What's Liberal about this coalition ?

Don't tell me the usual shopping list which begins with increasing the personal allowance. So far in government we have abandoned Keynesian economics, our opposition to nuclear power, our commitment to higher education available on merit not wealth, our historic identification with Beveridge's welfare state and our long-held support for a united Europe but we're still the party that loves liberty, aren't we ? Well, actually, no. Today the coalition government publishes its plan, the draft Brighton declaration, to "reform" the European Convention of Human Rights or rather to re-nationalise it and undermine its ability to protect human rights. The BBC says "There is also the question of the Liberal Democrats. Many are very reluctant to question the role of the Strasbourg court and some may find these proposals hard to stomach."

Let's measure the government's performance against the declaration on my membership card.

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of
liberty (see ECHR above),
equality (err, really ?)
and community ( The Localism Bill perhaps, the Big Society maybe ?)
and in which none shall be enslaved
by poverty (welfare cuts, public service cuts),
ignorance (tuition fees)
or conformity (Any ideas ? Anybody ?)

I am a Liberal so where else should I go ?

The plank in our eye

Today William Hague again joins the American condemnation of Iran. The inconsistency of the western position is breathtaking. Iran claims it is developing civil nuclear power; the West says it is developing nuclear weapons. Israel, on the other hand, actually has nuclear weapons but refuses to admit it. When do I hear the demands for Israel to let the IAEA inspect ? "Ah", reply the Western politicians, "but Iran threatens its neighbours. An Iranian nuclear weapon would destabilise the region". So the Israeli nukes don't threaten anyone ??? After all, Israel would never invade other people's land, would it ?

The British position is not merely inconsistent. It is hypocritical. The last Labour government and the Conservatives in this government are determined that whatever else we cut, we must spend billions renewing Trident. We live in one of the most peaceful parts of the world. Nobody's nuclear weapons are pointed at us. Our neighbours in France were not recently invaded by the most powerful country in the world with our help, as Iran's neighbours in Iraq were. We are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the bargain that says non-nuclear powers will not develop nukes if nuclear powers will junk theirs. Yet we say Iran is the problem.

When the Sun goes down...

Today's lesson is taken from Exodus Chapter 16 beginning to read at verse 21.

"And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted."

Murdoch, take note !

That's another fine mess you've got us into (2) !

Thanks to John Leston and Nigel Amor.

For Another Fine Mess no.1 see here.

Why is it so difficult to federate Europe ?

The following article written for a seminar in 2008 compares American and European experience in framing constitutions.

This seminar asks if there is a new model for a federal Europe but, as Prof Coombes has pointed out, we have the models; what we need is the strategy. When Douglas Hurd was British Foreign Secretary, he used to argue that the British didn’t like big visions, they preferred small steps. The problem with small steps is that if you don’t have a destination and a direction you go around in circles.

In Europe we have been taking both big and small steps for over fifty years. Our latest attempt to agree on a constitution was seven years in the drafting and two more years before ratification ran into a barrier in Ireland. By comparison it would appear that the eighteenth century Americans were more effective. The Philadelphia Convention met in the summer of 1787 and the constitution was ratified by 9 states by the following summer and by all 13 in 1790. This is a little misleading. Plans for an American Union go back to the Albany Plan of 1754. After the Declaration of Independence in 1776 it took five years to agree the Articles of Confederation and only when they proved inadequate was the famous constitution adopted in 1788. The drafting process was easier. In Philadelphia there were 54 delegates (of whom 30 regularly attended) representing a population of 3.5 million from 13 states. The European Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference involved hundreds of people representing a population one hundred times bigger than that, from 27 states. Also of course 2008 is not 1788.

Consider the differences between the two situations. The Americans were united by their common opposition to British rule and the war they fought to win independence. In 1787 they still faced the general threat of intervention by powerful European nations including the danger of war with Spain or renewed fighting with Britain. In 2008 Europe has forgotten the horror and destruction of the Second World War and the current threat of terrorism does not provoke a desire to unite. Look also at trade. The American states were still imposing tariffs on inter-state trade. Inland states paid customs duties to coastal states in order to export their goods to Europe. In Europe we have already achieved the single Market. Financially there are marked differences too. The American Confederation was saddled with unpaid war debts which nobody seemed inclined to repay. The European Union’s budgetary system does not allow it to have debts. The American Confederation had no taxes. Even when the Continental Congress agreed to impose fiscal demands on the states, there was no sanction if a state failed to pay as they usually did. Although there is continual argument about the European Union’s income from member-states, the “own resources” system is well-established.

Nevertheless, Europeans today confront the same problem as the newly independent Americans, the weakness of their union and its inability to respond to urgent needs of economy and security. The same confusion arises over identity and sovereignty. During the War of Independence, George Washington asked his soldiers to swear an oath of loyalty to the Confederation. At least one group refused, declaring “New Jersey is our country!”. At the end of the war, the state of Virginia signed the Treaty of Paris separately. In Philadelphia the credentials of the delegates from Georgia began “Georgia, by the Grace of God free, sovereign and independent...” The whole business of drafting and adopting constitutions was as familiar an activity to the Americans as it is to us today. Each American state had necessarily adopted a constitution since 1776. The former states of the Soviet Bloc have also adopted new constitutions since 1989. Spain, Portugal and Greece have new ones since the 1970s. Even France and Germany and other member-states have remodelled their constitutions since 1945. The Philadelphia delegates and the European member-state governments in their Intergovernmental Conferences have both felt the business of constitution-making to be so politically sensitive that it must be done in secret. The European Convention was an unusual and not altogether successful exception.

Drafting and agreeing constitutions is indeed difficult and always arouses deep-seated opposition. Comments from the American experience have an amazing resonance to our modern debates in Europe. Then as now much opposition arose from ignorance of the proposals. As Mr Davis of North Carolina noted at the time, “It is much easier to alarm people than to inform them.” Opponents would always appeal to fears of dominance and loss of freedom. The Virginian Patrick Henry warned that under the new constitution the President would enslave the United States. He likened the “tyranny of Philadelphia” to the tyranny of George III. The editors of the Pennsylvania Sentinel asked, “Were Pennsylvania freemen to let themselves be subject to the supremacy of the lordly and profligate few ?”. Farmer Amos Singleby of Massachusetts expressed his fears in biblical terms: “Lawyers and moneymen will rule and will swallow up us little fellows, yes, just as the whale swallowed up Jonah.” There was also the generalised apprehension of distance and difference. Virginians argued that the New Hampshire Congressmen would not understand Virginia. Less noble motives were adduced. As Joe Wilson of Pennsylvania observed, “Every person who either enjoys or expects to enjoy a place of profit under the present establishment will object to the proposed innovation – not in truth, because it is injurious to the liberties of his country, but because it affects his schemes of wealth and consequence.” On the other side of the debate were familiar suggestions that union would provide a “gravy train” or perhaps as it was later called a “pork barrel”. Francis Hopkinson employed a different metaphor, “No sooner will the chicken be hatched but everyone will be for plucking a feather.”

Although the proponents of the American Constitution faced similar arguments to us in their search for union, they had or adopted a number of procedural advantages. Above all, they abandoned the requirement of unanimity. The Articles of Confederation required unanimity for amendment but the Philadelphia Convention decided that the new constitution would come into force when 9 out of the 13 states had ratified it. This was a revolution or as President Martin Van Buren later put it, “an heroic and lawless act.” The state of Rhode Island was so opposed to altering the Articles of Confederation let alone adopting a new constitution that it did not even send delegates to Philadelphia. Nathaniel Graham of Massachusetts demanded, “Were all states to suffer themselves to be ruined if Rhode Island should persist in her opposition ?” The answer was no and because unanimity was not required, it was eventually achieved. In the end, isolated and not wanting to be left out, even Rhode Island ratified the constitution in 1790. When the European Parliament adopted the Draft Treaty of Union under the leadership of Altiero Spinelli, it also wisely recommended that the Union should come into force when over half of member-states representing at least two-thirds of the population had ratified.

The American federalists also managed to avoid a damaging or delaying debate in the Continental Congress, which was not asked to approve the draft but merely to receive and transmit it to the states. The federalists who drove forward the new constitution built a “staircase of agreement” ensuring that sympathetic states ratified early, making it harder for the slower and more doubtful states to say no. There was moreover one other fundamental difference in the process of ratification which we do not enjoy today.

In any dispute, conflict or negotiation one psychological element is crucial to success. If any party to the question is to accept its resolution, they must feel that their views have been expressed, listened to and taken into account. No-one can expect that the outcome will represent 100% of their opinions but, if they want agreement at all, they will accept it if they have their place in the discussion. With a constitution, this means the opportunity to amend. Many of the ratifying conventions in the American states attached amendments to their votes of approval. At the Convention, Edmund Randolph had suggested that there should be a second general convention to consider all such amendments. Massachusetts offered amendments first, then Maryland suggested 13; Virginia wanted a Bill of Rights and 20 amendments, New York 32. Crucially, their ratifications were not conditional on the acceptance of their amendments, although some were subsequently agreed without the need for a second Convention. Contrast the absurd procedure of adopting a new constitution for the European Union, which like the Latin num presupposes a question expecting the answer “No”.

What can we learn from the experience of the extraordinary men of 1787 ? Jefferson wrote of Washington and Franklin “They lent their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves.” Firstly, the project of a federal Europe, which has to overcome the ingrained opposition born of fear, ignorance and love of office, needs a vanguard of committed federalists. Of course it helps if some of those federalists already hold national office themselves. Secondly, federalists must seize the agenda as they did in Philadelphia. Thirdly, as the Andrews Sisters sang, we have to “accentuate the positive”. Our present procedure for making treaties between member-states accentuates the negative. Ministers and officials meet in secret and produce a draft which neither parliaments nor people can amend, only ratify or not. National governments have the obligation to present the draft to their national parliaments or to popular referendums which can only vote yes or no. Is it any surprise that so many choose the latter ? Our procedure forces anyone who objects to one article in a document of hundreds of pages to vote no. We push those who are merely critical or have some small difficulty with the text into the same camp as those who want no agreement at all. Thus where there may be support for over 90% of a treaty, those who object to 10% can defeat it. They don’t even have to object to the same 10% ! If the European Union would adopt a suggestion like Edmund Randolph’s, the Intergovernmental Conference could transmit the draft to national parliaments to discuss AND amend. The results of these debates could then be considered by the Intergovernmental Conference before a final text is agreed. This approach would stimulate popular debate and end secrecy. We would have a clear record of how much is agreed and how little disliked and by how many. In this way we could show how small the level of dissent is and separate those who want no agreement at all from those who merely want amendments. Governments may object that they already hold these debates in their closed meetings with each other, but how different is an open debate in each country ! We could explore the grounds of dissent and meet them with argument and compromise and avoid the inevitable veto of the dissatisfied few. The American constitution expressly forbids referendums on constitutional amendments. Some European countries would still insist on referendums but in a different climate and with more chance of success.

Finally perhaps we could take the advice of Benjamin Franklin writing to friends in Europe in 1788, “I send you the proposed new federal constitution for these states. I was engaged four months of the last summer in the Convention that formed it. If it succeeds, I do not see why you might not in Europe carry the project of good King Henry IV into execution, by forming a Federal Union and one grand republic of all its different states and kingdoms; by means of a like Convention; for we had many interests to reconcile.”

Daniel Hannan praises a federal system

Lev Eakins has drawn my attention to a speech by the eurosceptic Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, speaking to the gathering of American Conservatives known as CPAC.

Hannan's thesis is that the American Constitution is wonderful and he warns Americans not to follow what he regards as the European example of centralisation and too much government. The speech is a tour-de-force which flatters his audience and plays to their deepest prejudices. It is also disingenuous and dishonest. This man is not stupid. He's wrong.

Everyday of his political life he has resisted a federal Europe but here he is praising the federal system of the United States, which is one of the main sources of inspiration for European federalists. This sleight of hand is accomplished by never describing the American constitution as federal, only as republican. The magic is concealed by rhetorical misdirection. In one sentence he applauds the institutions created by the Philadelphia Convention and in the next he warns against the European example of "more government". When the American founding fathers set up a Presidency and a Congress and a Supreme Court, it was an example to mankind, "which would work everywhere". When the European Union's founding fathers set up the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European Court of Justice, it's just "more government".

Hannan compared the ratification of the US Constitution favourably to the rejection of the EU Constitutional Treaty in referendums in three countries. No surprise of course that he failed to mention that the American founding fathers wisely specified that the new constitution would come into effect when 9 out of 13 states had ratified. The EU was saddled with the need for unanimity. (I have written elsewhere about this and will copy the full text in a separate post).

Hannan proceeded to quote Jefferson's criticisms of George III as apposite to his view of the EU, talking of far away government. Never mind that the American colonies were held by force whereas EU Member-States have all chosen freely to belong. The EU is NOT an empire, it is a union of separate states like....erm...oh yes, the USA !

Hannan also contrasted the famous text of the Declaration of Independence, "These truths we hold to be self-evident..."etc with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which he did not quote, being content to refer contemptuously to the right to strike. I'll grant that eighteenth century prose was better, not being filtered through fifteen or more foreign offices, but he could have cited the preamble thus:
"The peoples of Europe, in creating an ever closer union among them, are resolved to share a peaceful future based on common values. Conscious of its spiritual and moral heritage, the Union is founded on the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity; it is based on the principles of democracy and the rule of law. It places the individual at the heart of its activities, by establishing the citizenship of the Union and by creating an area of freedom, security and justice."

He repeatedly warned against moving power to Washington, saying this was the European example. "We are at the end of the road you are set upon", he told his American audience. Hannan is not stupid. Presumably he knows that the US Federal Government already accounts for something like 60% of all US government spending and over 20% of GDP whereas the EU's expenditure is a tiny fraction of public spending across the 27 member-states and between 1 and 2% GDP.(More figures here). The EU has limited power in defined sectors whereas Washington has enormous power. His warning is nonsensical.

Hannan said the US was suffering from "Europeanisation" mentioning health-care and carbon taxes particularly. This went down well with his conservative audience who must be oblivious to the fact that US spending on health-care has outstripped Europe's as a proportion of national income yet fails unlike most European systems to provide health-care for all citizens. I suppose to an audience of climate-change-deniers carbon taxes sound unnecessary.

Hannan is a lively and engaging speaker. So was Hitler. In his own pernicious way Hannan is dangerous too, he distorts truth with a mix of humour and flattery for his audience. We should not admire his rhetorical skill when it conceals the lies he peddles.

Toy Story

Russian authorities in Siberia have banned a demonstration by toys, arguing that toys are not citizens and therefore have no right to demonstrate. Interesting that the real citizens are so scared to demonstrate that they have to use their toys as avatars.

Abu Qatada and the tabloid myths

I blame Radio 4's News Quiz for the fact that every time I hear the name Abu Qatada, this song passes through my brain. Once I have dispelled those catchy lyrics, I reflect on the sheer nonsense talked by Tory backbenchers, the tabloids and Labour spokespersons.

The Daily Mail runs with "...even his own mother wants him deported to Jordan". She says, "I don’t know why the British keep him. There is no good reason. I can’t see why they would want him" which of course contradicts the rest of the Mail's article which says the British don't want him. Perhaps too much to ask the Daily Mail to distinguish between Britain cannot deport Abu Qatada but can allow him to go if he wants.

The Daily Telegraph leads with former Security Minister, Lady Neville-Jones, who said that possible avenues included ignoring the ruling from the European Court of Human Rights and facing the consequences. They also report that Downing Street has not ruled out the possibility of a deportation in defiance of the European Court. A spokesman said “We are committed to removing him from the country...”

Tory MP Robert Halfon fulminated on the radio that Britain (he meant the UK) is a sovereign country and shouldn't be told what to do by foreigners. I imagine he exempts Rupert Murdoch from this restriction. The Sun is running a petition calling on Cameron "...to ignore the Strasbourg judges and send Qatada back to his home country Jordan."

Nor is Labour exempt from playing to the gallery as usual. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said, “The Government has not done all it can to stop this man being released from a high security prison." Well we know Labour's dismal record on human rights.

Apparently Abu Qatada is a very dangerous man, in which case, as Shami Chakrabarti has repeatedly asked, why don't we prosecute him ?

Here are three facts the foaming zenophobes might like to consider, facts not opinions.

1) The right to a fair trial is not an invention of any European institution. In the UK it goes back to Magna Carta. Naturally the British lawyer who drafted the European Convention of Human Rights included it.
2) The jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (By the way, I suppose it's expecting too much to ask the europhobes to understand and explain that this is nothing to do with the European Union) is established not by invasion nor foreign dictat but by treaty freely entered into by a British government.
3) The Human Rights Act gave British courts the power to apply the European Convention of Human Rights. The option of "defying Strasbourg" is nonsense. Deporting Abu Qatada without the required guarantees could be challenged in British courts.

"Reform! Reform! Aren't things bad enough already ?"

These are the words of Lord Eldon, Lord Chancellor in the 1820s. Of course it is hard to tell what he would have thought of the new Liberal Democrat faction, "Liberal Reform" launched today (see Lib Dem Voice). It is very hard to tell what anyone will think of it since its mission statement begins:

"Liberal Reform exists to promote four-cornered freedom in the Liberal Democrats – personal, political, social and economic liberalism. We are an organisation founded and run by members and activists, to both propose policy in keeping with the party’s liberal heritage and to continue arguments for free people and free trade in the future political direction of the Liberal Democrats. We seek, through active debate, policy initiatives, and broad campaigning, to foster an understanding of the party’s heritage and philosophy."

Plenty of room for interpretation there.

The word "reform" is usually judged to be positive by the public, which is why the BBC was banned from using it during the AV referendum campaign. A further perspective on this group's likely tendency may be gained from the websites of its founders,Mike Bird, Zadok Day, Nick Thornsby, Nicole Sykes,
Simon McGrath and Charlotte Henry (Sorry, no links - you'll have to search).

Another clue might be found in the strange inflation of the bird of liberty in their logo. I've heard of fat cats but fat birds ? (except when mentioned in another context by Nobby Shuttleworth).

Give us a sign , O Lord (no.4)

The church of the wholly undecided

Today's news about the court decision on prayers at Bideford Council has provoked much discussion. Eric Pickles says it's illiberal but I'll take no lessons in liberalism from Pickles. I do think the secularist councillor who sued the council has wasted a lot of time and money when he could have just absented himself from the prayers. The court's decision is an interpretation of s111 of the Local Government Act 1972 which is about to be replaced. It is NOT, I say again NOT, based on Human Rights legislation. Got that, Daily Mail, Tory and Labour backbenchers who harp on and on about the ECHR ? It probably won't stop you lying about it.

Personally, I've decided to stop saying "I'm an atheist" and instead to adopt the description "Fundamentalist agnostic". I recommend Les Barker's "Church of the wholly undecided", which I blogged about on 24th November last year and which you can hear here or watch here at 3 minutes in.

For those that like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.

Thus spake Miss Jean Brodie, talking about the Girl Guides (6 minutes 25 seconds in). For me, it's soccer. There is of course one thing more boring than soccer and that is people talking about soccer endlessly. Today has been particularly bad. I turned off Radio 4 at 7.30 when the sports news was on, but found that they were still on about football at 8 o'clock. By 9 o'clock David Cameron was talking about it. What the hell had it to do with the PM ? Just turned the 1 o'clock news on and they're at it again. Other big news story ? Prince Harry to go to Afganistan. So important to let the Taliban know, isn't it ? Oh yes, something happening in Syria and Greece. So kind of the BBC to let us know.

Render unto Caesar...

(Thanks to Giancarlo Conti)

Harry Potter and the dream of fairness

"I think, if you make a lot more money than most people - like I do - you should pay more tax and subsidise people who work just as hard as you, but don't earn as much."
Daniel Radcliffe

Now find a political party that's not afraid of a return to progressive taxation !

(By the way, voting Labour won't do it).

Nationalism (2):EU funds: a little more sophisticated than cries of "our own money"

The struggle continues.

My friend Simon, whom I think would not reject the epithet "right-wing Liberal" has asked how I, as a Liberal, can "... argue that the decision as how to spend our own money in the UK should be taken in Brussels rather than locally". His question is approved by another friend, Peter, who I think would still welcome the description attached to him as a student - "left wing". I should perhaps add that both have spent some years working in the City of London.

Simon's characterisation of EU spending is typically crude. The spending under the structural funds actually works like this.
1)Member-states agree to share resources in principle in pursuit of common policies. They do this in treaties which each member-state signs voluntarily.
2) The European Commission drafts specific legislation giving effect to the common policies and setting up the rules for spending programmes. The legislation is discussed, amended and approved by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
3) Each year the European Commission proposes the draft budget of the EU which is then discussed, amended and approved by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
4)Member-states and local authorities propose spending programmes which meet the criteria set out in the legislation. The European Commission checks that the programmes conform to the legislation and agrees any changes with the member-state concerned.
5) Individuals, local authorities, businesses and NGOs propose individual projects which fit into the programmes. National or regional committees running the spending programme assess the proposals and decide whether to make grants. No European institution is involved. In other words the actual spending decisions are already devolved.

Like Mrs Thatcher Simon uses the term "our own money". When discussing the British national budget he would not talk of taxes paid by the people of Wimbledon or London as their "own money". This is because he is a nationalist and opposes the idea of any collective policies or budgets at a level above the nation-state. I imagine he does not object to the existence of multi-national companies, but only to supranational government. His nationalism only applies to the public sector not to the instruments of global capitalism.

Neither Simon nor Peter explains how you can have regional policy in a single market without supranational rules agreed democratically, enforced uniformly and operated locally, which is what we have now.

Once again I note how nationalism unites left and right. This was first noted by Altiero Spinelli and his colleagues exiled by Mussolini to the island of Ventotene. In the Ventotene Manifesto for a united Europe they wrote in 1941:
"The dividing line between progressive and reactionary parties no longer follows the formal line of greater or lesser democracy, or of more or less socialism to be instituted; rather the division falls along the line, very new and substantial, that separates the party members into two groups. The first is made up of those who conceive the essential purpose and goal of struggle as the ancient one, that is, the conquest of national political power – and who, although involuntarily, play into the hands of reactionary forces, letting the incandescent lava of popular passions set in the old moulds, and thus allowing old absurdities to arise once again. The second are those who see the creation of a solid international State as the main purpose; they will direct popular forces toward this goal, and, having won national power, will use it first and foremost as an instrument for achieving international unity."

The nationalist myopia of Left and Right

On Facebook Simon McGrath has drawn attention to a letter to the Guardian from Labour MPs, already circulated by the Open Europe blog. The Labour MPs concerned include Gisela Stuart who has a long history of euroscepticism and Dennis Skinner who proudly proclaims the fact that he has never been abroad. How delighted these soi-disant left wingers must be that their ideas are shared by the businessmen behind Open Europe, the same people who campaigned against the Euro and the European Constitution. It takes me back to the days of the referendum on British membership when Enoch Powell and Tony Benn united to keep us out.

The letter proposes repatriating structural funds for the richer member-states leaving only the poorer ones to receive support from the EU. I assume that neither Simon nor Open Europe will be affected by any arguments about solidarity or cohesion within the EU but the Labour MPs might like to reflect on the idea that the richer members of a community should help the poorer ones. Simon and Open Europe will no doubt proclaim their mantra that they believe in free trade and a single market but oppose "all this unnecessary integration and legislation". Has it occurred to them what effect nationally operated regional policies would have on competition ? The richer countries would be able to subsidise their poorer regions far more than the poorer ones. They would even be competing with each other, thus German regional policy would outbid British regional policy. The Open Europe British businessmen are probably quite happy to accept subsidies from the British government. The Labour MPs are probably quite happy to give them if it brings jobs to their constituents. The Liberal and free market Simon McGrath should logically oppose all regional policy subsidies. The only thing uniting all three is their nationalism.

John Stuart Mill proved right ! (but not Right)

The Mail Online carries a story that Canadian academics have shown that right-wingers are less intelligent than left wingers,thus proving John Stuart Mill right.

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."
John Stuart Mill, in a Parliamentary debate with the Conservative MP, John Pakington (May 31, 1866);

Speedy Gonzales: Why don't you come home ?

If the Crown Prosecution Service announces today that Chris Huhne will NOT be charged, it will struggle hard to convince the public of the case. Maybe that's why Keir Starmer has called a press conference - that was Portillo's view last night. It may well be the right decision. As Uncle James in the Forsyte Saga repeatedly said, "I don't know. I can't tell." It is important that the public is not left thinking that a minister of the crown is above the law.

Betjeman's "Bill Newton Dunn"

Liberal England's advert for a meeting with Bill Newton Dunn reminds me of the late Sir John Betjeman's great poem about the MEP:

A Prodigal’s Love Song

It’s Bill Newton Dunn, it’s Bill Newton Dunn
Banished and vanished from Lincolnshire sun,
What marvellous motions put in committee,
He in the Parliament, our MEP.

First Tory, then Liberal, oh weakness of joy,
Crossing the floor with the grace of a boy,
With cheerfullest seriousness, upping by one
the ELD Group, it’s Bill Newton Dunn.

It’s Bill Newton Dunn, it’s Bill Newton Dunn,
How mad we are, glad we are now that it’s done.
The old Tory party, it’s back to the wall,
But Bill isn’t part of their d. and fall.

The plenary is voting, the votes are all cast,
The day of the Tories is well in the past,
Our Bill we all welcome to the home of the free,
That’s Liberals and radicals like you, Bill, and me.

It’s Bill Newton Dunn, it’s Bill Newton Dunn,
I can hear from the tribune, his speech has begun.
Oh ! full Brussels hemicycle ! headphones on tight,
in twelve different languages, thinking him right.

Around us are Frenchmen, Germans and Greeks,
Above us the galleries watch as he speaks,
And here on the floor is the man of our choice,
With the lilt of his prose and the chime of his voice,

And the drift of his thought and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous voting ahead.
He came to the conference in 2001
And now he’s a Liberal, is Bill Newton Dunn.
(Lines written after looking into Lord Bonkers’ column in June 2003)

Bright College Days: What to do about tuition fees and all that jazz

A debate has started up on Liberal Democrat Voice on what Lib Dem policy should now be on tuition fees. Personally I would prefer a return to genuinely progressive taxation where all higher earners, not just graduates but footballers, models, rock stars, foreign exchange dealers, anyone with a higher income makes a greater contribution. However, I see that no political party is going to embrace the idea seriously but could we at least re-brand the tuition fees as a graduate tax. We're almost there anyway. What about imposing the graduate tax or a version of it on existing graduates ? After all, we had the best experience and many older graduates now have the income to support paying a tax and drinking a little less wine. That might help solve the inter-generational problem.

We do need a wider discussion on HE than just the finance. It's not simply a question of lectures. The enormous expansion of HE has impoverished the experience of students and, of course, the value of degrees. How little contact students now have with their teachers. I met a lecturer recently who said his contracted contact time with students was 12 hours a year ! At most universities, academics are no longer allowed to interview students and at many nor do they even assess the application forms. That box-ticking exercise is contracted out. So the teacher doesn't choose the student or even meet the student very often. So much for the exposure to great minds. Not exactly "Bright College Days" ?

Lines that made me laugh out loud (1)

"Obesity is the elephant in the room"
Thanks to Clare in the Community, Radio 4 Extra

Europhobes waking up to Cameron's failure

The Independent reports that David Cameron has now pulled off the remarkable feat of alienating both our European partners and his own party's Europhobes. Brilliant ! In December he managed to isolate the UK and fail to get anything he wanted out of the summit other than the temporary admiration of the europhobic press and MPs. Now the consequences of his incompetent negotiating are becoming clear, the same little Englanders are angry with him for not behaving like an idiot at this week's summit as well.

Even Douglas Carswell, one of the Tory nationalist pygmies, is beginning to understand: "I don't see how the veto is really a veto if we allow the fiscal union to form, and then find ourselves subject to the EU institutions being used to govern that. In effect we will find that for all the talk of a veto, we find ourselves hauled into this process.". Well done, Douglas ! Beginning to dawn on you now, is it ?

Coalition continues without new agreement

This is the good news in the Independent. It confirms what I have thought since last October. For the minority party in a coalition, it is better not to have your hands tied too tightly. Liberal Democrat MPs have marched through the lobbies so often for illiberal policies since the coalition was formed that the public now has little idea of what the party stands for. Ministers have honoured collective responsibility defending policies they never campaigned for. The hard business of negotiation behind the scenes will continue but I believe that our ministers will have more clout if their agreement has to be sought case by case. Perhaps some of the messy business of compromise will become more visible and not a moment too soon. Voters need to see what Liberals stand for and to understand that the compromises are inevitably not the same.

On joining the party !

I am told that the Liberal Democrats were overwhelmed by people wanting to join the party after Nick Clegg's appearance in the first of the leaders' debates. Sadly the party was not geared up to enrol them and by the time many of them were contacted after the election, they had changed their minds. This may be a Labour-inspired myth, but verily the party has always been rather hard to join.

My friend Andrew, in Exeter, tried to join in the 1970s and got no response. One night out walking he saw a Liberal sticker in a car parked outside the cinema, lit a cigarette and waited. When the couple whose car it was arrived, he appeared out of the gloom frightening them. Thinking to reassure him about membership, they said he was welcome to join but that they weren’t very political. “I am”, he said.

I was luckier. I noticed that a Liberal leaflet came from the other side of the square so went and called on the deliverer. He was so amazed that anyone wanted to join the party, he took me to dinner at the National Liberal Club.

Mark Pack's mystery shopper exercise reveals that it is still difficult to join now with a third of the time applicants getting no reply !!

Jonathan Meades on France - the best television for years

If you haven't yet, watch Jonathan Meades on France. If you have, watch it again. You will need more than one look to absorb the pith of his eloquence and admire the eccentricity of his televisual imagination.

"Conference maketh a ready man" (and a poorer one).

Given the prejudices of his era, Francis Bacon probably didn't mean women as well when he wrote that but I'm not aware that he had anything against young people, male or female. (Indeed his essay, "Of Youth and Age" finds good and bad in both.) Nevertheless that is the problem today. Young people, it seems, are less likely to confer. As Susan Gaszczak points out, 40% of Liberal Democrat conference representatives are 60+ and 70% 40+. Long gone are the days when, as in 1970, the Young Liberal Conference had more delegates than the party conference. I don't have figures for the Conservative and Labour conferences, but I suspect they are worse.

The causes are political and financial. Politics has always been a minority sport but today is of less interest to young people than in those halcyon days when I was young. Politicians either lack ideology or are scared to express it so that political debate has diminished to a bathetic "We can manage things better than them". The media avoids any clash of ideals that may by chance appear, preferring to harp on the personal and procedural trivia of who tweeted what and when, between sleeping with whom. Party managers strive to avoid conflict at conferences. Small wonder that neither politics nor political conferences attract the young.

If some ardent spirit overcomes the discouragement of modern political dialogue, he or she now faces the financial barrier. Attending a party conference is an expensive business involving conference fees, travel, accommodation and meals and not all drinks are to be had free at fringe events. I doubt that any local party considers paying expenses for its representatives, regarding the conference as a jolly, remote from the important daily business of winning council elections.

We can all improve the political dialogue and lift it above trivial personalia and technocratic policy wonkdom. The conference committee should turn its collective and extensive grey matter to the question of cost. Nor is it a problem only for the young. We don't want policy decided exclusively by the well-heeled.

Not a lot of people know that (no.1)

Thinking of watching 55 Days at Peking. According to the Radio Times "The film became notorious for closing down Chinese restaurants all over Europe since all their staff were in Spain as extras for the huge action scenes.".

Fitzsimmons defends Israel's lebensraum

As soon as you see an article has been written by an ex-President of NUS, you know there's a fair chance it's bollocks. OK, that's my prejudice but it's born out by experience of this group of people which includes Jack Straw, Charles Clarke, Sue Slipman and David Aaronovitch all of whom supported the Iraq War. What is it about NUS ? In this case, Lorna Fitzsimmons condemns Nick Clegg for describing Israeli settlement building as "a deliberate act of vandalism". She argues "...the demand for a complete halt to all Israeli construction over the Green Line is now a road-block preventing the commencement of bilateral talks." which is a remarkable piece of doublethink. How about "Israeli construction over the Green Line is now a road-block preventing the commencement of bilateral talks" ? She wouldn't say that would she ? After all she is CEO of BICOM (the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre),so clearly whatever Israel does is right.

Her article even argues that Palestinians must accept that Israeli settlement blocks will remain on the West Bank. After all President Bush agreed with Israeli that "natural growth" could continue. How kind of him to decide that Israel could continue to grab Palestinian land, but then he never took much notice of international law. In any case, what the fuck has it to do with him ? Pardon me, "What right does an American president have to give away other people's land ?". Better now ?

She also states, as if no-one could possibly disagree, "No Israeli government has ever enforced a complete 'freeze' on settlements, i.e. a freeze on all building not just in the West Bank but even those parts of East Jerusalem that are not even seen as 'settlements' in Israel. It is impossible politically, for coalition governments. But it is also impossible in human terms; existing communities, which have typically young and growing populations, cannot freeze their natural growth." This amounts to saying to the Palestinians that having occupied your land, taken your water, destroyed your houses, divided you from your crops and animals, obviously we must be allowed to take more and more ! Not much problem about freezing the growth of Palestinian communities then !

You would think that Israel of all nations would understand the immorality of a policy of lebensraum !!!

The price of Cameron's "Veto"

As Myles Neligan's article in Reuters shows, the UK is already beginning to pay the price for David Cameron's Brussels histrionics last month. After the EU Summit in December Cameron returned home to a hero's welcome in the popular press and the House of Commons. This was always a bizarre combination of xenophobia and myopia.

Forget how you feel about Europe for a moment. You are a member of a cricket club which is part of a league. Your captain or manager goes off to the league committee meeting, where he presents a list of demands expressly designed to give advantages to your club, based on the characteristics of your ground and your players' skills. The other clubs ask him if he is willing to negotiate on any point and he refuses. The league then decides to change the way it works leaving your club technically still a member but with no fixtures for the coming season. Do you welcome your chap back with applause or do you call him a blithering idiot who has relegated your team even before they have played a single match ?

As the debate on Solvency II regulation for the insurance industry shows,Cameron has failed to protect the financial sector he loves so much and isolated the UK in the process. So much so usual for Tory blinkered nationalism, but for me the shame is that Nick Clegg let it get to this point.

Blair, Straw and torture

I was pleased to read the Independent's report that the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Metropolitan Police Service are launching an investigation into "allegations raised ...concerning the alleged rendition of named individuals to Libya and the alleged ill-treatment of them in Libya...".

I was delighted to read that "Former ministers in Tony Blair's government are expected to be questioned by police over their alleged role in human rights abuses".

I shall be transported with joy if the investigation leads to a successful prosecution of Jack Straw and/or Tony Blair. For information on their government's collusion with Uzbekistan and the torture conducted by the Uzbek dictator Karimov, read Craig Murray's "Murder in Samarkand" or watch his evidence to the Lords and Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights available on his website here.

Well done, Jenny Tonge

Well said, Jenny, and well voted. Jenny Tonge on World at One today explaining why she voted against the government last night on benefit cuts. If you missed it, it's on I-Player here at 19 minutes 27 seconds in.

Sausages

This pack of sausages had to be withdrawn from sale and redesigned. What do they pay these marketing people ?

The Green thing

The following e-mail arrived today and needs wider circulation.

Checking out at Tesco, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations." She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, pop bottles and beer bottles to the shop. The shop sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were re cycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocers and didn't climb into a 200-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 2000 watts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of Yorkshire. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the post, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then.

When we were thirsty we drank from a tap instead of drinking from a plastic bottle of water shipped from the other side of the world. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical socket in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest fish and chip shop.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish, grumpy old git who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.


Remember: Don't make old people mad.


We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off."

Reforming the Lords: Festina lente

The great work of reforming the House of Lords, started by the last Liberal government in 1911,grinds slowly onwards. Paul Tyler, a member of the Joint Committee on Lords Reform, has posted telling arguments for more than 300 senators today. He also raise the question of the role of the reformed chamber. Here's a suggestion.

Some years ago one of the think tanks, DEMOS I believe, suggested a pre-legislative scrutiny stage for all bills using select committees and taking evidence from the public. One of the reasons for this was to ensure that everyone would have a chance to influence legislation and not just professional lobbyists hired by vested interests. I can imagine that governments would not generally welcome delay in processing bills and I don't expect the Commons to adopt such a plan any time soon. However, I note that David Cameron has called for less but better legislation. Perhaps a reformed House of Lords could provide the ideal forum for such pre-legislative scrutiny.

Borgen

Borgen is wonderful ! The party names are a little confusing but so are they in real life. One of the Danish Liberal parties is called Venstre which translates as Left but is actually right-wing and was part of the last right-wing coalition whereas the other Liberals are Radikale Venstre (Radical Left obviously) and now part of the left-wing coalition.

To hell with reality. Watch Borgen.

Saturday night's all right

I have recently discovered Google Earth's Street Level function. It's dangerously addictive as you spend hours looking for the photos of friends' houses or, as I did last night, searching for the rock in Cheddar Gorge in the cleft of which the Rev Augustus Toplady sheltered from a storm and composed Rock of Ages. I didn't find it because it turns out it was a few miles away at Burrington Coombe and he probably didn't write it there anyway.. I did find the Google Earth You Tube layer which embeds little videos. When I looked up the small cottage in Market Rasen (known to friends as the hovel) where I lived as PPC in the eighties, I found a video about Bernie Taupin's teenage drinking habits on which he based the lyrics for Elton John's Saturday Night's all right. Bernie drank in the Aston Arms over the road. I drank in the George next door to the hovel.

Elementary, my dear OR Is it possible that I agree with the Daily Mail ?

Watching the first episode of the new series of Sherlock on New year's Day I did note with surprise that we saw a nude dominatrix before the watershed of 9 pm. The excitement has proved too much for the Daily Mail whose classic prudery was displayed in an article attacking the BBC accompanied by pictures of the nude Ms Pulver (see above) playing Irene Adler. Strangely the series co-creator Steven Moffat's defence was that he had given Holmes an overtly heterosexual sparring partner to scotch speculation about a homosexual undercurrent to the relationship between him and Dr John Watson. This reminded me of the 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes in which Holmes defended his virtue against a passionate ballerina by suggesting that Dr Watson was his cup of tea. Wouldn't Conan Doyle have been surprised ? But I digress.

Whilst having no personal objection to nude dominatrices in my sitting room (After all, there is such a thing as a channel-changer or even an off-switch; TV is NOT compulsory, one could read a book or visit a dominatrix if such a person exists in Chard) for once I do feel the Mail has a point, albeit a hypocritical one. Sherlock Holmes is a widely known character whose exploits do appeal to well-read children and young teenagers who could have been expected to be watching on New Year's Day. If the watershed has any point, surely it is to help parents who want to protect their children ? I don't think nudity is a problem but the more disturbing image was Lara Pulver's rear view in stockings and suspenders carrying what I believe is called a spanker as she goes to attend on a princess. "Daddy, what's a dominatrix ?" You might want to choose your own moment to explain sado-masochism to your children (if at all).

Fallen idols

A kind friend has given me a subscription to the London Review of Books. The first edition to arrive by post includes a review by Jackson Lears of new biographies of Barak Obama's parents. The article (which is free on-line) has finally persuaded me that Kaps Komireddi may be right in at least some of his criticisms of Obama. Lears asserts that Obama has "retreated into politics as usual" and scorns his "deference to established power". He rightly identifies the defences of Obama to which his apologists including myself have resorted: "the regimented hostility of his opponents fuelled by racially charged resentment..." and that "...he really believes in the banalities of bipartisanship."

Lears' description echoes some of my thoughts about Nick Clegg. Both Clegg and Obama have multicultural backgrounds, both fervently seek to work across party lines, both attempt to maintain family life in the midst of the social demands of the nomenclatura, both have met with overwhelming hostility and both have disappointed their followers. I doubt neither the courage nor sincerity of either man but their fundamental decency seems ill adapted to the maelstrom of power and their cool rationality to the operation of its slippery levers.

Damned hackers !

Off the air over Christmas and returned to find someone had changed my password for me. Have now recovered control and will reply to any outstanding comments.

That's another fine mess you've got us into !

A lot of nonsense has been promulgated by Tory eurosceptics and even by Liberal Democrat apologists for the mess our coalition government has landed us all in. They have tried several arguments which don't work. As usual, the mantra - "Blame the French!" plays well with the public. Let's look at them in turn.

1. The government was protecting the City of London, the financial sector.
This is true but only if they were protecting them from proper scrutiny and regulation. See response by Edward McMillan-Scott, former Conservative and now Liberal Democrat MEP. Here's a flavour: "Cameron said the sticking point was the interests of the London financial sector, which has ripped off British taxpayers and stripped savers of their assets. What sharp City practices was Cameron trying to shield from the proper scrutiny which financial services in Frankfurt or Paris were prepared to yield to? Paying lip service to Europe's single market - which is of such value to the rest of the real British economy - while making bumps in the level playing field is simply ridiculous."

2. The government was proposing reasonable measures to preserve the Single Market !
Preposterous ! The UK put forward a a whole draft protocol to the Council legal service the day before the meeting, detailing various subjects in the field of financial affairs where they wished decision-taking to switch from Qualified Majority Voting to unanimity (some in areas that have been QMV from the beginning, and some that have been QMV since the 1986 Single European Act negotiated by Thatcher). This does not fit any definition of "perfectly reasonable" as claimed by Nick Clegg, Graham Watson and Sarah Ludford. Nor does it amount to protecting the single market since the purpose of a veto would be to block single market measures leaving each member-state to decide for itself. In any case, whatever the merits of the UK proposals, you simply cannot expect 26 other countries to bow down and accept such a document at less than 24 hours notice. Summits are usually preceded by months of negotiations. Cameron refused to negotiate about the document with the consequences we all know now.

3. Sarkozy was being unreasonable
This suggests traditional francophobia but actually the real situation is "Fog in channel- continent cut off". It wasn't a French veto. It was 26 countries disagreeing with Britain ! Do people imagine that 25 Prime Ministers always dance to Sarkozy's tune ?

4. This will make it easier to regulate the banks.
This little gem is attributed to Vince Cable and has even been parroted by some of the bankers themselves. Anyone smell a rat here ? No actual argument has been put forward and I cannot imagine how it could be true. Successful financial regulation has been resisted (by this government amongst others) on the grounds that it won't work in one country alone. To claim that European disunity will make it easier would seem illogical, Captain.

Nothing in the coalition agreement required Liberal Democrats to abandon our principles so dramatically. Nick Clegg is now trying to row back following reaction within the party. He should have got it right first time.