting a bill with a 'public' option, fearing the effect this will have on their numbers. In the House this will matter little (since the centrist 'Blue Dogs' do not have enough members to block legislation), but in the Senate it could lead to a bill dying on the Senate floor.
I am honestly nothing short of horrified how many people have leapt onto the bandwagon to free Roman Polanski. Basically these people are saying (even if probably unintentionally) that because Roman Polanski made good movies and a long time has passed, he should be forgiven for his crimes and escape any kind of sanction for them.
Let us remember exactly what Mr Polanski did. According to Samantha Geimer's Grand Jury testimony he took her to a house, gave her wine and drugs, told her to strip naked, and rapes her, performing oral, vaginal and anal sex on her. Samantha was 13 at the time.
This is not a minor offence. This is not something that can or should be brushed under the rug because the person who committed the offences happens to be rich and powerful, or has rich and powerful friends. The very point of the law is to treat everyone the same, and provide everyone the same level of protection - whether rich or poor, powerful or weak. If Roman Polanski is able to escape the punishment for a crime that he admitted to the justice system will be undermined and the police will naturally find it more difficult to encourage the victims of crime committed by the rich and powerful to come forward.
Tomorrow is a big day. Ireland will vote again on the Lisbon Treaty and the result is expected to be a 'Yes' to the treaty. However, the result is still up in the air, and will probably come down to turnout. The Taoseich (Prime Minister) is hugely unpopular, and his support for Lisbon could potentially lead to some Irish voting against it in order to punish the Government (the same way many French opposed the European Union Constitution due to opposition to President Chirac's economic policy).
However, the 'Yes' campaign is heavily favoured, and this could lead to a very interesting Conservative conference conundrum. The British Parliament has already backed the Lisbon Treaty (over the opposition of the Tories - who claim there should be a referendum), and the only two countries who still have to ratify the treaty are Ireland, Poland and the Czech Republic. Poland is set to ratify sometime in the near future, Ireland votes tomorrow, and only the Czech's will be left. The pressure on the Czech's will be vast, and most expect the Government to cave to this pressure sometime in the next four months. The Conservative Party policy on the issue is that they will give the people of Britain a vote on the Lisbon Treaty. However, if the three remaining countries ratify the treaty will come into force. And it would be impossible for Britain to offer a referendum on a treaty that has come into force.
The Conservatives have said that if the treaty is ratified they 'will not let matters rest'. It may well be that come Monday (first day of conference) David Cameron and the rest of the party may have to explain to some very angry Euro-sceptic delegates exactly what that means.
Jack Straw has gone up hugely in my estimation. He is going on BBC's flagship Question Time to debate the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin. This is a change of policy from previous years, where the Labour refused to debate the BNP in an attempt to deny them publicity. That has now failed, with the BNP gaining two European seats and a number of Council seats.
The best (and only) way to deal with these groups is to show them up as the racists they are. Instead of ignoring them and allowing their policies to go undebated, you have to take them on issue by issue and point out the grave deficiencies with their populist, racist policy. Most BNP voters, when shown the reality of what the BNP stands for, may think again about voting for them.
The polls are closed and the final results are in. Angela Merkel will be Chancellor of Germany for another four years (excluding intra-party wrangling).
However, the make-up of her government has changed dramatically, since she has gone from a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SDP) to one with the right-wing, free market Free Democrat Party (FDP). Now she will be operating with a very narrow parliamentary majority and will most likely have to reduce her consensual style of governing and accede to some of the FDP's more free market policies.
And speaking of a narrow majority, the style of politics will change hugely over the next four years. Previously the government, while fractious, had 443 seats in a 614 seat Bundestag, with the rest split reasonably equally between three other parties. This meant that there was little opposition to the government's policy, since none of those three parties was strong enough or received enough media attention individually to hold the government to account (and they all hated each other too much to work together). Now one of the main parties (SDP) is in opposition, and will be able to lead a powerful campaign against the government, along with it's ideological (if not political) allies the Left and Greens. Expect politics become a LOT more combative.
Also, not only has the make-up of her government moved to the right, but the power of the FDP has increased dramatically from when they were previously in government. In previous governments the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) have had the lions share of the seats, allowing them to direct policy with little reference to their much smaller partner. But with a narrow majority in the Bundestag and the FDP scoring a record number of members, Merkel may be compelled to take more FDP policies on as government policy - especially since right-wing members of her own party will now be pushing for a shift away from the amorphous blob that was the governing ideology of the grand coalition.
But what does this mean for the parties? Firstly it means that people like Merkel as Chancellor, but did not like the grand coalition that she was forced to work under. Both the CDU and the CSU (the Bavarian sister party of the CDU) lost votes from 2005 (although the CDU gained seats), while the SDP saw it's vote plummet by more than 10% and lost more than 70 seats. The big winners were the FDP on the right, and both minor parties (Greens and Left Party) on the left.
Secondly it shows again that while Merkel is an excellent Chancellor, she is not a good campaigner. The centre-right went down in the polls during the campaign period, and only squeaked in with a majority. Large numbers of media stories have discussed Merkel (and, to be fair, the SDP leader) 'snored their way to election day'.
And thirdly expect serious ructions to break out from the ranks of the SDP (and these ructions could be a fore-runner to similar problems in the Labour party after the UK election next year). The SDP received it's lowest share of the vote ever and much of the blame appears to be landing on the head of the centrists (such as former Chancellor Schroeder). The argument by many appears to be a break with this centrist model and a sharp move to the left to combat The Left Party, which has been cannibalising increasing numbers of SDP voters for the last three elections. Obviously we cannot know who will win the battle for the SDP's soul, but if it does move sharply to the left to combat the Left, it could well find itself locked out of power for a long time to come.
This is something that really grinds my gears. In the London Lite (free paper given out to read on the Tube) last night there was an article that video games have insufficient diversity and basically intimating that 'something should be done about it'. They also claim that gaming businesses are missing out on potential business by not having diverse casts. I admit that I am not one of those hard-out gamers who play Starcraft or World of Warcraft for 26 hours straight. However, I enjoy gaming - and I have NEVER taken into consideration the diversity of the cast when buying a game. For example, I certainly didn't think when 'Shogun: Total War' came out (unsurprisingly entirely populated by Japanese characters) "oh, I cannot possibly buy that because I cannot personally identify with the characters". Seriously, aren't there enough serious issues of discrimination and under-representation out there to keep people busy, rather than looking into a private industry which creates fictional realities for people to lose themselves in? I wonder if, when compiling their list, they took into account the number of Orcs, Elves and Dwarves in games - they probably found a major over-representation of each category...
Baroness Scotland is the Labour Attorney-General, the chief legal officer in the Government, has been fined for unknowingly employing an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. Ironically she has been found to have breached a law that she shepherded through Parliament when she was a Home Office Minister. Even more ironically, the Government assured small businesses when the law went through Parliament that it would not lead to people breaking the law unknowingly.
Her position is now untenable. The person who has ultimate authority over the decision to prosecute over breaches of the law cannot remain in her position after such a breach of the law - especially a law she helped write. Gordon Brown has said that because she did not knowingly know the law, she should not resign. Possibly if it were any other Ministerial position, I would agree, but because she wrote the law and also because of her position, she must go. There was once a time where a Minister would have resigned days ago. Sadly these days are clearly gone. I would have thought that after the expenses scandal, politicians would have sought to do anything they could to avoid a 'one law for politicians, one law for everyone else'. It would seem not...
To quote Cromwell "go and let us have done with you. In the name of God go!" Such language could easily be applied to the entire Brown Ministry...
The Liberal Democrats have been meeting in Bournemouth this week (if you hadn't noticed the wall to wall coverage they have received...) at the first of the Party Conferences in the lead-up to election year. Some highlights thus far are: Vince Cable's (doesn't everyone just love him?) speech on the floor of the conference. He announced a tax on houses worth more than £1 million which has been dubbed a 'mansion tax' by the papers and will probably hurt the LD's in key LD/Tory marginals (including possibly Cable's own Twickenham seat). On the policy itself I am not certain how I feel. New Zealand local councils use a similar rating system which forces homeowners to pay a percentage of their home value in tax. However, the big problem with such a tax is that it forces people to pay based on an asset that appreciates or depreciates arbitrarily. For example, when I worked for a MP in New Zealand, I dealt with a constituent who told me he was a pensioner surviving on the basic state pension, and had bought his house for about $10,000 in 1970 but could now no longer afford the rates on the house because it had appreciated over the years to be worth more than $1 million. If there is going to be tax on things like land or shares, it is much better that the tax be taken from the profit gained from the sale. In London itself one can imagine that there are a number of properties that are worth in excess of a million pounds where the owners are not in a position to pay thousands of pounds a year in extra tax. And other highlights? Well........ ... I'm sure there were some... Well, one hilarious happening was the exposure of an 'unemployed' man who was part of a TV audience and who laid into the Liberal Democrats as a member of the Tory Party and a former Conservative Councillor.
How's it been going for the Lib Dems? To be honest, not well. The party is fundamentally confused over whether to target the Tories or Labour. Efforts to displace Labour in the north and policies to appeal to voters in Leeds, Manchester and Scotland will alienate voters in LD seats in the South-West. A misjudgement could see the LD's losing large numbers of seats to the Conservatives, while failing to make major headway into Labour's heartland.
Another fundamental confusion is the seeming divergence of views between Lib Dem activists and voters over who to support in the case of a hung Parliament. If neither party has overall control, Lib Dem activists want the Party to support Labour, while overwhelmingly Lib Dem voters would want the party to support a Conservative Government.
I've actually thought this for years, but it is always nice to be reminded. Jimmy Carter said yesterday that opposition to President Obama is based on racism, which may come as quite a surprise to the millions of people who oppose Obama's policies because they further hike the deficit, or will ultimately make health care worse for those who currently have coverage. I sure was surprised to wake up this morning and discover I was a racist.
Jimmy Carter truly is a gift that keeps on giving for the right. By intimating that everyone who opposes Obama is a racist, he is only going to further anger people, a number of whom already believe Obama's supporters play the race card too often already.
Also, if having a protest by at most a hundred thousand people in Washington Mall (and by most accounts far fewer) saying Obama is a socialist is an indication of racism, then what the hell was having 500,000+ people in the same place calling Bush a Nazi? It is possible to have strong opinions (let's not forget just how militant some people were about the Iraq War) without those opinions being entirely based on the skin colour of the person involved. Most of the same people had equally strong opinions opposing the Clinton health care plan. They aren't racist, they are small government conservatives. And Democrats trying to paint them as racist will certainly not help Obama's drifting poll numbers...
David Cameron and the Cameroons have spent years trying to 'detoxify' the Conservative Party and make sure the people of Britain do not see it as the 'nasty party'. Unfortunately, some conservative bloggers (note the small 'c', I do not for a second believe they are in any way affiliated with the Conservative Party) are undermining all the hard work by making a number of very unpleasant allusions to the state of Gordon Brown's mental health. The best example is a cartoon over on Guido's blog which, along with a couple of other comments and cartoons, appears to be making fun of the rumour that Brown is on anti-depressants.
This makes me very angry indeed, both because it is nasty and also because it is incredibly stupid. Brown may or may not be on anti-depressants. Frankly, unless someone can show me it has affected his ability (and to be frank, I don't see that he is doing anything much worse now than he's been doing the whole time), I don't care. Winston Churchill fought World War Two while suffering from deep depression, and many other of the world's greats have suffered from it. Depression is a terrible and highly personal issue. The effects of it should not be taken lightly, and it certainly should never become a political issue or issue for humour.
But even worse are the possible political issues if this gets out of hand. As we stand now, Brown is so unbelievably unpopular that you might be hard pressed to find a majority of people in his own constituency who think he is doing a good job. Labour looks set to be utterly destroyed in the general election (whenever it may be), losing swaths of England to the Tories, and even half their Scottish seats to the SNP (according to recent polling). As it is, the Conservatives just need to avoid doing anything stupid (having Cameron appear on film killing kittens, while wearing a SS uniform and singing "I love bin Laden" comes to mind) and they will win the next election. However, the kind of nasty attacks now being seen on some blogs may just remind people why they have voted against the Tories all these year.
Let us not for a second forget, if the polls from most by-elections and European elections tell us anything, it is that the swing to the Tories is at least half down to Labour's vote collapsing and going to minor parties (or staying home altogether), and non-committed Tories seem not overly excited by the prospect of voting for David Cameron. While having the party leader being a figure of pity rather than dislike might not be the best election strategy in the world, the British people love an underdog, and if this 'Brown is Bonkers' campaign starts getting noticed by uncommitted voters and soft Tories, David Cameron could start to have a major problem.
The papers this morning have reports that Gordon Brown received a chewing out from Obama over the release of al-Magrahi. This is one of the few times I fully agree with Brown, and I think it only fair to say so. The Scottish Assembly is a fully devolved system. It, and it alone had to make the decision to free the al-Magrahi, and the Westminster Government (assuming there was no backroom deal) cannot be held responsible. To use another example, imagine if Gordon Brown rang up Obama and chewed him out if Texas executed a British citizen. Impossible, right? Because Obama is not responsible for Texas's justice policy. In the same way, blaming Brown for a decision by the Salmond executive in Scotland is just plain unfair.
The new laws for working with children are currently being debated on BBC. Basically if you work with children in any capacity (including if you drive your children and their friends to sports practice or carpool to school) you will have to be checked out by the Police as a potential abuser. It strikes me as nothing less than incredible that the government and quangoes cannot see the effect this law will have on relations between children and adults. We already have a situation where many adults see kids as potential muggers and kids see adults as potential sexual abusers. The different groups are already highly segregated. The new law will make this worse and further erode the trust between adults and children. It is another example of forcing everyone to jump through bureaucratic hoops for a highly dubious amount of public good
David Cameron spoke today about his plans to cut spending and reduce the deficit. He (quite bravely, in my opinion) spoke of actual spending cuts rather than pretending that the debt crisis can be solved with 'reductions in spending increases', or a 'zero-percent increase' (a favourite of the Labour party). Most of the speech dealt with small beer. Cutting back Quangos and other public sector 'fat cutting' that will probably create very little real controversy if the Tories come in to government (except with some in the civil service, no doubt). But the best thing about Cameron's speech was his obvious willingness to create a culture of smaller government and lower spending. He also finally pointed out that no-one in the Conservative Party will actually enjoy slashing spending and firing public servants (about time someone pointed out that Conservatives do not sit around rubbing our hands at the prospect of putting people out of work).
In a good, workmanlike speech, Cameron also spelled out a number of his plans for change in Parliament. He ran through a number of populist, Parliament-bashing themes, such as cutting the salaries of Ministers and halving the number of government cars for Ministers. However, there were a couple of suggestions that he had that I take some small issue with. First he plans to do away with the communication allowance that is given to MP's to allow them to communicate with their constituents. The argument is that this is little more than publicly funded propaganda and helps to protect incumbents against challengers. While I can see some good points in this argument, I believe that MP's need to be able to communicate with their constituents.
The other is cutting the number of MP's. I've heard all the arguments in favour of cutting the number of MP's, but I am concerned about the possible democratic deficit that would exist if you cut the number of MP's. As constituencies get bigger, it becomes more difficult for MP's to communicate with constituents, and also makes it harder to represent the people. If Britain had a federal system like the United States (and so people had a state or devolved Parliament to vote for as well as the Westminster Parliament) I would feel differently. However, I am a strong believer that the government governs best that governs closest to the people.
But I won't pretend like this is a major revolution. Cameron is calling for only 10% of the seats being cut, and to be fair most of these will certainly come from Scotland, where seats are significantly smaller than the English seats and ought to be increased to the same size.
However, one thing I would have liked to hear from Cameron but didn't is a cut in the number of Ministers. If you want to cut the waste in government, then there is plenty of fat to cut in the number of ministers and junior cabinet secretaries.
Update: David Cameron has since announced he will cut the number of Ministerial positons
While watching Alastair Darling's speech (and David Cameron's, which I'll blog about in more detail later), I was struck by a line from Darling's speech that sums up how the left seems to view the private sector. "No business, no matter how well run, could survive the economic crisis by itself" is what he said. And it suddenly struck me - is he for real? Does he truly believe that no company can survive economic difficulties without active government intervention?
If so, then we see encapsulated the problems of the left - that the economy is based around the government, with the private sector seemingly relegated to the role of hanger-on - providing services that the government doesn't really want to, but always needing government direction and bailing out when things get tough.
For those of you who do not know, Ian Dale (former Conservative candidate and publisher of the magazine 'Total Politics') recently released his top blogs for 2008/9, for all the different categories (left of centre, right of centre etc).
A truly hilarious (and good natured) barny has erupted over on Hopi Sen's blog. Hopi got the award for second place on the list of Left Wing Blogs. He has since declared the number one blog (by Tom Harris MP, whose blog I also recommend) is 'an enemy of the people' and has assumed the position of number one blog. Very funny. And make sure you read the comments section!
There is nothing I love more than public figures who say crazy things that come to light immediately AFTER an election. Hatamoya's wife is on the record claiming she was abducted by aliens and flown to Venus - which was green and beautiful, according to Mrs Hatamoya.
Unsurprisingly, this has caused some consternation with Japanese voters, since the new PM-designate openly talks about how much he relies on his wife's views and opinions.
Now, this is not going to have any effect whatsoever on anything political. But funny nonetheless, neh?
Nigel Farage has decided to resign as leader of the UK Independence Party in order to fight the Buckingham seat in the next General Election full-time. I am highly dubious over this decision. The major reason that Farage's challenge to John Bercow is newsworthy is because Farage is the leader of UKIP. It may well be that once he resigns as leader he will suddenly find himself starved of the media air he needs to mount a strong challenge in that seat.
Of course, it could be the new UKIP leader who is starved of media attention as any media who want to interview someone involved with UKIP come to Farage rather than whoever is the new leader.
It may be a brilliant move - giving him time to fight the seat rather than having to race all over the country to help candidates. Or it may make it more difficult for him to challenge an entrenched incumbent. We will only know on election night.
You may remember a while ago I attacked Gordon Brown for claiming spending was going to go up under a Labour Government, and the danger this meant if Labour were to win the next election on the basis of 'no budget cuts' only to have to make budget cuts - and therefore be without any popular mandate to make them.
In the interests of being fair and balanced (unusual for the blogosphere, I know), I feel obligated to then say the same to David Cameron. Cameron has been cleverly avoiding the flack over the NHS comments by Daniel Hannan and others by saying that a Conservative Government would not cut spending on the health service. However, now the Tories have gone further, claiming they would not only not cut the NHS budget, but would also increase NHS spending more than Labour would. This risks destroying the Conservative plans to make the necessary and vital spending cuts to decrease Britain's dreadful fiscal deficit. The NHS accounts for close to 30% of the public budget, and by ring fencing it (let alone increasing it) it becomes much harder to achieve serious savings. And NHS spending is not the only issue.
Opposition parties must be very careful, since they can sometimes have a tendency to go after the government on a number of spending issues - mostly implying they would spend more. So the Tories have now committed themselves to increase NHS spending, as well as increasing defence spending (they can hardly cut it after the amount of airtime they have had criticising government spending on defence). They also face an increased welfare budget thanks to the economic crisis and higher unemployment. It will be immensely difficult for the Tories to cut spending in a meaningful way unless they can find savings in the NHS.
Now, there are arguments that Cameron hasn't given a timeline for NHS ring fencing (so possibly in his mind he'd ring fence it for a year and then make some cuts in the second year of his government). But this semantic point will not carry weight with voters. If Cameron goes into an election campaign saying he will not cut spending at all in the NHS, he will have no popular mandate to do so. Any attempts to turn around two years into his term and say "we ring fenced the NHS spending, but now we feel we have fulfilled our promise and will now cut with wild abandon" will not fly.
Cameron needs to be honest with the public. If he ring fences the NHS spending then the debt crisis that George Osbourne mentions at least twice a day cannot be solved. If he is going to really deal with Britain's indebtedness there will have to be either serious reform of the NHS or cuts to its budget. Cameron's shadow cabinet needs to pick a side and stick to it. The big difference between Opposition and Government (that few Tories have first hand knowledge of nowadays...) is that you cannot have your rhetorical cake and eat it too.
In breaking news, the Daily Telegraph has just broken the story that John Bercow MP - Speaker of the House of Commons - will be challenged at the next election by the leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage MEP.
This creates a very interesting dynamic in the seat. Nigel Farage is the European Parliamentarian for the region that incorporates Bercow's seat of Buckingham. Buckingham is one of the safest Tory seats in the country, with Bercow defending a majority of about 18,000. However, this now becomes an interesting race for three reasons: 1) Farage will run to the right of Bercow, who is not widely liked for his shift leftwards on a number of policy issues, and is also disliked by many Conservatives because he actively wooed the Labour Party to get himself elected Speaker (while most Tories voted against him). 2) Bercow has been tainted by the expenses scandal, and more recently was lambasted by the papers for spending an enormous amount of money to upgrade the Speaker's flat in the Palace of Westminster. This could give Farage an opportunity to attack him (although UKIP is hardly clean as a whistle either). 3) The tactical voting for other parties will be very interesting. By convention the major parties do not stand against the Speaker, so the other parties vote (more than 40% in 2005) could go almost anywhere.
The average Tory is highly Eurosceptic. A lot of them are drawn towards UKIP but often blanch from voting for them in General Election as they see it as a wasted vote. Now almost anything could happen.
Update: Over on Conservative Home there appears to be a very lively debate - with a surprisingly large number of posters saying they'd switch to UKIP.
Really good series of articles over on Der Spiegal (in English) about the lead-up to World War II and whether Hitler could have been stopped during the lead up. It is in two sections, the first section here, and the second section here.
I think it is good to reflect on the past, and remember the lessons that so many paid the ultimate price to help us learn.
The voters of Japan have spoken, and as expected they have unceremoniously thrown the 'natural party of government', the Liberal Democratic Party (oh that the Lib Dems in Britain could aspire to such a title!) out on it's ear. In a complete switch, the LDP lost 177 seats (and their allies the New Komeito Party lost another 10), while the Democratic Party of Japan gained 195 seats to win 308, the largest number of seats held by any single party in more than 35 years. In this election we can see parallels with the United States Presidential election that swept Obama to power.
Both ran more on opposition to previous administration and a message of 'change' than on a set of policy goals. Although both Obama andHatoyama (DJP leader and soon to be Prime Minister) laid out policy manifestos, both spent most of their time on the hustings attacking the previous government, and promising broad, incontestable goals like 'change' and 'love'. This allowed both to get into office with huge positive support from the public. However, Obama at least is now discovering the pitfalls of not putting your specific policy goals front and forward during the campaign - you discover that the public has not bothered to read your policy manifesto and suddenly is not willing to support you on major policy planks.
Also, both have come into power with almost unattainable expectations from the public. Many in Japan expect the new government (which lacks many who have served in government previously) to swiftly put the economy to rights and solve many of the underlying problems that the LDP has failed to deal with in the last ten years. If Hatoyama's government fails to live up to expectations, the DJP may find the swing against them all the stronger because the public believed so much in them when they started. Obama has haemorrhaged support since taking office since he has failed to fulfil people's expectations (expectations which were, to be fair, completely unrealistic).
Finally, neither Obama nor Hatoyama have much time to get their programmes in place before they are forced to face voters again - and neither will face the voters directly in off-year elections. Both Obama and Hatoyama face off-year elections next year which will be taken both as a measure of their continuing public support, and could also have a direct impact on their ability to pass their agenda. Hatoyama faces elections for the upper house of the Japanese Parliament next year. Currently the DJP and their allies hold a narrow majority, and thanks to the electoral system the LDP are unlikely to gain a majority (fewer seats are up for re-election next year than at the previous election), but the DJP could lose their control over the house, potentially leading to gridlock. In America Obama indirectly faces the people twice in the next two years. This year there are two hotly contested governor races in New Jersey and Virginia (more on them later), and next year are the mid-term elections, which could see the Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives (but almost certainly not the Senate). Democrats losing big next year would be seen both as a rejection of Obama's policies (as Clinton's massive defeat in 1994 was a result of voter disapproval of his policies on health care and social issues) and also make it immensely difficult for Obama to get his agenda through. Obviously a year is almost a lifetime in politics, and anything could happen in the interim, but both governments have (and will have to in the DJP's case) hit the ground running to pass laws before facing the voters again.
One small problem. The statement released by the 'Mayor' is a hoax. Someone set up a fake Mayoral website and put the fake statement up. And the media (including the Guardian) fell for it and wrote stories based on this entirely false source.
I'm sure we all understand that politics is sometimes about passing laws that are the best for your party. I mean, between gerrymandering, fund-raising laws and the like, it certainly isn't like we've not seen it all before. But this story coming out of Massachusetts takes the cake for me!
Basically in 2004 the Massachusetts state government rushed through a law that took away the right of the Governor to appoint someone to fill an empty Senate seat in order to stop Republican Governor Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican Senator should John Kerry (then Democratic nominee) win the Presidency.
Ok, a pretty obvious partisan move. But hey, something like 97% of Massachusetts office holders are Democrat, so the Republicans just have to lump it. However, it is EXTREMELY dodgy for the state government to be getting ready to change the law back so that the now Democratic Governor can appoint someone to fill the Senate seat formerly held (until his death) by Ted Kennedy. Especially since the people who might be expecting to get their shoulder tapped by the Governor may have the last name of Kennedy...
I like Frank Field. Let me rephrase that. I believe Frank Field's policies are disastrous and would destroy economic growth and make the average standard of living worse. However, I respect him greatly for his almost single-handed willingness to stand up to the Labour Party leadership over issues he (and his constituents) disagree with. Today he has threatened to lead a backbench rebellion against Government plans to reduce the housing benefit for some 300,000 beneficiaries, and has previously stood up to the Government over the abolition of the 10p tax rate.
For me Parliament is a place where different and real views can be aired and debated, from the far-left to the far-right. It is deeply depressing to see (on both sides) a seeming proliferation of MP's who simply parrot whatever the party line is on that day, and seem unable to think for themselves (or afraid that by publicly airing their opinions they will miss out on the fruits of government office). Part of this is due to the centralisation of the Party machines. You now have central parties taking (at least on the Conservative side) almost unprecedented control over candidate selections - meaning that if you want to get into Parliament, it helps not to rock the boat. Notice, for example, how few Tory prospective Parliamentary Candidates stood up for Daniel Hannan MEP over the National Health Service. Although a good number of them agree with Hannan, none were willing to risk their selection as a candidate to stand up for what they believed in. It is sad.
And it is another good reason to avoid proportional representation like the plague. Any system that further strengthens the role of the central party in candidate selection should worry us all - or we will end up with a Parliament of placeholders.
As I write, the Scottish Justice Minister in the devolved Holyrood Assembly is defending his decision to release the convicted Libyan Lockerbie Bomber. It appears that every other party is opposed to the decision, which means there is a serious question over the long-term stability of the Scottish National Party executive. The SNP is a minority government and requires the other parties in order to hold a majority. Should the Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats and Labour (all of whom oppose the decision) vote to defeat the SNP government in a motion of confidence, the First Minister Alex Salmond will be compelled to resign. So, what are the chances? Well, not all that great, in my opinion. Firstly, although the three opposition parties oppose the decision to release al-Megrahi, it is difficult to imagine the Conservatives would wish to bring down an SNP government in order to replace it with a Labour-led one. Secondly, again keeping with the Conservatives, there appear to be attempts by the British Tories to create an anti-Labour alliance with the SNP in the run-up to the General Election (in order to have a working relationship assuming the Tories win the next election). This means that David Cameron (not that he has any control over Scottish MSP's) will likely oppose any efforts to bring the government down. Also, the opposition parties in Holyrood may feel concerned that attempts to bring down the SNP executive will be viewed by voters as playing partisan politics with an issue as sensitive as the Lockerbie bombing.
While the defeat of the SNP executive is more unlikely than likely, this does not mean there will not be consequences for that party. This incident makes it highly unlikely that the SNP will be able to win the Glasgow North-East by-election (which was always going to require a massive swing against the Labour party). It also means that the SNP has finally lost (for good) it's very long honeymoon with the Scottish electorate. And the big reason behind this is that the Westminster Government has remained silent over the issue. Gordon Brown (and I never thought I'd right this) has made a very good tactical decision. Were the UK Government to comment on the issue, the SNP would have been able to return to its usual tactic of bashing the Westminster government. By remaining silent, the UK Government has prevented this happening and have compelled the SNP to take full responsibility.
