Cross-posted from this morning's Comment is Free a response to Peter Facey's post on Gordon Brown

What should we make of the prime minister's call on the morning of 2 February for a constitutional revolution, replacing parliamentary sovereignty with the "sovereignty of the people"? With the first step a referendum on replacing first-past-the-post system with alternative vote?

Peter Facey, the director of Unlock Democracy, says in Comment is Freethat we should "welcome any sign that Labour is at last rediscovering its radical zeal".

"Dismissing Brown's statement of intent out of hand", he says, "will only make it harder" to achieve reform and "if we are serious about change… it is incumbent on us to suspend cynicism".

I hope very much that those MPs now facing the prospect of prosecution for the way in which they ‘managed’ their parliamentary expenses do claim immunity because, as MPs, they are ‘privileged’. This is not because I think that any such outrageous claim should succeed but for two other reasons.

Firstly it would provide an opportunity to establish finally whether our courts have the jurisdiction to be the final arbiters of the existence and extent of those privileges of the House of Commons and its members which are not enshrined in statute. This is ‘unfinished business’ which, on the rare occasions it has been discussed, has generated much constitutional heat.

Secondly and, for me, more importantly, it would force us all – and the media – to confront what we have allowed the House of Commons to become and what has been stolen from us. We think we are a sovereign people: we are not. Sovereignty does not reside in and is not enjoyed by ‘we the people’.

27 years in captivity, it was twenty years ago on 11 February 1990 Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison by the Apartheid South Africa regime. The new T-shirt from www.philosophyfootball.com celebrates South Africa's two decades of freedom in the year the country also hosts Africa's first World Cup. We have 5 to be won in our February competition. To enter simply answer the following question.

In South Africa what do the initials ANC stand for?  

Following Trevor Phillips’ claim back in 2005 that we were “sleepwalking towards segregation”, there was a flurry of research to argue the contrary. It is quite convincing. The research says that on the whole things are better than they used to be, that this “sleepwalk” has no statistical evidence beyond a piece of research by academic Mike Poulsen which creates this picture by moving some statistical goalposts.

I lack the academic credentials to challenge either side, but I wonder if the issue is not one of statistics but perception. Won’t people see an area as Asian if the pubs shut, if all the shops are run by Asian people, if there are mostly brown faces on the street? Is that segregation or a lack of integration, or just something that happens?

URBED is a regeneration cooperative that’s worked in many of the northern towns of England that at various points have had issues (or been accused of having them) regarding integration: Bradford, Burnley, Blackburn, Accrington, Colne, Oldham, Rochdale. There is no doubt that while nowhere in this country suffers the kind of 80-100 percent segregation that some US cities exhibit, in enough of our towns there is perilously little integration between the communities.

The many sides of Alastair Campbell were on display on the Andrew Marr Show this Sunday morning. The good, the bad - and the ugly, in a way which will dominate the Monday morning press.

Here he was plugging his latest potboiler novel, ‘Maya’, all oozing charm and charisma, and as the interview ‘segued’ into the Chilcot inquiry, the many other facets of his character emerged. First, there was the fragility, as he paused and took account of himself, the cracks in his psyche opening to reveal the weakness behind the machismo. Then it was on to the combativeness, even nearly challenging Marr about the number of Iraqi dead post-invasion, but realising it better to let that one go.

Campbell like Blair must have some inclination of what they have done and how they are perceived, and the damage they have done to our democratic ways of life, how politicians and civil servants are seen, and our standing in the world (let alone the mess in Iraq and impending conflict with Iran if the warmongers in the West get their way). Instead, what one gets from Campbell in full drive, is a Caesar-like personification of how tough it was for him and Tony in the bunker, and particularly making the case for how tough it was for his master.

The ongoing saga of the British parliamentary expenses crisis crossed a major watershed with the charging of three Labour MPs, Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine, and one Tory peer, Lord Hanningfield, and the possibility of more to come.

There are so many layers to this. For a start the ‘gang of four’ are attempting to hide behind parliamentary immunity to prevent themselves being found guilty, literally explicitly making the case of ‘one rule for them, one rule for us’. Then there is the unprecedented nature of what is taking place, MPs being charged and held to account, which does in some sense remove another layer of the pretence of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’.

After one of the longest negotiations in the history of the peace process, Sinn Féin and the DUP have concluded an agreement which should see devolution of justice and policing by 12 April.

The new justice minister is expected to come from the cross-community Alliance Party, in an arrangement designed to keep the sensitive portfolio out of unionist or nationalist hands.

Growing up in the deeply uncool Dublin of the early 1980s, I became fascinated by images of rain and mud beamed into my family’s home on BBC news bulletins. Those were the conditions which the women of Greenham Common peace camp endured in their noble quest to remove weapons of mass destruction from British soil and eventually from the entire world.

Almost 30 years later, my admiration for those activists remains undimmed. The intensity of that admiration is surpassed, though, by the anger I feel towards people who used to support the peace camp but have since abandoned their principles for political expediency and personal gain.

Take Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s first foreign minister. During her recent confirmation hearing in the European Parliament, she was quizzed about the job she once held as a treasurer with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Faced with unproven claims, made by the particularly vile and reactionary Tory MEP Charles Tannock, that CND was financed by the Soviet Union, Ashton rightly refused to apologise for her past. Nonetheless, she tried to distance herself from it by underscoring how she was young then, and implying she had long grown out of that idealistic phase.

Dear Friend,

On 25 January, you were one of the bishops who helped to defeat the Government in the House of Lords on the Equality bill. At the heart of the debate were three amendments which sought to make religious organisations’ exemptions from anti-discrimination law as wide as possible.  The Government, under pressure (it was said) from both the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, wanted to restrict those exemptions to cover only the employment and discipline of spiritual leaders. You and six of your colleagues attended the Lords to ensure that the Government was defeated. One of the three amendments was carried by only five votes; so you and your fellow bishops were decisive in defeating the anti-discrimination legislation proposed by the Government. It is now reported that the Government, which is running out of parliamentary time, will not seek to reverse this defeat.

You also urged rejection of another amendment, which was sponsored by three faith communities, one of them the Quakers, to which I belong. The other two were Liberal Judaism and the Unitarian Church. At present, the Civil Partnership Act forbids civil partnership ceremonies from taking place in any religious premises. Our three faith communities have considered the matter prayerfully, and we think that the Act discriminates against couples who wish their partnership to be marked by a religious token of their commitment. We would like the ban to be repealed, so that those faith communities which wish – and only those which wish – should be allowed to hold civil partnership ceremonies on their premises. As Julia Neuberger, president of Liberal Judaism, pointed out in the House before you spoke, the amendment is purely permissive. The existing ban inhibits the free exercise of our religion. If we were in the USA, it would probably be unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

In his speech on Tuesday, the Prime Minister announced that he had asked the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, to “consolidate the existing unwritten, piecemeal conventions that govern much of the way central government operates under our existing constitution into a single written document”, clearly ignorant of the fact such a document already exists. Here, Stuart Wilks-Heeg, of Democratic Audit, points Sir Gus in the right direction.

There's a great review of Henry's book just out in the Washington Post by Patrick Anderson. Here is a taster:

In a post yesterday, Anthony Barnett assessed the Prime Minister's speech calling for a written constitution by 2015 and an immediate referendum on changing the voting system. Anthony also signals a new direction for OurKingdom. He asked a question after the speech. We can't run this in full as the sound recording was too poor but ippr have captured Gordon Brown's answer:

ANTHONY BARNETT: Prime Minister - isn't it a bit too late...

If we needed to know that Britain's political system is a wreck, Gordon Brown's speech yesterday was confirmation . Chaired by Liza Harker of ippr, who retained a steady Mona Lisa smile through his performance, the Prime Minister declared the time had come for ‘New Politics’ (see the ippr website for footage of the speech).  He surveyed the institutions, Lords, Commons, Cabinet and local government, now shattered by the aftershocks of twelve New Labour years. None were too insecure for him not to give them a further poke and declare them in need of his modernisation. Indeed, he has a plan. Like a strange version of Babar the Elephant about to construct Celesteville, Brown foresees a written constitution to house us all arising by 2015 to mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta.

There is what he said.

And then there is what is really going on.

The Scottish Blog awards gave their verdict on the best journalist and mainstream blogs in Scotland yesterday, putting me in an honourable third place, behind Alex Massie of The Spectator and with the winner Joan McAlpine -  with Go Lassie Go, a site whose praises I was only singing last week! 

As a bit of a novice at this and just beginning to find my feet I am a bit chuffed to find myself in third place. That’s like having a proper hit single in the days when you used to be able to have one! Fascinating to see whom I am ahead of in terms of Scottish heavyweights, Iain Macwhirter (no. 4), Brian Taylor (no. 5), Lesley Riddoch (no.8), and Douglas Fraser (no. 10). All of the top ten bar myself were from institutional mainstream sources and media.

A letter from Guy Lodge of IPPR...

I just wanted to draw your attention to a paper IPPR has published which reports the findings of a survey we have conducted exploring MPs' attitudes towards the English Question.

The main findings are:

Over at Next Left, Stuart White is promoting what looks like an excellent initiative bringing Compass, the Lib Dems and Oxford Libertarians together to see what common ground can be reached on topics of interest to liberals.

The discussion is open to all and takes place Wednesday February 3rd 7.30pm at the Oxford Union. Unfortunately, OK's man in Oxford, Tom Ash, is otherwise engaged but if you're in the area why not head down - it looks set to be a fascinating discussion. The first event will discuss drugs policy in light of the sacking of Professor Nutt.

An OurKingdom conversation [history: Alex Holland > this post]

Alex Holland does Blair an undeserved compliment by analysing his fantastical performance before Chilcot so scrupulously. My own response after sitting through the full six hours was that hubris has entirely taken Blair over and of rage that he regards the whole tragic and shameful enterprise of the invasion of Iraq as his own personal crusade, give or take a mate or two. He raised his own 'belief' and ability to take 'decisions' above any other political, factual or moral consideration, allowing only that others may have had different views, but so what! I don't believe any of it, least of all his ridiculous tan.

The man is surely unhinged. His actions have already contributed to humanitarian disaster and huge political instability in the world, a sharpening of lethal anger among a minority of Muslims and a continuing, brutal and illegal over-reaction among western nations, both internationally and domestically, but he wants to make it worse by taking on Iran. And he exhibited not the slightest sense of regret for the victims in the invasion or for the wider consequences of war itself. In his coarse language, he and our military leaders were 'up for it'!

Just think. This is the man who is a peace envoy in the middle east. This is the man whom our Prime Minister, honestly or not, felt was 'up for' being the new president of the EU. Forget trying to have him put on trial for war crimes. That is beyond our reach. But let's at least seek to make those who still hold him in this absurd regard think again. He should be removed from his post as envoy. And while we are about it, we could make it clear to Brown that the idea that he should be part of the Labour party's election campaign is both stupid and repugnant to a degree that would stain the party's hopes for the future.

After a couple of drinks at our Christmas party, I shocked some of my colleagues here at openDemocracy with my outmoded belief in nationalised utilities and services. I think I am right in saying that most of the openDemocracy editors are committed ‘polyarchists’, a term Tony Curzon Price elucidated in a recent editorial; they don’t like the concentration of power in the hands of anyone, including the state, and my idea of renationalising things like gas and electricity, and more so the virgin prairies of broadband internet, somewhat horrified them. 

My objection to the increasing plethora of choices in the provision of such services does not arise from a closet Stalinism. I personally enjoy deliberating what clothes to buy, and tramp from shop to shop happily. I have little problem with consumerism within the bounds of sustainability, or the purchase of products as constituents of personal or group identity. It’s where a product or service is purely instrumental, rather than an end in itself, that I think nationalisation should be considered with a more open mind.  Generally, you catch a train to get from A to B rather than because you enjoy the snack trolley, use gas to cook or heat your home, use broadband to look at content on the internet etc. The decision-maker generally derives little enjoyment, or utility in Benthamite terms, from the process of making these instrumental choices. Yet with all likelihood, manifestos in the forthcoming UK election will make another raft of pledges to increase the number of such choices we make and the options we have to choose from in each choice situation.

At the Chilcott inquiry Tony Blair claimed the risk of terrorists being supplied WMDs by “rogue’ states justified a policy of invasion rather than containment and deterrence. Unlike Blair's more reasoned cases for humanitarian intervention in countries like Kosovo and Sierra Leone, the former Prime Minister's recent argument for the invasion of Iraq was less robust.

Liberating Iraqis from Saddam's brutal rule had become the most popular defence by pro-war apologists after WMDs were not found in Iraq. Chilcot asked the former Prime Minister if Iraq was about regime change. “No, the absolutely key issue was the WMD issue,” said Blair.

Furthermore, Blair repeatedly stressed to the inquiry that it was his fear of 9/11-style attackers using WMDs that changed the “calculus of risk” away from containment and in favour of invading Iraq.

This may seem a compelling argument to people who have watched television series such as 24. In such fictional portrayals, murky rogue states hand over briefcases containing nuclear bombs to suicide bombers ready to detonate in downtown LA.

In reality the number of cases of biological and chemical attacks by extremist groups has been tiny and nuclear attacks non-existent. This is because most often conventional weapons are better at achieving the extremists' aim of killing lots of people.

Indeed the sarin poison gas used in the 1995 Tokyo Underground attack by the religious group Aum Shinrikyo is a case in point. The gas itself only killed 12 people while costing millions of dollars to produce.

Whatever your opinion of Prime Minister's Questions, it at least provides an opportunity for the opposition parties to put the government on the spot and require its leader to defend his or her policies. Conversely, it allows the Prime Minister to respond to these criticisms, so that if they are themselves dishonest in some way they will be less effective than if they had simply been distributed through an uncritical media.

America, with its President separate from the legislature and often removed from the legislative process, has no such institution. John McCain promised to introduce one during the last presidential campaign. But for a taste of what it might look like, and how healthy it could be, I recommend that you watch this riveting and almost unprecedented exchange between President Obama and the congressional Republicans at the GOP Retreat in Baltimore on Friday: