OurKingdom

Jason O'Mahony: Apparently, if you’re against the Lisbon Treaty, you are either an unthinking eurosceptic, a laughing stock amongst continental constitutional amendment fetishists, or on the verge of being tossed out of the EU and into the North Atlantic. On the other hand, if you’re in favour of the treaty, you are the imperialist lackey of a European Pseudo-Empire, in the pay of Global Capitalist Overlords, or plotting to send your neighbour’s four year old to fight in the invasion of Saudi Arabia. Welcome to the calm and rational debate about the Lisbon treaty.

I will be voting yes, despite the moronic antics of some on the yes side to get me to vote yes. Admittedly, many of the reasons advanced to vote yes are just plain dumb. Firstly, It’s a pretty mediocre treaty that does little to give Europe a real democratic structure, but it is marginally better than what we have now. It’s not vital to the future of Europe either, because we have the Nice treaty which is a perfectly good way of running the EU, and I know this because Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowan, Dick Roche and Enda Kenny said so. Read the rest of this post...

Jon Bright

As you’ve probably noticed, OurKingdom has recently been migrated onto the main openDemocracy site, and from now on will be using the same Drupal technology as openDemocracy’s other specialist blogs (such as openRussia, and openUSA). This move comes at a time when openDemocracy itself is changing rapidly, and internally it made sense for OurKingdom to move onto the same platform as the rest of oD. It also gives us a lot more scope for technological improvements than WordPress was able to.
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openUSA

In the South Jerusalem blog, Gershom Gorenberg makes the case for why Obama, of all the presidential candidates, would be Israel's best option. It's quite a long and methodical post, definitely worth reading. In a nutshell, Gorenberg insists that

The one candidate who speaks in clear terms of taking a new approach to the Mideast is Obama. This is what scares the small coterie of American Jewish rightists who would eagerly fight to the last Israeli. If you care about Israel, you should hit “delete” when you get their emails.

Obama is the one candidate who had the sense to oppose the war in Iraq. He’s the one candidate whose statement on Israel expresses support for a two-state solution, which is the country’s path to peaceful future and is today the consensus position in Israel. He’s the one proposing a clear break from the disastrous Bush policies, and a turn to trying diplomacy.

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Guy Aitchison

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): Reports this morning suggested that Brown was ready to make concessions on the 42 days, legislating for greater parliamentary and judicial scrutiny in return for the support of potential rebels. He apparently said he would “rather be right, and lose” but now recognizes that a defeat would be disastrous, possibly even fatal, for his leadership. His concessions have not done enough to convince Labour MP David Winnick, however, who went ahead and tabled an amendment to the Counter-Terrorism Bill to stop the extension of pre-charge detention. Winnick is the MP who tabled the amendment allowing 28 days detention in 2006, defeating Blair’s plans for 90 day. What is promising for opponents of the Bill (pretty much everyone outside the Home Office, including the Director of Public Prosecutions) is that Winnick claims to have support of MPs who supported the 90 days but have since decided that 28 days is sufficient. He thinks this may just be enough to bring about a government defeat.

I hope he’s right. As Stuart Weir and other supporters of OK and LC's “Not a Day Longer" campaign have endlessly pointed out on OK and elsewhere there has been no new evidence produced to justify 42 days detention; the judicial and parliamentary safeguards are inadequate; and the law risks alienating precisely those communities whose support is needed to defeat terrorism.

Brown’s determination to go for 42 days in the face of massive opposition from the legal establishment, human rights groups and countless experts on counter-terrorism was a cynical and calculating move designed to make him look tougher than the Tories and appeal to the Murdoch press. There is now every chance that, just like the strategy with the 10p tax, it will backfire spectacularly.

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Kanishk Tharoor

Yesterday evening, in the dark and faintly musty basement of the Kensington Library in west London, openUSA attended a fascinating lecture on "anomalistic psychology" - the psychology of belief in the unreal - hosted by the Society for Psychical Research.

We learned, amongst other fun facts, that one out of four Americans believes in ghosts. This quarter of the population presumably doesn't include the pro-Clinton group American Leadership Project, whose new TV spot in Oregon makes no mention of Obama, suggesting that the ALP doesn't want to cause any further Democratic disunity. Even many of Clinton's supporters don't think her campaign can return from the grave.

We also learned that one out of ten Americans believes they have spoken with the devil. Obama may aspire to join this sizable ten percent as he continues to insist on negotiating with Iran's leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But god-fearing George W Bush and his anointed Republican successor John McCain won't have anything to do with fiendish interlocutors. Speaking in the Knesset yesterday, Bush equated Obama to Neville Chamberlain, Iran to Nazi Germany, and diplomacy and statecraft to that object of neo-con disdain: "appeasement". McCain piggy-backed on the president's craven fear-mongering, prompting sharp and incisive retorts from both the Obama camp and Hillary Clinton.

Bush comes out of this looking particularly foolish. Never mind that Iran's nuclear threat is grossly exaggerated (a fact supported by the latest national intelligence estimate). Never mind that evidence of Iran's aggression in Iraq and the Persian Gulf is highly dodgy (indeed, the UK Foreign Office has even conceded it was in the wrong over the detention of British sailors last year). Never mind that the White House's clueless policy of trying to isolate Iran has only made Tehran stronger and more important in the region. It turns out that only the day before, Bush's own Secretary of Defense Robert Gates talked up talking with Iran.

Republican Iran policy is bound to fail when inconsistencies and reality-checks keep eroding its stubborn, stupid facade. The devil, after all, is in the details.

Late update: For those readers with a sadistic streak, watch Chris Matthews tear apart the witless right-wing radio pundit Kevin James (particularly after 4.10). When one forsakes argument for analogy, at least try to get your history right.

OurKingdom

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): What comes first, nationalism or the nation?

For Mark Perryman it seems that an English Parliament is inevitable; England is the human flotsam that will emerge as the good ship Britannia sinks after offloading its Celtic jetsam. And our task - as inheritors of the new state - is to begin preparations for how we want that nation to be: A pluralist England founded on space not race, Englishness, an inclusive nationality for all. In 10-20 years, says Mark, we will arrive at "England after Britain". It's a timescale based on three assumptions:

• Scotland will vote for independence;
• Ireland, due to a Catholic hegemony, will be reunited, and;
• Wales will have a Parliament.

No need, then, for a Campaign for an English Parliament? Except, that of the three assumptions, the only one that I think is inevitable is Wales gaining a parliament. Northern Ireland is becoming greener but a Catholic majority is still a long way off, and since the Belfast Agreement gives the Republic a veto on reunification no outcome should be assumed. And for Scots the romantic dream of "Freedom!" is not yet matched by an overwhelming desire for complete political independence from the rest of the UK. Read the rest of this post...

openUSA

The Washington Post catalogues numerous incidents of horrific racism during the West Virginia primary, including a voter who asked for Obama to be lynched. On the Daily Kos, John K Wilson glumly breaks down the figures to expose a hard reality.

As the West Virginia primary shows us, in many parts of the country racism is alive and well and controlling our political process. Many commentators assume that Obama's success with the young and well-educated is due to some "elitist" support he has among the latte-sipping crowd. The real reason is racism. Younger people are less likely to embrace racist views. Well-educated people are less likely to embrace racist views. And that makes all the difference in America, where the continuing significance of race can be measured with alarming detail in West Virginia's primary.

We agree, and we find it all the more troubling that so many commentators, particularly those leaning towards Hillary Clinton, insist that these are the kind of bread-and-butter voters that Obama doesn't have the wherewithal to win. In fairness, it is very easy to brow-beat one of the country's most impoverished, least diverse regions. But it would be tragic indeed if American democracy hinges on intractable bigotry.

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Stuart Weir

Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): There was the official welcome from the chair, "Hazel Blears is here", following an informal clue to her arrival as a man in black slid two blocks behind the speaker's plinth from which she was to speak. So in she bounced to deliver a brisk and rousing speech to local council delegates from across the country at the Local Government Information Unit's "Power to the People" conference in London. I think the delegates were roused, and I myself was not immune to her spirited commitment to empowering people; and also, to the general spirit of optimism that seems to have overtaken many in local government about the government's commitment to "new $localism".

Blears promised a white paper on empowerment in a few weeks which was, she said, still open for ideas. It is all part of the Queen's Speech agenda introducing bills to increase accountability in the NHS, police, local government, schools, housing and regeneration policy. And while she is at it, she is also promising empowerment for local authorities who desperately need it. Quite whether she or her master will go as far as speakers and delegates at the conference were demanding is another matter. Among their proposals, for example, were a merger of primary care trusts and local authorities, handing the proceeds of the business rate back to local councils (this would apparently double their money at a stroke) and finally resolving the whole of local government funding and the future of council tax. It was I think Chris Leslie, the former minister who is now director of the New Local Government Network, who said that council tax could be revalued so long as government would chuck £4 billion at people in the form of transitional relief - money that could be raised by a one-off tax on the super rich. Now there's an idea that would secure Gordon Brown's fortunes (with me at least). Read the rest of this post...

Anthony Barnett

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Our mothership has linked up with Polit.ru in Moscow to start an English/Russian blog and publishing platform on openDemocracy - an exciting partnership you can find it HERE. One of the first articles is a careful interview with Peter Riddell about how we change our leaders in Britain. Putin's handover of the, er, Presidency is not mentioned. But it is fascinating to think of how our leadership changes, especially those without an election (this time no names mentioned here!), might be viewed from Moscow. It is a great initiative and if you are not interested in Russia but know someone who might be please send them the link or tell them to look for it on the oD front page. Read the rest of this post...

openUSA

Speaking in Ohio - a crucial battleground in November - McCain dreams up the state of affairs in Iraq five years down the road:

By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.

Sounds like staying the course to us. Is this how McCain plans to distance himself from Bush?

Guy Aitchison

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): If, like me, you know next to nothing about James Purnell, the young Work and Pensions Secretary now tipped to succeed Brown, then it's worth reading this profile by Fraser Nelson, which the Spectator has now put online. He is a member of the "Primrose Hill set", apparently, which includes Miliband (whose qualities were noted in Claire O'Brien's recent devestating post) and other young Blairites. He has an impressive mastery of detail too and that rarest of gifts amongst politicians - the ability to sound human. Fraser Nelson reckons he is the best hope Labour has of beating Cameron. I wonder. When he was briefly in charge of our culture he declared that he was about to start a new renaissance. This allowed Anthony Barnett to suggest that Damien Hurst's diamond skull was the emblem and symbol of Purnell's Blairism. Then there was the episode when he was photoshopped into a meeting that he had missed and people asked which was the real picture - the one that included him or the one that didn't.

 
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openUSA

To illustrate our earlier post on the gloomy economic future of America's young, below is a graph of their slumping average earnings, from the Economic Policy Institute.

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Andrew Blick (London, Democratic Audit): At the very end of a long and remote corridor, MPs and peers on the joint committee on the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill held their first evidence sessions on Tuesday. The importance of their work has been heightened by Gordon Brown's commitment to introduce a bill proper in the next parliamentary session, as part of his statement on the legislative programme. We will report regularly on their inquiries and the draft Bill’s provisions as they progress; meanwhile we attach a brief and opinionated guide to official progress on the government’s Governance agenda which, as Guy Aitchison wrote seems to have lost important elements. 

The first three witnesses, providing an overview, were Professor Stuart Weir of Democratic Audit (my boss); the Oxford academic (and David Cameron's former tutor) Professor Vernon Bogdanor; and Peter Riddell of The Times. The committee are a mixed bunch, ranging from those with real knowledge of constitutional issues to the more conservative minded, several of whom emphasised Britain’s long tradition of evolutionary change. It will be interesting to see what conclusions they can all buy into.  Read the rest of this post...

openUSA

Keith Moss has set up a new openDemocracy predictive market on "How long will Hillary Clinton continue her campaign?". Market information below. Sign up and start trading!

The US Democratic Primaries continue apace, with only five states left to vote and Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton in the pledged delegate count 52% to 47%. With her recent loss in North Carolina, and narrow win in Indiana, the going wisdom has shifted rather sharply against Hillary with most seeing no hope of her getting the eventual nomination and the only question now being whether she’ll bow out on her own or hang on until the convention in August.

The Clinton campaign faces difficulties raising the money it needs to continue day-to-day operations. Hillary was forced to loan her own campaign $6.4m of the Clinton's own money last month and called for supporters to donate more funds to continue the fight. The Kentucky, Oregon and Puerto Rico contests are the only big three states left to contest, comprising 73% of the remaining pledged delegates among them. Puerto Rico and Kentucky are expected to go to her while she is tipped to lose Oregon.

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openUSA

According to polls after West Virginia's Tuesday primary, twenty percent of voters felt that race was an important factor in their decision. The real percentage is probably higher. Eighty percent of those voters opted for the primary's victor, Hillary Clinton. Critics accused her of "race-baiting" last week when she claimed that "hard-working, white Americans" were not in Obama's camp. She has since admitted that those comments were unwise. It remains, nevertheless, tempting for Obama's opponents to court the coarser, subterranean passions of American society. Obama claims to appeal to the best in Americans, while Clinton surreptitiously appeals to their worst.

Subliminal racism + blatant misinformation = blissfully bigoted ignorance. See this email reproduced by Andrew Sullivan from a reader in California:

I live in SD [San Diego] and I am a candidate for the State House. I was out walking my district last month and spoke to a woman about the primary. She has a statue of the Virgin Mary in her front yard and was wearing several crosses around her neck. Here is our conversation:

Woman: "I don't know about that Obama guy."

Me: "I'm an Obama supporter, do you mind if I ask what you're unsure about."

Woman: "He's a Muslim and there is a biblical prophecy that a Muslim will take over our country and destroy the world."

Me: "You're aware he is not a Muslim."

Woman: "He can say anything he wants."

Late update: Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post argues that a new TV ad foreshadows McCain's eventual strategy against Obama - one that plays up race and identity to the detriment of the issues.

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OurKingdom

Iain Dale (London, blogger): In a modern democratic state we ought to believe that power should be transferred from the few to the many. Nowhere is this more important than the system used to decide when elections should be held. In local councils, the Scottish parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the European Parliament we have instituted fixed terms to decide when elections should be held. Only for Westminster elections do we still allow one person – the most powerful politician in the country: the Prime Minister - to determine the date of an election. Should we therefore be surprised when the Prime Minister skews that decision according to when he or she thinks an election can best be won? Of course not. Politicians are only human. Well, kind of. It astonishes me constantly that normally sensible minded people still believe the power to call an election should still be in one person’s hands. It’s as if they want to hark back to the days when a sovereign made all the decisions and the ‘little people’ were expected to implement them.

There are, of course, many variants to the concept of Fixed Terms. The very phrase is in itself a bit of a misnomer in that it must still be possible in a parliamentary (as opposed to a presidential) system for an election to be held within a fixed four or five year term. There are several ways in which this could be achieved. A vote of no confidence is perhaps the most obvious as in Germany. Ah, opponents cry, but a government could engineer its own MPs to vote against it, thereby making the whole concept of a fixed term rather redundant. Factually that may be true, but imagine the electoral consequences if that happened. The opposition would make hay out of it.

David Howarth is to be congratulated for his Bill and for sparking further debate. Ideally, all parties would sit down together and thrash this out, but I don’t expect it to happen. There are too many vested interested in the two main parties for them to want to take this issue seriously in the short term. This is a campaign which will have to be fought over several years if it is to achieve success.

OurKingdom is supporting the Campaign for Fixed Term Parliaments along with Iain Dale, Stephen Tall and Unlock Democracy. Here Iain interviews David Howarth on his Bill:

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Anthony Barnett

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I have avoided reading the Cherie Blair selections. But I have just read Mary Riddell in the Telegraph wrestling with the implications of the "bad example" Cherie has set. The stench of double standards was one of the things that made me avert my eyes. 
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Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin (London, Green Ribbon): The Labour Party has suffered a fair amount of ridicule over its position on a Scottish independence referendum in recent days. Guido Fawkes is offering a prize to anyone who can explain the current policy in less than fifty words. More sober commentators don't sound much more impressed.
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Kanishk Tharoor

A fair amount of debate is kicking up over Obama's decision to accept McCain's offer of "unmoderated debates" between the two in the months leading up to the election. Noam Scheiber, writing in The New Republic's "The Stump", thinks this bodes ill for Obama.

McCain has several big disadvantages vis-a-vis Obama. He faces a massive enthusiasm gap and will have trouble attracting large crowds. He's in all likelihood going to be massively outraised and outspent, making it hard to get his message out. And, possibly as a result of the previous problem, he'll be cast as a right-winger determined to continue George Bush's policies.

The unmoderated debates would help him overcome all three problems. They'll draw big crowds and generate lots of buzz. They'll help him get his message out for free. And, just by virtue of appearing frequently at Obama's side and having a civil debate, they'll make him look much more moderate than the Obama campaign wants him to look.

Couldn't this work the other way around? Obama is faulted for his supposed inexperience and lack of substance. These debates would afford him the opportunity to add steely pragmatism to his oratory, precisely because they will be focused on issues and not flag lapel pins. McCain would look foolish and petty if he raised bogeymen like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers in such fora. Debates - as public, visual spectacles - play to Obama's strengths: his charisma, his eloquence, his youth, his smarts.

If Obama does well and truly believe in casting aside the "old politics", he cannot refuse this offer. Some quarters of Team McCain were probably wishing in secret that Obama would follow Scheiber's reasoning and distance himself from the debate. It would have discredited Obama's rhetorical commitment to his vague "new politics" of inclusiveness and engagement. These unmoderated debates could be a space in which Obama's politics become more real. By agreeing to the debates, Obama can return the poisoned chalice to McCain.

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Guy Aitchison

Paul Kingsnorth (Oxford, author Real England): Peter Facey of Unlock Democracy has posed an interesting personal question. He feels the issues of identity but draws back for fear of having to embrace the bad with the good and asks isn't nationalism always going to be about airing grievances? An interesting question. I have only recently begun to refer to myself as an 'English nationalist', and not without some reservations. When I see idiots like the English Democrats doing their anti-Scottish thing, or engage in blog arguments with bigots from both England and Scotland who seem to think that the purpose of their nationalism is to allow them to each blame the other for their political plights, or engage in personal attacks, it makes me want to give up and go home.
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