Labour policy

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): There was something of a stir in the blogosphere this weekend over Labour’s campaign material in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election and in particular the fourth question on a leaflet purporting to be a Tory Candidate Application Form:

“Do you oppose making foreign nationals carry an ID card?”

Anthony emailed me this story with the Subject line “gross and outrageous”. I agree.
This propaganda only serves to confirm two things: the willingness of Labour to adopt inflammatory, possibly xenophobic, language to win votes and the intellectual bankruptcy of the Government’s position on ID cards.

Lib Dem Voice, Guido and Conservative Home were united in their condemnation of the ad – as good a sign as any that they'd strayed beyond the pale. To be fair Labour supporters themselves have now started voicing their displeasure, with one poster on LabourHome saying “Central should be putting their foot down on this; I would rather the seat be lost - than win on the back of a campaign based on fear.”

Time to withdraw the ad perhaps?

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I feel discomforted by being at Bournemouth. I spoke at the ippr fringe meeting on democracy at Bournemouth. The best contributions were by Meg Russell of the Constitution Unit and Francesca Klug, who helped draft the Human Rights Act. I addressed my remarks to the Minister, Michael Wills, who is in charge of the Gordon Brown’s democratic programme  (except, it seems, Citizens Juries – who IS responsible for the unfolding debacle?).  I said that while it is extraordinary and indeed historic for a Government to place the nature of the constitution as a whole into public debate, many congratulations, etc, the exercise is taking on all the signs of trying to cure the symptoms not the illness.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I threw down a gauntlet earlier this month and asked: where is the thinking on the left? Compared to the energy and vitality of right-wing blogland it seemed to me that the left was failing to make connections and set an agenda, whether far-left, centre-left, liberal-left, it all seemed left-over. I tagged the Fabians and Compass groups by name. Gordon Brown had announced a pathbreaking engagement with the undemocratic nature of the British state as a whole and they were just asleep at the wheel. They could support, oppose, expose, critique or campaign on it, or relate it to other issues too, instead there as no response at all; it was as if their definition of campaigning was to watch Newsnight. A very intense exchange took place in the comment section between Paul Hilder from Avaaz and Tony Curzon Price of oD about the the connections between the individual, equality and solidarity, but from the wider traditional UK left came there...

Neal Lawson (London, Compass): The left has played fast and lose with democracy. It still sees it as a means to achieve the capture of state power, a purely instrumental view. This must change, especially now as Gordon Brown's premiership seems set to call for more democracy in new, deliberative forms. All very welcome and principled but he needs to avoid the dangers of being instrumental. Democracy has to be valued for its intrinsic contribution to peoples everyday lives and not just for the opportunity it provides to control the state. For someone like me on the left this is crucial because of the tension between our competing desires for equality and diversity. A modern left must encapsulate both. Democracy in the full sense, from entrenched minority rights to fair-voting , but especially the culture of democracy, allows people to make practical trade-offs themselves and in the process become empowered as humans. At Compass we have just published the final part (opens as pdf) of our Programme for Renewal trilogy. It is on democracy and sets out this case. Part 1 was on the good society and part 2 on a new political economy. Democracy brings the whole together. It is both means and ends. However, the understanding of how this works and of how process shapes outcomes remains very weak - the concept of democracy needs to move centre stage.

Phil Booth (London, NO2ID): (I asked Phil who would be the best person to reply to his excellent post in OurKingdom about ID cards which responded to Billy Bragg saying that he wouldn't mind one if it had his Bill of Rights on the back. This is Phil's email back to me. Anthony Barnett) Ah, the old "who's actually for them" problem! TBH, we've had little joy with getting ID proponents to engage on a public platform. The best to date was Andy Burnham who, to give him his due, did turn up and field questions from the floor at Labour party conference fringe in '05 and, also, a few months later, he debated Peter Tatchell at a NO2ID event in Brighton. But he's now in DoH and Joan Ryan's a washout - very good at signing boilerplate letters to the local press, not so willing to open her mouth when NO2ID are actually in the room with her, as when we gave evidence to the UK Borders Bill Committee.

Vron Ware (London, author 'Who Cares About Britishness?'): Scarcely a day goes by now without a headline and opinion columns either asking or telling us what it means to be British. Pouring old wine into new bottles to make sure it tastes the same, government ministers repeatedly insist on promoting British identity as the latest measure to target those who wish to settle in the UK. Obviously, whole communities who are already British will feel that their right to belong is also under attack.

Anonymous: The six Labour party Deputy Leadership candidates had a hustings in Parliament today. All of them stressed the need for the party to rebuild, reconnect, renew and so on. None of them mentioned a codified constitution as a way of doing so. There were some tangential references to issues which could be described as all-British and constitutional. Peter Hain seems to favour the Deputy Leadership job continuing to be coupled with that of Deputy Prime Minister; Jon Cruddas and Hazel Blears do not. Harriet Harman showed the most interest in civil liberties. She said that when the government planned new counter-terrorist measures it has to make its case properly; and announce its intentions to Parliament first, not the media. When pressed on human rights - be they civil and political or economic and social - all made supportive noises, opposing Guantanamo Bay and generally agreeing with the more rigorous pursuit of equality. But on the evidence of this meeting an overhaul of the way the UK is governed is not a lead item on the agenda of the would-be Labour deputy leaders. Perhaps Blears's point about anti-discrimination measures - that they must be justified in practical terms or run the risk of appearing too "abstract" - exemplifies a broader attitude within the party. On this showing it will be up to supporters of constitutional reform, both within Labour and beyond it, to persuade not just these candidates but also their colleagues, that any revamp of the government requires rather more energy behind the general commitments made by Gordon Brown than we are seeing at the moment.

Chris Atkins (London, Director Taking Liberties): When I started making Taking Liberties, I wanted to look at whether we should be reducing liberty in order to increase security. After a year and a half it is now completely clear to me that the very idea that one balances the other is a myth. All the government's liberty restricting measures over the past seven years have either had no effect on terrorism (like ID Cards) or have actually made the situation worse (like the misuse of stop and search or Guantanamo Bay). Our film draws a line in the sand at a time when power is being transferred to a new leader, and is an attempt to turn the tide of this deluge of idiotic legislation. We follow the stories of normal people who's lives have been turned upside down by injustice, so we can show the ordinary public that just because they have nothing to hide, they have a heck of a lot to fear. If enough people see this film on the opening weekend, then the distributors will be able to push the film out to more screens and mean that, for once, a film like this won’t just be preaching to the choir.

Phil Booth (London, NO2ID) "I'd be happy to have an ID card, so long as it’s got a Bill of Rights printed on the back". This is what Bill Bragg is saying, according to the report in OurKingdom. What Billy seems to be missing is the fact that the Identity Cards Act 2006 sets out powers to routinely surveille every citizen’s public and private transactions. It also gives the Home Secretary direct control over a person’s civil life and therefore - through the removal of the card - a kind of civil death. And this is already on the statute books.

Guy Aitchison: I went to the May Day Involve seminar to hear Ed Miliband, now Minister for the Third Sector, talk about citizenship. He said that the 1945 Labour government had made people citizens in a progressive but “passive… one-way relationship”. People continue to want the state to play a role, he claimed. However, they also want to be active in setting the terms, he gave Make Poverty History as an example. Someone from the Power Enquiry asked how this related to Gordon Brown’s catch phrase, the need for a new constitutional settlement. Miliband’s reply was pretty confused. He ended up saying what was needed was more parliamentary sovereignty. He clearly needs to read Pam Giddy in the Independent.