Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin (London, OK): ConservativeHome has today published a survey of 144 Tory candidates in the 220 most winnable seats for the party at the next general election.

One particularly eye-catching detail: 54 per cent say "the Union should be defended at all costs", while 46 per cent would "not be uncomfortable about Scotland becoming independent."

On the face of it this is a remarkable result for a party whose unionism traditionally has been a core value. 

 Read the rest of this post...

Rosemary Bechler

Nobel Women's Initiative calls for the immediate release of Mairead Maguire and other Human Rights activists detained by Israeli authorities on June 29th.

 Read the rest of this post...

Guy Aitchison

OurKingdom is very happy to be supporting Vote for a Change, the new campaign to demand a referendum on the voting system. Read this call to arms from the organisers and join us and them at the Rally for Change at Westminster Hall on July 9th.

 

Politics is too important to be left to the politicians. The expenses crisis has revealed a political elite that has stopped listening and who are accountable to no one but their party machines. Too many MPs seem more interested in changing their homes than changing the world.

Politicians have their own kind of change in mind, but we don’t need anything that is too cosy, too easy, or too popular with our political class. We need a system that serves us the voters, and we can start be asking voters what they want from their politics. We want a citizens’ jury to rewrite the rules of politics, by deciding on the new voting system for parliament.

The government has until the next election to deliver a referendum on reform to bring accountability back to Westminster. Join the call for change at www.voteforachange.co.uk

Rally for a Change

We have to join together to make our politicians listen - and understand that it’s us, the voters, who need to be put first. So keep your diary free for 6:30, July 9th, as supporters gather in Methodist Central Hall to call for real reform of parliament.

Already Damon Albarn, Vivienne Westwood, Stephen Fry and a long list of others are demanding the right to vote for a change. But we need your help to get over 1000 people together in Westminster for a festival of change. There will be music, poetry and the chance to put leading politicians on the spot. More details will follow soon but this is definitely an event not to be missed. To register or for more details email Naomi@voteforachange.co.uk

Adam Price

The former Speaker to the House of Commons, Michael Martin, was elevated to a peerage yesterday despite concerns raised by the appointment committee over the propriety of the nomination. The committee, having no power to reject nominations, reminded the Prime Minister of the terms of its vetting procedure, to assess whether particular appointments would diminish the reputation of the Lords, and warned of possible 'public controversy' if the appointment went ahead. And no wonder. If Martin's position as Speaker was regarded as completely untenable as a result of the Damien Green debacle and the expenses scandal, what should we make of the decision to grant him a peerage (which went unopposed in the Commons on Monday)?

It is true that it would be wrong to see the ex-Speaker as the sole person responsible for MPs' abuse of their expenses, but at the same time his resignation and replacement with John Bercow, the so-called 'clean break' candidate, was presented by some as an indication that MPs saw the need to address the problems at the heart of our democracy. Michael Martin's elevation to the House of Lords is another sign that very little has changed, and calls into question whether MPs are at all aware of the need to radically change the way politics is done in this country. If the one who is seen by MPs to be most at fault for letting expenses get so grotesquely out of hand is also seen by them as deserving of a place in our second chamber, it is hard to believe that the problems with our rotten system will be seriously addressed. The way Martin is being bumped up to the Lords even after his disastrous time as Speaker reeks of exactly the kind of Old Boy's club attitude that Gordon Brown, among others, has been publicly decrying. Read the rest of this post...

Stuart Wilks-Heeg

The Local Government Association (LGA) has published a remarkable pamphlet to coincide with its annual conference, taking place in Harrogate this week. The glossy, professionally-designed eleven page document is what we've come to expect from local government these days. It is the text which is surprising. The pamphlet is written with a passion, immediacy and radicalism unheard of in local government circles since the days of Red Ken's GLC, David Blunkett's Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Derek ‘Deggsy' Hatton's Militant resistance in Liverpool. Even the title of the pamphlet - ‘Who's in Charge? A Manifesto for a New Politics' - is reminiscent of the language associated with the radical localism of the New Urban Left in the early 1980s. Much of the text could have been borrowed, with minor modifications, from David Blunkett and Keith Jackson's (1987) book: ‘Democracy in Crisis: The Town Halls Respond'.

As such, established local government commentators will recognise that there is nothing particularly new in the demands made in the LGA's manifesto. It advocates rolling back the unelected Quango state; radical decentralisation to bring decision-making down to the lowest possible level; making local NHS bodies accountable to the electorate; a genuine power of general competence for local government, and real fiscal autonomy, including returning to councils the power to set local business rates. Read the rest of this post...

Whilst I was putting on my socks this morning I listened to an unsuccessful attempt by the Today Programme to engage a government minister in discussion about Trident.

It reminded me of a question I have often wanted to ask but refrained from for fear of appearing stupid or unpatriotic. Why do we have an army, navy and airforce? In particular, why do we have a nuclear deterrent ?

I can understand that we need the means of trying to keep the peace within our own borders – even when those borders are disputed. The recent tragedy in Ireland is compelling evidence of that.

I can understand - and support strongly - an obligation to contribute to a UN controlled peace keeping and intervening force where there is compelling necessity on humanitarian grounds recognised by the international community.

I can imagine, just, a situation in which we need the means to respond (but not by nuclear means) to the threat of an imminent attack which diplomacy or the UN can do nothing about.

But I cannot dispel my suspicion that the main force driving our ‘defence’ expenditure, and the level of it, has little to do with ‘defence’. It smacks of a perceived need to support our foreign policy, a policy which, by implication, assumes the need to maintain the status of a ‘nuclear’ power and a right to interfere, armed but unasked, in other nation’s affairs.

Perhaps there are others who would like an answer to the question I have been afraid to ask. If we are truly moving into a more open and transparent world in which our political masters accept a duty to tell us what is going on and why, an answer would be re-assuring. We might even be allowed to respond to it!

Jane Gabriel

Iranian journalist Zhila Bani Yaghoub and her husband Bahman Ahmadi Amooyi were arrested in Iran over the weekend after government forces reportedly raided their home.  Yaghoub is a veteran journalist who has worked to promote women's rights in Iran. She spoke recently at the Nobel Women's Initiative conference on 'Redefining Democracy' held in Guatemala.

The Nobel Women's Initiative issued a statement saying:

"We are worried for the safety of Zhuila, her husband and the countless other Iranian activists and protesters currently being detained in Iran. We encourage your support in this ongoing struggle"

Read more

 

Matt Wardman

David Melding AM, a Conservative Member of the Senedd, has suggested that Britain should implement a more fully federal Constitution, as a way of relieving pressures on the Union. This is from a piece by David Williamson at Wales Online.

The United Kingdom is in danger of disintegration and should embrace a federal structure of government and create individual parliaments in each nation, Conservative AM David Melding declares in a major book published today.

He envisages a new constitutional settlement which could cut the number of MPs at Westminster to 300 and officially recognise the sovereignty over domestic issues of the parliaments of Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Even ignoring the implication of a savage cut in the numbers of MPs at Westminster, this is fascinating politically for a number of reasons.

The Conservatives have sometimes been referred to as “English Nationalists”, and Conservative Government has been founded on a strong majority of English seats at Westminster - compensating for a position in Scotland and Wales which has consistently been much weaker for a generation.

In contrast, Labour has historically relied on an incumbent majority in Scotland and Wales to shore up a weaker English position vis-a-vis the Conservatives.

 Read the rest of this post...

Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Will the Scots Ever Be Satisfied? Panorama asks at 8.30 pm on BBC One this evening in a retrospective on ten years of devolution by BBC Scotland editor Brian Taylor.

Labour's Tam Dalyell staunchly opposed a Scottish Parliament because he believed it would never be satisfied short of independence. At the weekend, he pointed to the Calman Report's recent recommendation of greater tax powers as vindication of this view.

 Read the rest of this post...

Rosemary Bechler

David Sifry described social networking and other new forms of communication in an emergent world of public opinion as a "conversation among the people formerly known as the audience". The phrase sprang to my mind when the Today programme wrestled with explaining to itself and its audience what is inspiring about Abbas Kiarostami's latest film, ‘Shirin', recently showcased in the Edinburgh festival. Is it subversive? What are its politics? What is the people's hunger and spirit behind the insurgency? Is it on our side? The problem is that the film consists of 90 minutes of close-ups of more than 100 women, including a headscarved Juliette Binoche, as they watch a film based on a 12th-century poem by Nezami Ganjavi about a love triangle involving an Armenian princess and a Persian prince. 

"Light from a screen flickers on the women's faces; their expressions alone create the drama."  I learn more when I repair to Maya Jaggi's interview with Kiarostami in the Guardian, although I have to flap away an intrusive advertisement that informs me ‘Your opinion matters' and invites me to complete a short survey before I can proceed. Eventually, it appears that the maestro has been willing to give us a couple of clues. He has gone so far as to say that the "beauty of art lies in the reaction it causes", and that "a work of art doesn't exist outside the perception of the audience".

The fact is that this is yet another of those moments when one has to say: "They just don't get it do they?" This interesting rhetorical question has peppered political commentary in the last few weeks, most recently when the limousines drew up outside Mansion House. In politics it always carries the danger of complacency, since the people who point the finger are invariably the ‘brother' that had the ‘mote' in his eye last time around. This week one feels even more nervous using it because the onion has begun to unpeel with a vengeance as foolishly self-serving expenses claims settle around the ankles of those other ‘civil servants', BBC top management, with all around in the media ducking for cover. Read the rest of this post...

Anthony Barnett

Yesterday, I learnt from watching the news, was our first ever Armed Forces Day. According to the official website "The first Armed Forces Day is 27 June 2009, and is an opportunity for the nation to show our support for the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community"

The tradition in the United Kingdom has always been that we do not celebrate the military or have parades of armed men in our town centres if we can help it - unless we are in Northern Ireland. We conquered, or not, when duty called, and commemorated the actions and their dead.The Colour was trooped annually with pomp and well drilled display to demonstrate the special relationship between the Crown and our armed might - a relationship  being assiduously cultivated with William and Harry. We also, of course, have Rememberance Sunday. Without undue modesty, therefore, we were 'quiety proud' and all the more deeply military in our attitude because of this. Not for us, up until this weekend, the boastful mobilisations of state force down 200 high streets (and the risk of protest that might politicise them and break the spell of monarchy - and Republican protest there was in Strathclyde, described by Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy aa a "sickening spectacle".)

But at the request of Gordon Brown, the one-time Tory MP Quentin Davis recommended that veterans day be turned into a 'national' event as part of the Prime Minister's Britishness programme. The Queen boycotted all the "main events" according to the Times.

Claims that the Queen and the Prince were both invited to Saturday’s event were denied by both royal sources and the Ministry of Defence

And the paper also reported,

Phil Cooper, the father of Britain’s youngest soldier to be wounded in Iraq, Jamie Cooper, told the Daily Mail: “When you sign up, you take an oath to serve the Queen and country, laying down your life for the monarchy if necessary. Surely it’s not too much to ask for a senior royal to be bothered to turn up and take the salute.”

But perhaps the Queen knew what she was doing as the real tradition has been cast aside. Perhaps this too should added to Peter Oborne's list of New Labour's shredding of the constitution. Meanwhile a most peculiar chopped off version of the Union Jack has been created to 'brand' the event, with attractive service girls holding it aloft on its Flickr page. The website also has a button you can click to show your support. So far there are 61,152 impressions, considerably less than the armed forces themselves, not to speak of their family members.

Maybe the real question is why so many events have taken place at all - given hat they are blatently a New Labour ploy. I suspect there is a slightly subversive defiance taking place. Everyone knows that the Iraq deployment was a military humiliation born of mendacity, while Afghanistan is  serving US strategy not the UK's. For the first time while they are serving, soldiers are publically percieved as the victims of government policy. If so, the cheerful applause for them is also an expression of patriotic opposition to the government.

Nonetheless, a battle over Britain has been declared if this usurpation of vetrans day continues to be claimed as a "national" celebration of the UK.   

George Gabriel

An OurKingdom conversation. [History: Thomas Ash > David Marquand > Thomas Ash > George Gabriel > Thomas Ash > George Gabriel > Thomas Ash > this post]

All ideologies offer conceptions of a person upon which their social vision is constructed. For neo-liberalism this is that of the “rationally self-interested” individual, a being solely concerned with its own self-interest and to be judged “rational” according to the efficacy with which that interest is pursued. Power and self-interest, a nihilistic nightmare.

In his latest post Thomas Ash suggests that “rational man” is a mere “simplifying assumption” which predicts our actions with a relative degree of accuracy and which neo-liberals need not insist captures all the motivations that move us. Likewise we can be comforted that such a philosophy extends only to certain domains of our behaviour, not on the politics of offering one’s seat.

This mushy Jekyll and Hyde human being, free from self-interest in certain concerns and moderately guided by it in others provides no individual ethic whatsoever. Neo-liberalism, as envisioned by Thomas on an individual level issues no directives except for those demanded by the legally constituted neo-liberal system. It is from this lack of something to say presumably that neo-liberal claims to be somehow “realistic” derive.

We have seen the dangers of a macro social vision that provide no individual ethical imperatives before. Historically determinist Marxism stripped values in the name of inevitability and thereby commended only an ethic of acceleration, it was this that Camus observed to lead to “Slave camps under the flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy”. Thomas suggests that neo-liberalism is not necessarily committed to an “egoistic code of ethics”, but if this leads to a vacuous “realistic” conception of personhood the consequences are equally to be feared - the absence of an individual ethic within an ideology is as dangerous as its presence, it’s just that the latter holds the promise of a better future too.

 Read the rest of this post...

Stuart Weir

I first became aware of Peter Townsend, who died recently at the age of 81, when as a young journalist I read an article in the Guardian about the three professors - the others were Brian Abel-Smith and Richard Titmuss - who were going to assist the incoming Labour government in abolishing poverty.  I think that they were then engaged with Richard Crossman in constructing a fair superannuation policy; and they wrote a classic Fabian pamphlet.

Well, as we all know, it all came to an abrupt halt.  But Peter didn't.  He was very soon disillusioned and co-founded the Child Poverty Action Group in 1965 to mobilise around the cause of eradicating poverty, the Webbs' 2,000 or so people in the country who really counted. The ‘Child' was added to the title of the group to give it emotional weight, but the aim was always much broader.

Peter transformed himself into a tireless campaigner. He took the chair at CPAG and wrote and spoke seemingly everywhere, adding his considerable presence, intelligence, charm and rage to what became an endless odyssey. It is not too much to say that he inspired me. I have been an egalitarian ever since I can remember, but at first I wanted to be a journalist as well.  That ambition didn't really survive encountering other journalists, on The Times where I was working and elsewhere. Peter's work had the opposite effect, and I joined CPAG to run its citizen's rights office. Read the rest of this post...

Peter Emerson

When do we want it? Now - The Guardian - 18th June, 2009

Dear Mr. Wills,

You say, "Plebiscites... offer the wealthy and powerful an opportunity to manipulate outcomes" and, if the vote is a straight yes-or-no, then that is indeed the case.  You continue, "That is what 20^th-century Europe teaches us."  I'm not sure if by this you mean the plebiscites of Hitler and Mussolini, the majority votes of Lenin and Stalin, or the referendums which the EU's Badinter Commission recommended for the former Yugoslavia; but I think it applies to all three categories.

The two-option majority vote has long been regarded as manipulable.  After all, in many instances, the question is the answer, and it's a pity that the 20^th century did not learn the lessons of the 19^th, when Napoleon started the rut.  In 1800, he re-imposed majority voting in the French Academy of Sciences, where they had been using a Borda Count.  The latter "is a unique method... to minimise the likelihood that a small group can successfully manipulate the outcome," (Professor Donald Saari).  Furthermore, it "is the best protection ever devised from the tyranny of the majority," (Professor Sir Michael Dummett).  In the same year, Napoleon held his first of three two-option referendums. Read the rest of this post...

Thomas Ash

OurKingdom, openDemocracy's group blog on British politics, has been running an exchange on the morality of neo-liberalism - and of the bankers behind the financial crisis. It began with contributing editor Thomas Ash's commentary on a Guardian column on the subject by David Maquand, and Marquand's response. The conversation has now turned to a debate between George Gabriel and Thomas Ash, with Gabriel attacking the 'moral vision' of neo-liberals and bankers, and Ash responding. Read the debate at the links below, and join in through the comment threads:

George Gabriel, 16th June

Thomas Ash, 17th June

George Gabriel, 21st June

Thomas Ash, 22nd June

 

OurKingdom welcomes submissions and the opening of new debates: send them to thomas [dot] ash@opendemocracy.net

 

Clare Coatman

Helena Kennedy announced Real Change: the open politics network in her key note address at the Compass conference. The video of it is now available to watch in two parts:

Thomas Ash

An OurKingdom conversation. [History: Thomas Ash > David Marquand > Thomas Ash > George Gabriel > Thomas Ash > George Gabriel > this post > George Gabriel]

George Gabriel is targetting "neo-liberalism as an individual code of ethics"; effectively, one of egoism. I doubt that any of neo-liberalism's defenders have ever understood it as such; most commonly, they advocate a set of policies on the grounds that they will promote some value, be it individual freedom or an increase in welfare supposedly brought about by more efficient markets. True, as George points out, they have often modelled individual economic choices as self-interested in the course of arguing that their policies will best promote these values. But for this purpose it functions only as a simplifying assumption, which needs only predict a subset of our choices (not extending to many moral ones, such as whether to offer bus seats to frail old gents, which have little impact on the efficiency of markets) with a rough degree of accuracy. The neo-liberals are commited to its doing so does not mean that they are commited to its capturing all the motives behind human behaviour, let alone to adopting self-interest as their only motive.

If neo-liberals are not commited to an egoistic code of ethics, what about bankers? The bulk of George's commentary concerns them, after all, and they are  a quite distinct group, not all possessing neo-liberal opinions about public policy (or any opinions about public policy at all). In the comment thread on his initial post, George claims that their actions show that they live by this code in practice, if not necessarily in theory. I would be surprised if most bankers' lives did contain some altruistic acts which belied this claim, but perhaps George was concerned only with their work lives. However, I struggle to see what they do in this that reflects a concern with self-interest to the exclusion of any other value. George talks of those who "short sell a productive company into oblivion, reap obscene payments for failure, and gamble the money of others". It is only possible to do the first in a highly unusual situation in which a company's survival depends on its stock price - generally a sign that it is not a succesful, productive company. The second does no harm to anyone else, and hence it shows a concern with select-interest, but not to the exclusion of any other value. And it was ultimately the bank bosses' decisions while led to investors' money being put at such risk - some of them (like Jimmy Cayne of Bear Sterns) supposedly did not understand this, and the decision was evidently against their self-interest.

Anthony Barnett

Powerful article in the Glasgow Herald by Iain Macwhirter on the Calman Commission on Scottish Devolution which everyone in London who is interested in UK politics should read . He reports that Calman is "arguably as
important as the 1988 Claim of Right and the 1997 Devolution white
paper. By making the intellectual case for a degree of fiscal autonomy
so cogently, it has set Scotland on a new course which should lead, at
the very least, to a new federal United Kingdom within 10 years."  Macwhirter says he is astonished that the Tories have agreed  to it and set Britain on course for new settlement. Is Cameron ensuring the English card remains in play despite his professed unionism? (Hat tip Tom Griffin)

Catherine Reilly

So Ireland’s Lisbon 2 will soon be upon us, and one wonders whether the sequel lives up (or down) to the original. Are the mysterious characters, confusing plotline and cliff-hanger ending of the first instalment about to make a reappearance?

Catherine Reilly is deputy editor of Metro Eireann, Ireland’s multicultural weekly

Methinks not, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, one of the unexpected stars of Lisbon 1 has exited stage left. Libertas founder Declan Ganley –a mysterious Ango-Irish multi-millionnaire with financial interests in the US military – will not be gracing the arena, following his defeat in the European Parliament election in Ireland’s North West constituency - and Libertas’ poor showing Europe-wide.

Variously described as an ego-inflated moneybags, a well-meaning reformist or a financially-motivated shadowy sort, Ganley was the charismatic focal point of last year’s ‘No’ efforts. He was a bolt from the blue, a good speaker who well-articulated people’s fears and distrust of Eurocrats, but his fall from grace has been as dramatic as his rise. It’s presently unclear to me why Libertas is capitulating in Ireland. Ganley is not short of a buck, and while his European Parliament election failure was embarrassing, it was hardly a curtain call. Perhaps he senses that, this time around, he’ll be on a hiding to nothing.

 Read the rest of this post...

George Gabriel

An OurKingdom conversation. [History: Thomas Ash > David Marquand > Thomas Ash > George Gabriel > Thomas Ash > this post > Thomas Ash > George Gabriel]

In our ongoing exchange concerning the nihilistic implications of neo-liberalism, Thomas Ash challenges my suggestion that “the congregation believes in neo-liberalism as a social vision”. Is it true that anger from the bailout is because public money was used to compensate private liability or is it, as Thomas puts it, because it was “our money”?

The question is however too simplistic. People’s social visions are normally not highly defined, signposted, or even coherent. My own contains as many contradictions as opinions, despite the ongoing struggle for consistency. The point is that the neo-liberal social perspective informs individuals’ social visions. Neo-liberalism espouses a pure cause and effect individualist paradigm of responsibility; quite simply “I am responsible for what I do freely”. A public bailout to privately incurred risk is a clear violation of this ethic. So though few define themselves as neo-liberals many continue to be profoundly defined by elements of this neo-liberal social vision.

Thomas rightly observes that the logic of the market is not itself nihilistic, nor is contractualism for that matter. But this is a part of what I described as the “social vision”. Neo-liberalism as an individual code of ethics is stridently nihilistic. Why? Because of its utter subservience to the concept of “rational self interest” – the cornerstone of most contemporary microeconomic analysis, the justification of a hyper-individualist money-obsessed life, and at the same time the death of values. Read the rest of this post...

Anthony Barnett

In an earlier post I said that Brown had kept the Iraq inquiry hearings secret because Blair and Miliband did not want to be obliged to give evidence in public. Bingo! The Observer has confirmed the first part of my judgement. But there is more to it than this. Team Blair, which includes Mandelson, Miliband, Campbell, Angi Hunter, are doing everything they can to fix the presidency of Europe. (According to Peter Oborne in yesterday's Mail they have succeeded in recruiting Blair-lover David Cameron to the cause). Blair is slippery enough to know that he could survive a public interrogation on his Iraq mandacity. But even the prospect of such a hearing would damage his standing as a candidate for becoming our president. This had to be prevented at all costs.

The cost was Brown looking ridiculous, Having just declared for transparency and against rule by a "gentleman's club" he was obliged to announce that the Iraq inquiry would be a gentleman's agreement, meeting in private without witnesses having to give evidence on oath. 

Why on earth did Brown protect Blair like this? Well, ask yourself why Mandelson so insisted. Mandelson, who would like to be our president's chef de cabinet, is determined to keep Brown in office to lock in British support for Blair's elevation. In his conversation with Miliband at the hight of the coup Mandelson threatened him with the consequences of disloyalty to this new form of the project: walk out of the Cabinet with Purnell and you will find yourself in the dock under oath telling the world what you knew about the Iraq decision and no prospect whatever thereafter of either winning the Labour leadership or having a fallback job in the Blair presidential entourage.

Yes, folks, the fix is in.

Guy Aitchison

There have been several gatherings of the social democratic left in the last week or so. Today saw a Fabian Society conference on Climate Change and the road to Copenhagen (you can read about it on Next Left) coincide with a Soundings event on politics after the crash, which followed on nicely from the Compass conference I attended last week. I caught the last plenary at Soundings which was a group discussion with Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood and Mike Kenny of the ippr.

Kenny had some of the most convincing analysis of the failures of New Labour that I heard at either of the two conferences. The current malaise on the left, he said, can be traced back to two historically traumatic events which it has yet to come to terms with: the advent of Thatcherism and the demise of state socialism. New Labour (which Kenny recognises to be a dead project) simply obscured these two crises, delaying a proper response. The coming audit of New Labour's time in power must identify and reject two of its principal and most damaging failings: its centralist statism and its flawed model of economic growth.

In many ways, he said, this will involve re-discovering the reformist side of early New Labour which addressed imbalances of power and introduced devolution before this side of the party, never strong, was surpassed by an ideology which rejected pluralism in favour of capturing and deploying the power of the central state. A progressive conception of power - where it manifests itself, how it should be distributed - has been totally lost during the New Labour years, he said. Read the rest of this post...

Guy Aitchison

In today's Daily Mail Peter Oborne sets out why Jack Straw must rank as one of the most devious and unprincipled politicians in British public life for decades. How this man, who knowingly pitched dodgy evidence to the United Nations about Iraqi WMD, is still at the heart of power in this country is a never-ending source of amazement to me and speaks volumes about our political culture and the broken system that supports it. 

People occasionally ask me why I regard Jack Straw as a third-rate politician who has done grave harm to British public life over a long period. The perfect answer comes in his attitude towards the Human Rights Act.

As Home Secretary, ten years ago, it was Straw who pioneered the Bill into law. Yet some months ago he gave an interview to the Mail in which he repeatedly criticised the Act. He labelled it a 'villains' charter', laid into what he called 'ambulance-chasing lawyers', promised to wage war against the compensation culture that it had spawned and attacked judges for being 'too nervous' about deporting terrorist suspects.

He concluded that the Act had been such a travesty that he planned to rebalance it with a 'declaration of responsibilities'.

Last Saturday, however, Straw attended a conference arranged by Liberty, which campaigns (very honourably) for civil rights and is one of the fiercest supporters of the Human Rights Act. Yes, Straw changed his tune again. He told this fashionable, metropolitan audience that the act was 'one of my proudest achievements'.

Such pathetic U-turns go right to the heart of the crisis of trust in British politics. Voters would respect politicians more if they held genuine convictions rather than revealing an oleaginous desire to ingratiate themselves with whatever audience they happen to be talking to at the time.

Guy Aitchison

The Government consultation on electoral reform hasn't even been launched, but already it seems ministers are pre-judging the debate and narrowing the range of options. It's especially disappointing to see Justice Minister Michael Wills, who gamely fought for deliberative elements in Brown's Governance of Britain programme supported by OK's Anthony Barnett, contributing to the growing perception that the whole thing's a stitch up. In a response to a question on voting reform in the House of Commons on Tuesday Wills criticised PR and lauded the current system:

I emphasise that proportional systems tend inherently to produce coalition Governments. That may be a good thing for some parties, but it might not be a good thing for the country. First-past-the-post systems tend to produce clear majority winners and stable government. Although they tend to hand power to the biggest minority, the practice of forming coalition Governments often tends to hand power to the smallest minority. There is nothing inherently fair about that.

He went along with a Tory MP who said that PR would let in "poisonous extremists" (ignorIng the inconvenient truth it's voters and not the system that lets in the BNP) and was approving of some utterly ridiculous comments by Labour MP Ken Purchase who took the classic establishment line that only "chattering classes" care about this debate and that "First past the post is the only sensible system" and we should therefore "do away with the flim-flam of proportional representation, which seems to take up an inordinate amount of time compared with other important matters" (in fact the latest poll shows, contra Purchase, that 61% of voters support a binding referendum on PR against 24%) 

Having gone along with these hoary attempts to shut down debate on PR and had a few pops of his own, the Minister assured the House it would be the voters of this country who decide which is the best and most legitimate system, and not party politicians. Hm based on this performance you'll forgive me for saying I'll believe it when I see it! 

Stuart Wilks-Heeg

A poll commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and reported in today’s Guardian and by Stuart Weir indicates that 75 per cent of those questioned believe either that the UK’s system of government could be ‘improved a great deal’ or that it could be improved ‘quite a lot’. A mere 3 per cent suggest that the system works well and could not be improved at all. The poll also suggests a clear majority – over 60 per cent - would be in favour of a more proportional electoral system.

The question asking survey respondents to assess the current system for governing Britain has been asked in an identical form in 15 surveys since 1973 and on a regular basis since 1991.  The ‘net’ score of -50 per cent in 2009 for faith in the system (calculated as the percentage largely in favour of leaving the system alone minus the percentage suggesting significant reforms are required) is the second lowest ever recorded (narrowly beaten only by the score of -53 per cent in 1995). The 42 per cent proportion responding that the system needs a great deal of improvement is the highest ever.

The results for 2009 are hardly surprising, other than for the fact that there are 3 per cent who somehow continue to believe that the system ‘works extremely well and could not be improved’. Likewise, nobody doubts that support for major constitutional and electoral reforms has received an enormous boost from the revelations surrounding MPs expenses. But everyone knows that these are exceptional times politically. To what extent do poll results like this reflect a deep-seated desire for system reforms?

 Read the rest of this post...

Anthony Barnett

Following on Stuart's tirade below against the decision to hold the Iraq war inquiry in secret, we have Brown's turnabout saying it can be in public - if the Chairman so decides and that he is in favour of openness and transparency. The way he talked about it at the press conference in Brussels he made it seem it wasn't his decision to hold it in camera. Clearly, the concession that it can be held in public was not Brown's either.  With the generals both retired and in post demanding their say in public, and Ken Macdonald's brilliant piece in the Times and even Ed Ball's saying open is better, he had to give way. The Spectator thinks the Balls intervention is a sign of a crumbling government, picking up the spin from Alistair Campbell. But I wonder at Campbell's motives.

The first person to say that the Inquiry had to be a secret one modelled on Franks Inquiry into the Falkland's War was David Miliband. When it was announced he defended the decision saying that Franks was "the gold standard" for inquiries, an absurd description. For those many too young to remember, the Falklands was a great success but... it should never have happened. While Thatcher emerged triumphant, she had personally ordered the withdrawal of Britain's symbolic naval presence in the island as a cost cutting exercise, an action that led the Argentine junta to belive that an invasion would not be resisted. Any objective investigation would have found her guilty of gross negligance. But this was unthinkable. So a bent investigation was needed instead - and provided.

All of which is relevant today. Because clearly both Blair and Campbell will have to be interviewed and, indeed, should be obliged to give evidence under oathgiven how many died. This is what they want to prevent. Perhaps David Miliband wants to prevent this too? Might he also need to appear. And could it possibly be the case that Ed Balls would like them to be called up in public? 

Stuart Weir

Fancy that, a Labour Prime Minister coming under withering criticism from Lord Butler, the Lord High Chamberlain of government secrecy, for not being properly open in his (and let it be said, David Miliband's also) proposal to hold the long postponed inquiry into the Iraq war in private.  It was Butler, then Cabinet Secretary, who fought tooth and nail to confine and obstruct Sir Richard Scott's inquiry into arms sales to Iraq and Iran. At one point, Scott had to threaten to send the police into Downing Street to take possession of documents that Butler was withholding.

In other words, Brown is capable of sinking even lower in the very stuff of open democracy after having boasted of his commitment to freedom of information.  Brown has justified the decision on the grounds that a secret inquiry will encourage witnesses to be frank; it seems a fair assumption that he is actually worried that they will be too frank in public.

But enough of Brown and even Butler's particular arguments for more openness.  We are at a point in our democratic life when government has to open up fully to the public.  Scott did the whole country a great service by laying bare the "hidden wiring" and governing attitudes of Whitehall and Westminster.  He scoured the Augean stable. Read the rest of this post...

Stuart Weir

How far has people's faith in the way we are governed been shaken by Brown's fumbling and dishonest governance, civil liberties outrages, and expenses fiddles in both Houses of Parliament?  At first sight, at least, considerably, according to an ICM poll (opens pdf) for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.  And should we be cheering the result from the same poll, suggesting that two thirds of people want proportional representation for elections to Parliament?

My apologies: a lot of figures now! 

"Faith in the system" has been measured by a single question in opinion polls since it was first asked in 1973 for the Crowther-Hunt's Royal Commission on the Constitution.  Just under half of respondents then agreed that the system for governing Britain could be improved "quite a lot" or needed "a great deal of improvement".  Public dissatisfaction rose to peaks of 69, 73 and 72 per cent under Mrs Thatcher in the 1990s, and then subsided to 68 per cent in 2003 and somewhat less in the mid-2000s

In last week's poll, ICM found that three-quarters of people (75 per cent) were dissatisfied, along whom two-fifths (42 per cent) agreed that the system needed "a great deal of improvement" - the highest ever level for real change recorded. Unfortunately, people who wanted change were not asked what "improvements" they would like to see. Read the rest of this post...

Liam Taylor

This is a talk given by Liam Taylor of the Camp for Climate Action at the session on "Radical democracy and imagination" hosted by Real Change at the Compass conference on Saturday. The views expressed here are his own.  

I must admit that I feel like something of an anomaly at this conference. Before coming here today I looked on the Compass website at the impressive list of speakers that are here: people from think tanks, from policy institutes, from NGOs, journalists, elected politicians. In other words, people who might be considered ‘experts', people who do politics for their day job.
 
And I want to begin by immediately renouncing any claims to such expertise on my part. I probably know less about some of these issues than anybody else in this room. I don't spend my days reading policy papers for a living; instead, I spend my days teaching secondary schoolchildren in east London. But I think the fact that I am here, and that my presence here feels slightly anomalous, tells us something interesting about politics, and in particular the way that our politics has become increasingly professionalized. That, I think, is a problem - and it goes to the heart of our thinking about radical democracy in this discussion here today. 
 
Climate Camp, I want to suggest, is the antithesis of professionalized politics. We are not an NGO, with a full-time staff; we are not a political party, with appointed leaders. We are a group of ordinary people, from all walks of life, who have come together because of our shared concern about climate change, and our desire to do something about it. Each year, we set up a week-long camp next to one of the root causes of climate change, from power stations to airports, culminating in some form of direct action. In the past we've camped outside Drax coal-fired power station; outside Heathrow airport; and, last year, outside the coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. Most recently, on 1 April, thousands of people converged on Bishospgate in the City of London for a day-long camp outside the European Climate Exchange, the world's largest carbon trading centre. It's not just about protest: it's about building our little vision of the future, in the here and now, a vision which we develop through workshops and education, through sustainable living, and through the day-to-day practices of direct democracy. Read the rest of this post...

Thomas Ash

An OurKingdom conversation. [History: Thomas Ash > David Marquand > Thomas Ash > George Gabriel > this post > George Gabriel > Thomas Ash > George Gabriel]

I want to make a few points about attitudes to competive markets in response to George Gabriel's post on 'neo-liberal nihilism' below.

The first concerns public attitudes to them. George describes me as saying that public anger at bankers stemmed from violations of free market norms, but it's important to read this the right way. I claimed that the anger stemmed from taxpayer bailouts. These are violations of free market norms, but that fact was not the main cause of the anger.  After all, it's not clear that most people care about these norms in general - though open to correction on this point, I'm not aware of evidence that they dislike subsidies for agriculture or car-makers, as they would if they were convinced free-marketeers.

Instead, it seemed that the main cause of public anger was public money being used for pay for bankers' compensation. A sense that this was against the rules of the neo-liberal game we'd been playing (to bankers' benefit) - because, as George says, after privatising profit it socialised risk - may have played a small part. But if so it was small indeed compared to the simple fact that it was our money being used. (Contrary to what many on the left now claim, I doubt that the average taxpayer objects to excessive salaries if they come out of banks' own money, and employers are left to pick up the tab if they prove to have catastrophically over-estimated their employee's financial value.)

So I question George's claim that "the congregation believes in neo-liberalism as a social vision, that fair and free competition will allow those who deserve it to advance in the market in the pursuit of happiness by the sweat of their brows." Even some of neo-liberalism's defenders reject the second half of that claim, if it's read to imply that all the 'deserving' (presumably those who are talented, hard-working and so on) will succeed.

Now, move on to George's own attitude to competitive markets, which I sense many on the left now share. Read the rest of this post...