Blaming the poor - whatever happened to solidarity ?

The Guardian today reveals that even Labour supporters have bought into the Osbornite vision of the undeserving poor.   "Labour party supporters increasingly believe that welfare recipients are undeserving and that the welfare state encourages dependence, with a noticeable share saying that poverty is caused by a personal failing rather than a problem with society."  This is the conclusion of a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.  

The maps above come from a different report last year showing where the greatest risks of poverty according to Experian.  Leaving aside Experian's total inaccuracy about my own affairs, I suspect there is a strong correlation between the riskier areas and the areas with the highest Labour votes.  We know that Tories and UKIP blame the poor but where is our society headed if Labour voters join in ?

The Rowntree website has a lot of material on poverty but I couldn't find the actual report so I don't know about the attitudes of Liberal Democrat voters.  The party's membership cards quote the preamble to the constitution: "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, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity."   Much debate goes on about the relative merits of liberty and equality but a better phrase uttered on the radio by David Goodhart has stayed with me: "The twin aims of Liberalism - solidarity and diversity".   

Labour policy revealed (at last)

I've finally discovered what the Labour Party's policy on everything is !

I have in my hand a piece of paper...

Fascinating debate tonight in Cambridge on whether the preamble to the constitution of the Liberal Democrats should be amended.   We decided not to, not only because Cllr Colin Rosenstiel has  amended it enough already, but because it embodies in reasonable prose values which have stood the test of time.   There are indeed one or two minor infelicities of expression and a bit of repetition but nothing any of us would actually want to oppose.

Julian Huppert compared our golden opening words with the other main parties.

The Liberal Democrats (constitution here)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, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.

The Labour Party (constitution here)

Clause 1 - Name and Objects

1 This organisation shall be known as ‘The Labour Party’ (hereinafter referred to as ‘the party’). Its purpose is to organise and maintain in Parliament and in the country a political Labour Party.

The Conservative Party (constitution here)

PART I

NAME, PURPOSE, OBJECTS AND VALUES

1 This is the Constitution of a political party which shall be known as “The Conservative and

Unionist Party” (referred to in this Constitution as “the Party”).  

2 Its purpose is to sustain and promote within the  Nation the objects and values of the

Conservative Party.

So the Labour Party and the Conservative Party  exist to maintain and promote themselves.  I always thought so.  (Actually the Labour Party says a little more in Clause 4 - no, not that clause 4)

Looking a little deeper, I wondered about how each party makes policy.

The Liberal Democrats (constitution here)

5.8 Subject to the foregoing procedure, all Federal policy papers and motions approved by

the Federal Conference shall thereby become the policy of the Federal Party.

...

6.7 Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Conference shall be the sovereign

representative body of the Party, and shall have power to determine the policy of the

Party in accordance with and subject to the provisions of Article 5.

The Labour Party (constitution here)

Clause 5 - Party Programme

1 Party conference shall decide from time to time what specific proposals of legislative, financial or administrative reform shall be included in the party programme. This shall be based on the rolling programme presented to conference by the National Policy Forum as approved by conference. No proposal shall be included in the party programme unless it has been adopted by conference by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the votes recorded on a card vote.

BUT N.B. " The 2008 Labour Party Conference was the first at which affiliated trade unions and Constituency Labour Parties did not have the right to submit motions on contemporary issues that would previously have been debated.^[28] Labour Party conferences now include more "keynote" addresses, guest speakers and question-and-answer sessions, while specific discussion of policy now takes place in the National Policy Forum."  (Source - wikipedia)  How many constituency members in the National Policy Forum ? 55.

The Conservative Party (constitution here)

PART VIII
THE CONSERVATIVE POLICY FORUM
64 There shall be established and maintained a national policy development forum to be known as
the Conservative Policy Forum, the principal functions of which shall be:
64.1 to encourage and co-ordinate the formulation and development of policy ideas

...
BUT  nowhere in the Tory Constitution can I find who actually decides on policy. It's a mystery.

Labour for Democracy ? What !

According to The Independent, there's a new group in the Labour Party preparing to build bridges with the Liberal Democrats.   Excuse me, is the same Labour Party that blocked electoral reform and stopped the reform of the House of Lords ?  Labour for Democracy ?  I wish !

Why are Labour such unprincipled, reckless bastards ?

Not content with wrecking electoral reform and democratising the House of Lords, Labour now plans to reduce the EU budget.    Is Ed Miliband even capable of thinking beyond the next Commons vote ?  Today they plan to vote with Tory rebels to support the aptly named Reckless Amendment to cut the EU budget, not because as a party they want to undermine Britain's position in the EU even further but because they have a chance of defeating the government.   Even Tory eurosceptic Andrea Leadsom can see that the amendment is wrong.  When the inevitable referendum on EU membership comes, Labour may rediscover the virtues of being in the EU but it may be too late.  Labour will have done its bit to feed the widespread scepticism about Europe.    If their opportunistic games help them to get elected again, they may find themselves presiding over Britain's withdrawal from the EU and the disastrous economic consequences, not to mention the political ones - isolation in world affairs or worse, further dependence upon the United States as it too declines.

We already know the perils of coalition with the Tories.  Don't imagine that coalition with these unprincipled bastards would be any easier !

The simple joys of Opposition

I have posted before about the European Court of Human Rights' ruling on prisoners' votes and how British media and politicians have consistently misrepresented it.  Today the BBC reports that David Cameron told the house:
 "No one should be under any doubt - prisoners are not getting the vote under this government".   

The same report tells us that the Labour Opposition spokesman on Justice, Sadiq Khan, said: "
The public will be rightly concerned at reports prisoners could get a vote. If true, thousands of those serving sentences for serious and violent crimes such as wounding, assault and domestic violence would be given a say in who runs the country." 

Interestingly, in his speech to the Labour Party Conference  he attacks the Tories as saying:
 "Human Rights are bad because they’re European." 
and then replies,:
 "But Winston Churchill and British lawyers wrote the European Convention on Human Rights, of which Britain should be proud".   
It's an interesting defence of the ECHR, because it amounts to saying:
"Don't worry, it's not really foreign, it's British."
I'm also not entirely sure which bits Winston Churchill wrote.

More recently, Sadiq Khan has also tweeted: 
"As today progressed, growing confusion between AG and PM over whether prisoners will or won’t get to vote shows Gvt is at sixes and sevens".   

So does he and does Labour support the ECHR and accept that we must abide by its rulings or not ?  Perhaps we'll never know.

Charles Clarke preaches telling the truth !

I rarely shout at the television (unlike the Today Programme on Radio 4) but I could not believe my ears tonight when I heard Charles Clarke, commenting on Nick Clegg's apology, say "The essential thing about politics is that you've got to tell people the truth".   Charles Clarke !  He's having a laugh !

If the young Charles Clarke, who I knew as a student leader, had come face to face with his later self as Education Minister blows would have been exchanged.  Nobody in the Labour Party who presided over or voted for the introduction of tuition fees or their subsequent increase in breach of their own manifesto has any right to criticise Nick Clegg.  What is the Labour Party's policy on tuition fees now ?  Is it the same as last year or the year before or whenever ?   What do these lying, hypocritical opportunists actually stand for ?

Sorry

Our damned media have been predictably ungracious in their response to Nick Clegg's apology over tuition fees.   The despicable, opportunistic and hypocritical Labour Party has been predictably worse.   When will we hear the Daily Mail apologise for years of lying ?   When will we hear the Labour Party apologise for starting an illegal war and for leaving the country's finances in such a dreadful state ?   When will they apologise for wrecking reform of the House of Lords, something they promised in THEIR manifesto ?   When will they apologise for introducing tuition fees, promising not to put them up, putting them up and then appointing a businessman to review them, who recommended putting them up without limit ?

I was bitterly disappointed by the desperately bad political management of the tuition fees issue by Liberal Democrat leaders, above all Vince, but I honour Nick Clegg for his apology.   Sir Humphrey might have called it brave and so do I.   Our society will not be mature until politicians, businessmen and all in authority over us can admit their mistakes and their apologies be accepted instead of being exploited by the Tory press and the Labour scum  (Yes, Harriet Harman, I mean you !)

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).

Arrow's impossibility theorem

A little maths to lighten the gloom.

How strange that the Tories and Labour NOs did not quote Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, which proves mathematically that no voting system can meet three criteria of fairness (see extract above).

No, I don't understand it either.

Never confuse Labour with a progressive party !

This is the proud boast of the Labour NO to AV campaign. So we know that their manifesto promise was a lie. So we know that they prefer the system that has put Tories in power for generations. So we know that their commitment to democracy is threadbare. So we know that they are happy to see 1.6% of the electorate (less than 500,000 voters) decide who governs Britain. So we know that they don't care that MPs are elected by a minority.

NEVER CONFUSE LABOUR WITH A PROGRESSIVE PARTY, NEVER AGAIN !

Does identity require hate ?

The picture shows a guide to voting on the basis not of what you like or value but of whom you hate. Historians maintain that nobody really felt English until the Hundred Years' War against France. I have seen a set of football scarves and hats which proclaim "Love Team A, Hate Team B". You can fill in A or B yourselves - I hate all soccer and would rather listen to Colin Rosenstiel explaining STV...well maybe not. Which would be harder to sleep through ?

Can we only establish our identity in distinction from other people's - not just distinction, but contempt, loathing and even violence ? I do hope not. I am indubitably and proudly British, I never miss the Last Night of the Proms, but I do wish the Census Form had allowed me to describe myself as more than one thing - British and European would have done for me.

P.S. (OK,I know there's no signature)I don't hate the Labour Party but if I have to listen or watch Caroline Flint sneering again, I might begin to. As for the Tories, when seeking selection I was asked if I hated them and I replied that we should follow the advice of the Church of England: Hate the sin and love the sinner !

Not very taxing !

Much public disgust at Bob Diamond's bonus. In a free society, government can't start dictating incomes for particularly industries. Apostles of the market usually argue that competition brings down costs, but not when it comes to bankers' incomes. The solutions shouldn't be too taxing for the First Lord of the Treasury nor all the politicians and civil servants who report to him, with their 1st class degrees in PPE or just economics.

Firstly, bring real competition into banking by breaking the banks up into smaller units. If that damages their ability to compete with foreign giants in the money markets, first bring back the old split between merchant banks and clearing banks, then split up the clearing banks.

Secondly, as society develops some people's labour becomes increasingly more productive as they control more and more capital whereas most people's productivity lags far behind. Thus we get an ever-growing gap between rich and poor, which distorts the ability of markets to allocate resources because the rich minority's demand is so much more effective than the poor majority's. Again the solution is well-known - tax higher incomes (whether bankers' incomes or anyone else's) at higher rates. British income tax levels are pretty low. Even modest increases would raise revenue which would help to reduce the deficit and would be fairer than cuts which hit the poorer. Why ever not ? The constraint is political. Since the 1992 General Election it has become accepted wisdom than raising taxes is unpopular and will be punished by the electorate. This is a clear constraint on the Labour Party but what is to stop the Coalition Government raising Income Tax ? Surely our leaders don't fear that the voters will desert to the Labour Party because of higher taxes ?

Talk to your party first, Vince !

I have written to a number of Lib Dem MPs who voted for the rise in tuition fees, along these lines:

"I am disappointed that you didn’t feel able to vote against the rise in tuition fees. Surely the whips must have told the front bench the strength of opinion in the parliamentary party ? I’m guessing – and Vince’s comments on the Today Programme this morning confirm it – that the government developed this policy and THEN tried to sell it to the Lib Dem MPs. I am convinced that Lib Dem ministers need to discuss matters more carefully with their parliamentary colleagues BEFORE negotiating and announcing policies agreed with their Conservative colleagues in government.

I think the tuition fees policy is wrong and some of the arguments in its favour spurious but above all the mishandling of the issue has done damage to the party from which we will never entirely recover. No doubt we will rise above our current 8% but I believe that MPs who think it will all be forgotten by the time of the next election are whistling in the dark. Given the Labour Party’s current disarray, we have handed them an unnecessary victory as a reward for their opportunistic hypocrisy."

Tuition fees and Labour hypocrisy

I remain as vehemently opposed to tuition fees as ever but I am sick to death of Labour hypocrisy over the subject. (Here's an example from their demo outside our conference in Plymouth). We all know that if there were a Labour government today they would be increasing tuition fees as recommended by the Browne Report which they commissioned. Here's their duplicitous record.

July 1997
Education Secretary David Blunkett announces the introduction of means-tested tuition fees (to begin in September 1998). The student grant of £1,710 is abolished to be replaced by income-contingent student loans.

June 7 2001
Labour is re-elected with a manifesto pledge stating that it "will not introduce top-up fees and has legislated against them"

January 22 2003
Less than two years after pledging not to introduce top-up fees, Labour (Charles Clarke this time) publishes a white paper setting out proposals allowing universities to set their own tuition fees up to a cap of £3,000 a year.

Let's not forget the Conservatives.
May 12 2003
Conservative party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, pledges that all university tuition fees would be abolished under a future Conservative government, condemning tuition fees as "a tax on learning".

I am not for a moment saying that Labour and Conservative behaviour excuses broken pledges by Liberals, but all those demonstrating now should think twice before blaming everything on us. When I pointed this out to the girl with the megaphone in Plymouth (see video) and asked who she would vote for, she replied, "I think I'll just hang myself."

Tuition fees - is there a coalition crisis ?

William Cullerne Bown, journalist, has revealed a briefing by Universities UK to Vice-Chancellors which suggests a sizeable rebellion of Lib Dem MPs and even ministers over tuition fees. Of course, any chance of a rebellion stopping a rise in fees depends upon the hypocrisy of the Labour Party, who introduced fees and would put them up if in power. Given that there is no lack of hypocrisy in Labour, a rebellion could succeed.

Coalition and the real alternative

Critical indeed fanatical opponents of the coalition implicitly compare it with their imagined ideal of government, usually some mythical version of Labour government which never existed. In the real world the choice was between the coalition and a Tory minority government followed by a general election and a majority Tory government. I put this to choice to a Labour supporter and virulent critic of the coalition and she replied she would have preferred the Tory minority government and the risk of their subsequent majority.

Paul Walters has drawn attention to one of the small but important effects of having a coalition - Nick Clegg's influence on the child benefit decision. It's an example of the Liberal Democrats' power to stop or mitigate bad things. We also need to be able to promote good ones.

Bankers or borrowers ???

As, I think, Terry-Thomas (or possibly Snoopy) might have said, "It matters not who wins or loses, but how you place the blame".
So who do we blame for the financial mess - the bankers or the borrowers ?

Peter Black quotes an interview with former Cabinet Secretary, Andew Turnbull, which firmly blames the Labour Government's borrowing.

On the other hand, Keynesian Liberal quotes an unpublished letter to the Guardian, which equally firmly blames the bankers.

It remains a political truth that the government of the day will always get the blame, even if the causes were before they came to power.

Call Labour's bluff - split the bill !

The opportunistic self-serving hypocrites who lead the Parliamentary Labour Party are going to vote against a referendum on AV despite their own commitment to the idea a few weeks ago. The arch-hypocrite (and sadly typical ex-NUS President) Jack Straw explains that the bill also provides for redrawing boundaries and reducing the number of constituencies. Of course the real motive is to join with Tory anti-referendum backwoodsmen rebels and defeat the government. So, the obvious solution - split the bill in two. Will Labour have the unashamed gall to vote against a bill only for a referendum on AV ? I doubt it, but if they did we would see their essential and deep-seated conservatism revealed. Simples !

Shoot the dogs - says Toby

Canvassing and leafleting during elections, one learns to be careful about sticking fingers through letterboxes, but even after being barked and growled at and attacked in front gardens, I don't agree with Lord Harris's stand on dogs. Toby Harris, another old Labour dinosaur, says we should shoot dangerous dogs to save money.