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.
One fascinating comparison that has been becoming more and more glaring is how the Labour Party sometimes needs to learn to shut the hell up. The big example is the NHS debate. Immediately after Daniel Hannan pointed out the shortcomings of the NHS on US television, a seeming grass-roots campaign of ordinary Britons got on twitter and other networking sites to show their support for the NHS. Now, these campaigns probably weren't as 'independent' as the media coverage of them might have led us to believe, but in the media and in the minds of people across the UK, they were free from the tarnish of partisan politics. However, then Labour got involved. And they turned a perfectly good independent grass-roots campaign into an extension of the Labour Party campaign. They ruined it by attaching it to a political party. And the whole issue (partially thanks to David Cameron's actions) has dropped off the radar screen, but not before Labour got roundly insulted by the media and blogosphere for missing an open goal.
In the US the Republican Party have actually got the health care strategy exactly right. They are doing almost nothing. They are not taking a lead, they aren't actively (publicly) getting involved in the grass-roots campaign against 'Obama-care' and they are letting the Democrats fight amongst themselves and against what is perceived to be the 'voice of the people'. This means the GOP gets the benefits of the campaign (anti-Obama, anti-Democrat, anti-Government health care) without being obviously a part of it. This means that independents and conservative Democrats can be involved without feeling they are supporting one party over the other.
Sure, the GOP and the protesters have the same policy position, right? So it shouldn't matter if you happen to be in the same group protesting against something with the other political party? Wrong! It means you can oppose a policy without having to nail your colours to the mast of the other party, and it makes doing it feel more personally acceptable. Think of it this way. How many left-wing Conservatives do you think signed up to #welovetheNHS after Labour nailed their colours to it?
This may sound like a small difference, but it can have a huge effect on the trajectory of a political debate and of the media portrayal of that debate. For example, this bi-partisan opposition movement has meant that in polling majorities of the electorate have expressed support for those protesting at Town Hall meetings. Also polling shows a healthy majority of Republicans and Independents (and a not insignificant number of Democrats) oppose the current health care reform plans.
So, what can Labour take from this? You are a political party, and more importantly you are the government. Jumping on a grass roots bandwagon does not look like leadership. Don't do it.
Well, I can't say I'm surprised. Members of the blogosphere and the Conservative shadow defence secretary Liam Fox are accusing Labour defence officials of preparing anonymous briefings against General Sir Richard Dannatt, outgoing Army Chief.
In today's Daily Mail, the newspaper quotes 'Labour backbenchers' who believe that Sir Richard will attack the government for its failings in Afghanistan once he retires in a few days time. Sir Richard has already been loud in his requests for more equipment for British servicemen deployed overseas, and Labour MP's and Ministers are concerned that his criticism will become more biting once he retires.
Labour Party Ministers, naturally, deny there is any campaign of briefing against Sir Richard. However, no-one seems to believe them. The reason for this is because Labour has anonymously briefed against everyone for so long (even against their own MP's and Ministers) that no-one is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when they deny it now. In a similar vein Political Betting has an excellent post on whether the day the Labour Government 'died' was the day the Damien McBride smear tactics came to light. It appears that smearing has become Labour's 'sleaze', that issue that is entirely non-political and has no impact on a Government's ability to govern, yet turns off voters and gives a Government a feeling of having been around too long.
Ok, I have three things to say about Daniel Hannan and the fracas that he seems to have created in Britain over his health care comments.
1) He is perfectly at liberty to say what he wants about health care - let's get one thing straight, Daniel Hannan MEP is a duly elected Member of the European Parliament. He has the right to say whatever he wants about any topic that he wants. To have people on the left claim that what Hannan is saying is somehow unpatriotic is nothing short of ridiculous. I mean, for heavens sake! If insulting your own country and military during an active campaign is not unpatriotic (and those same lefties sure seem to think it isn't), then how on earth can leading a campaign to change the National Health Service be?
2) David Cameron was right to shoot him down - While Hanna has the right to say what he wants, David Cameron has a duty to the wider party to show his leadership and the likely direction of his potential premiership. David Cameron, for his own reasons, strongly supports the NHS and will obviously seek to protect it against the right flank of the party while in Government. If he feels this way, it is completely correct for him to go on TV, affirm his committment to the NHS and cut Mr Hannan loose about the issue.
3) Daniel Hannan was absolutely right! - It is time to stop feeling loyalty towards a state behemouth and instead feel loyalty towards the ideal of improving the standards of healthcare for all Britons. These days people seem to have forgotton that the principle is to ensure that as many people as possible get the best health care possible. Not to protect some vast, inefficient state bureaucracy from criticism and amendment. For those getting emergency care (heart attack, stroke etc) the NHS is a wonderful system, providing people with immeidate life saving operations. However, if you have a long-term treatable condition then the NHS is vastly inferior to part-private and privatised systems we see in other parts of the world. Want a hip operation? Fine, wait twelve months for it. Want non-vital heart surgury, fine, but you have to wait for it and risk having your operation cancelled because one of those emergency patients comes in. Not only this, but because of Britain's current ballooning deficit, aging population and increasing costs of healthcare (expensive drugs, machines, surgical equipment etc) the NHS in it's current form is unsustainable. The Government simply cannot continue to put enough money into the health sector. If we recognise this now, we will be able to amend the system to make it sustainable and improve service to patients. If we continue to go forward pretending we do not need change, then when the results of this government's profligate spending finally become unavoidable, then we will have to put together a new system in the worst possible conditions - quickly, and with no money to soften the pain of those who miss out.
I saw this and thought it summed up perfectly the current economic climate facing lots of white collar workers out there. No political point to this, just thought you'd enjoy it. By the way, it comes from http://www.leasticoulddo.com/, which is a very amusing web cartoon if you are interested... Also, apologies for the crap formatting. You'll have to click on the picture to see it full-sized
The DNA database is a necessary and very useful tool. DNA information allows the Police to convict those guilty of crimes and exonerate the innocent. However, something that must never be done is to expand the database to store the information of innocent people. Yet, that is exactly what the Labour government has been doing, and what they have ordered chief constables across the United Kingdom to continue doing - in violation of European Court of Human Rights orders.
I am certainly not overly enamoured of the European Court of Human Rights (it often seems to involve itself in the kind of wide reading of 'human rights' that makes the phrase almost meaningless). However, is this really the issue we want to pick a fight with the Court on Human Rights on?
Euro-crats and those on the political left (aided and abetted by the media) have been engaged in a shameful hatchet job against the leader of the new Conservative and Reformist group in the European Parliament, Michel Kaminski. They have accused him of fascism, anti-Semitism and extremism - all serious and terrible charges. Today, Mr Kaminski has responded to their attacks on Conservativehome:
"Mr McMillan-Scott has not taken much care to link his attacks to real facts. He accused my Party of taking MEPs from ‘the ultra-Catholic Motherland Party’. Yet there is no ‘Motherland Party’ in Poland, nor has there ever been one. He quotes a well-known Polish left wing paper to back up his claims – hardly likely to give fair comment on a conservative Polish party. He accuses my party – one of Poland’s two major political parties and the party of the President of Poland – of ‘respectable fascism’. Anyone who knows anything about Poland knows that is nonsense. As Britain’s last ambassador to Poland has said, the truth is that Polish Law and Justice has ‘marginalise[d] politically the populist parties in Poland, and so create[d] a much more mainstream political space there’.
When I was born, Poland was a totalitarian Communist dictatorship. You could be imprisoned for speaking out against the Government. You had no say in choosing the Government. Like millions of other young Poles, I longed for freedom. I grew up in the 1980s with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as my political heroes. However controversial at home, east of the Iron Curtain they were loved because they had no hesitation in condemning the evil of Communist tyranny or calling for democracy in our countries. In 1987, when I was 14, I joined an anti-Communist dissident group, National Revival, so I could fight for freedom. It was a typical small dissident movement in those days. When Communism crumbled in 1989 we were at last able to form political parties and have a democracy. I left NOP and helped create one such party as its youngest member. A couple of years later, NOP was taken over by extremists who turned it into what it is now: a very small and very nasty far right party. It is on this that Mr McMillan-Scott has manufactured his smear of fascist links.
Next Mr McMillan-Scott makes the disgusting allegation that I tried to cover up an anti-Jewish atrocity. The facts are these: in 2001 a book came out that raised new questions about the involvement of local Poles in a horrific massacre of Jewish villagers in a place called Jedwabne in 1941, when the Nazis occupied my country. In 2001 I was the MP for the area. I have always said that we could not just blame the pogrom on the Nazis: shamefully, there were local Poles involved. I backed the Government’s establishment of an historians’ inquiry so that everything about this terrible episode in our history could be found out.
Like the Polish Prime Minister of the time, though, I did not think it right that our then President should apologise for the whole Polish nation. I argued that responsibility lay with those Poles who had committed that cruel crime. I thought his apology on Poland’s behalf might diminish the Nazis’ ultimate responsibility for the Holocaust. People may or may not agree, but I think it a legitimate argument to make.
I am proud of my record in combating anti-Semitism. I have used my seat in the European Parliament to highlight how it still festers in parts of Poland. I am active in the European Friends of Israel. I am equally proud of my Party’s record. Our most senior figure, Lech Kaczynski, as mayor of Warsaw, donated city land to help found Poland’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Now President of Poland, he has the privilege of being the first Polish head of state ever to attend a Jewish religious service in a Polish synagogue.
I want a real debate about the politics of the European Union. If people disagree with the European Conservatives and Reformists’ chief principle – that we should aim for a Europe of nation states, not a European superstate – let them make their case. People in the Brussels establishment may disagree, but I think it right that there should be an official alliance in the European Parliament championing the tens of millions across Europe who believe in our vision of Europe’s future. I am honoured to have as my colleague the Yorkshire Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope, without whose selflessness and leadership our new alliance to bring change to Europe could never have succeeded."
As someone who cares deeply about anti-Semitism in Europe (a still major and worrying problem), I am horrified that a Conservative MEP would use this type of slander. McMillan-Scott has had the Conservative whip removed from him for this outrage. I am glad of this. However, I think it also shows the kind of people who the Conservatives used to sit with in the European People's Party bloc that McMillan-Scott was rewarded for his slander with one of the vice-presidencies of the European Parliament
One thing that few people seem to have noticed in the mainstream media is the correlation of the Labour Party vote between the European Elections and the recent Norwich North by-election. Some of you may remember that I said of the Labour Party European result (15.9%) that it would be almost impossible to believe that Labour would do anything like as badly in a Westminster contest. However, the result from Norwich North actually seems to confirm that between a swing to the Tories and the Labour vote not coming out the effective Labour vote may actually be somewhere around the 20% mark. While polling still has Labour on about 25%, I am starting to wonder whether there is a large 'stay at home' percentage in those numbers, which would reduce Labour's support to something approaching 20% nationwide. Now, I can say these things safely because, due to the amount of time between now and a general election (and the amount of stuff that can happen in the intervening period) it is unlikely that my hypothesis will be tested. But, we can give it a trial run in the Glasgow North-West by-election (whenever Labour get around to holding it). If there is a corresponding dive in the Labour vote to less than 20% (although it is such a safe seat that even a higher percentage of the vote could be indicative of a dangerous nationwide picture), then we could be seeing three things on election day. Firstly, if Labour is really getting only 20% of the effective vote, the Liberal Democrats will almost certainly take second place in the popular vote (and will possibly be threatening a few Labour heartland seats). Secondly, the Tories will win an absolutely massive majority (about 150, although this depends on the Tory and Lib Dem shares of the vote as much as Labour's). Thirdly, we could see a serious advance by the Nationalist parties in both Wales and Scotland. Particularly in Scotland we could potentially see same very safe seats falling to the SNP as Scots show their disgust with the government not by voting Lib Dem or Tory, but for the Nationalists. We must remember that the SNP have been running the devolved government in Holyrood for the past two years. Many Scots see them a realistic voting alternative for political, rather than policy reasons (meaning to say, you don't have to be pro-independence to vote SNP any more). Glasgow North-West will be a fascinating contest in this regard...
Harriet has done it again. Just when Labour needed to woo the working class males back to the party she has made Labour again the party of identity groups. She has given an interview in the Sunday Times where she says that Labour must always have either a female leader or female deputy leader because 'men can't be trusted to run things'. Brilliant. Well done Harriet. That will bring those white working class men flooding back. There is nothing like being lectured by a politician that people like you cannot be trusted to run anything to make you want to vote for them, right?
But it raises an interesting point and something that the Tories are equally guilty of. A seeming view that people can only really be represented by someone like them. The thought pattern appears to be that a woman can not really be represented in Parliament unless her MP is a woman, or that a Black or Asian or gay or transgendered person cannot have their views represented in Parliament unless they are represented by an MP who is just like them.
My question is, why? Why should a woman feel like she is not represented unless her MP is a woman, or unless there are a certain number of female MP's? Isn't it more important to have the best available people representing you, rather than one that fits a similar identity profile? To put it another way, as a self-professed white male, I would not feel disadvantaged or disenfranchised if my MP was a woman, or an Asian, or gay - so long as they were good at their jobs, and I agreed with their politics and policy. For example, I would support Syed Kamal over George Galloway, or Maggie Thatcher over Tony Blair. On the same level, I would choose David Cameron over Harriet Harman. The colour or sex of the representative is less important than their politics and ability.
Labour is certainly not alone with believing that Members of Parliament much be closely aligned with census figures. The Conservative Party has also created 50/50 shortlists in a number of seats (where the shortlists must be half men and half women - no matter what proportion of men and women applied for selection), meaning that better qualified men are being left off shortlists in order to push up less qualified women.
The only way to have a successful government is to have a government and a Parliament made up of the best people available, regardless of race, creed or sex.
