Our society is at risk of being reshaped in ways that will devastate the proud legacy of liberalism. We see a free market philosophy being applied to our schools, wasteful top-down reorganisation of our NHS, and the undermining of our green credentials with cuts to investment.
At some point you have to conclude that this is not a mistake here or there, but part of a pattern. The pattern is of a leadership that has sold out and betrayed your traditions, including that of your recent leadership: Steel, Ashdown, Kennedy and Campbell.
Oh dear. Miliband attacks the ConDem government for precisely the neoliberal, free market policies which he freely associated himself with in the New Labour government, and which, if he became party leader, he too would espouse. Where does he think faith schools came from? Where does he think foundation hospitals came from? And it’s rather ironic to see the man responsible for the Vestas fiasco in the Isle of Wight complaining about a government not standing up for investment in green industries. The truth is that all three major parties are equally in support of neoliberal economic policies now as they ever were – would Miliband really say he didn’t care about the housing market? Would Clegg on his own suddenly confess he was against increases in consumer spending, funded by easy credit? It’s appalling for him to suggest to Lib Dem voters that their interests would be best suited by joining a Labour Party helmed by him. But he goes on:
We are proud of our record in government, from the children lifted out of poverty to the transformation of our NHS, but I believe I am winning the argument that we must turn the page on New Labour and the mistakes it led us to. For example, the argument is being won that a graduate tax based on income would be fairer than tuition fees and a market in higher education. The argument is being won that on issues like ID cards and stop-and-search we became too casual about the liberties of individuals. And I believe the argument is being conclusively won that we must recognise the profound mistake of the Iraq war.
Erm what? This was the party which was supremely indifferent to people becoming super rich, so whilst children were lifted out of poverty, the gap between them and the newly super-rich grew unlike any other time before in British history. The government did nothing whatsoever to tackle the problems of tax avoidance and evasion, was at the very least complicit in the American programme of extraordinary rendition and contracted out torture, thought it right to be able to detain people without charge for forty two days, and made up the reasons for the Iraq War. Is that really a record to be proud of? He isn’t even saying sorry for the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed in a war without legality or purpose! He and his party continue to believe in the state curing all problems, and came to believe themselves the ultimate arbiters of risk for everyone. So in order to save everyone from risks which could never be substantiated, they felt they had to subjugate the rights of everyone. Anyone remember the Independent Safeguarding Authority? How liberal is it really to suggest that everyone be considered a paedophile in the workplace unless they can prove otherwise?
Miliband hasn’t argued for an improvement in the voting system. He hasn’t articulated any ideas about how better people could be attracted to the political classes, nor how to devolve power away from the Whitehall mandarins who thought arresting the (then) Shadow Immigration Minister was a good idea. Someone more liberal would suggest no longer destituting asylum seekers, or allowing the police to construct a vast, unaccountable database of protesters. It’s an appeal of the vilest cynicism, promising just as little substantial reform from the nightmare of New Labour as his brother. If Miliband wants Labour to become the home of progressive politics he needs to realign his party fundamentally, not just try to steal other parties’ votes, and certainly not preach about other parties betraying their traditions.
So Brown has finally done the honourable thing and offered his resignation as a price for coalition with the Liberal Democrats. He’s offered an immediate switch to AV via legislation, and a later referendum on STV. So shouldn’t the Lib Dems join him in a minority coalition? Erm no.
How can the Lib Dems possible ally themselves with the party which unrepentently ushered in our surveillance state? Right through to last week they were crowing about just how authoritarian they needed to be, ironically for a country they insisted wasn’t ‘broken’. Could Clegg work with Alan Johnson, who is still defying the European Court of Human Rights on his department’s abuse of the National DNA Database? And what about the Home Office’s defiance of the Court on prisoners’ voting rights? Could Clegg work with Prime Minister David Miliband, who is still defending the government’s right to torture, and trying to prevent us knowing about it? Could New Labour ever walk away from ID cards, given that its ID strategy for the 21st century depends entirely on them and the real problem – the identity register?
Would a New Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition repeal New Labour’s Digital Economy Act? Would they shut down the Independent Safeguarding Authority? How on earth could New Labour ever agree to any aspect of the Freedom Bill whatsoever? Given that there are no moves visible (yet?) showing the demise of New Labour, how could this coalition be better than one with the Tories? Don’t say have it be led by Nick Clegg because that’s just not going to happen, despite his popularity. Unless New Labour dies or the Tories offer AV+ for the Commons at the very least, I can’t see a coalition of any kind working, at least not without destroying the Lib Dems. Brown’s manoeuvre was super, no doubt timed by Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, but he really must not be the only stumbling block to working with the Labour Party.
If you need last minute proof why New Labour is no longer fit to govern, check out Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s defence of the government’s policy of destituting asylum seekers:
”What people see is a sort of ”Euro-friendly” that would have us in the single currency. They would have an amnesty for illegal immigrants, they would allow asylum seekers to work, which is utter, utter madness.”
I think that’s an appalling, inhuman position to take. New Labour’s policy of forced destitution of asylum seekers has been one of the many low points of their period in office, but Cathy Newman has gone further and fact-checked Johnson’s wider claim that it was ‘madness’ because 83% of asylum seekers were found not to have had a genuine claim:
His 83 per cent figure ignores 10 per cent of asylum claims which were granted leave to stay in the UK on humanitarian or discretionary grounds – making it hard to dismiss these as not genuine.
He also ignores the cases subsequently found to have genuine merit on appeal – just over a quarter of those that make it through to an appeal tribunal.
That’s not to dispute that the majority of asylum claims are rejected. But given the context in which Johnson cited the statistic and the need to be careful about the way figures are presented on such an emotive subject, we rate his claim fiction.
Good old Alan Johnson. The party which is currently promoting ‘fairness for all’ clearly means nothing of the sort.
Word has it that the Tories will try to declare themselves the winners even if they fail to win a majority in the general election tomorrow. The Constitution however has something else to say about that:
Despite the claims of certain media commentators and aggrieved Conservative politicians at the weekend, there has been no “new rule” dreamt up in the Cabinet Office for the event of a hung parliament. The constitutional position has long been clear: if no party secures an overall majority then Gordon Brown, as the incumbent prime minister, has the constitutional right to remain in office to try to form a government.
Constitutionally, a PM cannot be forced to resign because the opposition believes it has a better mandate to govern. But in practice, whether the PM stays in office and tries to form a government is dependent on the political circumstances in which he finds himself.
Britain’s system is unusual in that the prime minister does not have to resign if his party fails to secure a majority. Until a deal is done he would serve as a caretaker premier, whose powers and authority are limited by the rules governing electoral “purdah”. The constitutional conventions and precedents are designed to provide continuity – to ensure that at no time is the sovereign without a government.
The basic principle is that the government must command the confidence of the Commons. That is not the same as securing an outright majority – merely that no combination of parties can form a majority against it. If the incumbent PM has the confidence of the Commons then he can continue in office.
And this I suspect will be what comes into play on Friday. I still believe that Cameron will command the largest party in the Commons, but will fail to win a majority. I also think Brown and Labour will try to find a solution immediately to keep the Tories out. I’m not convinced they’ll find it – partly because Brown is an unpalatable partner for the Lib Dems (Clegg is known to hate him), partly because it seems highly unlikely that New Labour will agree to dismantle its aggressive, torture-supporting authoritarian state, just because its preferred coalition partner wants it that way. Would David Miliband really be a break from old politics? What about Alan Johnson?
The pressure on Brown from the Murdoch/Mail Axis of Evil will be merciless, the political pressure from the Tories themselves possibly much greater, and the will of the people thoroughly subverted. Cameron will do what it takes to run a minority administration, which through trampling on the Constitution and ignoring electoral reform, will within a short span of time destroy itself. Cameron and the unreconstructed Tories are on the wrong side of history.
Those of you so far entirely unimpressed with David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ general election meme (basically subcontracting the responsibilities of public services provision from the state down to the individual to save money and, well, the bother), this is for you:
“I look at the Liberal policies. I look at them. Is there a plan for the future? They’ve got a policy on taxation that is built on a fiction about tax avoidance. They’ve got a policy on immigration that doesn’t make sense. The one that particularly annoys me is the one on child tax credits – they want to cut them.”
Erm if he’s talking about Clegg’s offer of a de-facto amnesty for existing ‘illegal’ immigrants, as Clegg himself put it last Thursday it’s simply common sense. It’s about people who are already here and who want to be here and to contribute. Why keep them in the black economy? That’s a policy which makes no sense. And is he really serious about a ‘fiction about tax avoidance‘? Even if the evidence weren’t compelling that he was wrong, it still smells like rhetoric designed to placate just the City figures who are in the metaphorical dock this election. It’s an argument on the wrong side of history.
“We’re talking about the future of our country. We’re not talking about who’s going to be the next presenter of a TV gameshow. We’re talking about the future of our economy.”
Tony Blair anyone? Pathetic. He’s going to crash and burn on 6th May.
“Comment is free … but facts are sacred”. Unfortunately the Lib Dems in Lewisham aren’t letting the facts of my voting record on Iraq get in the way of their wholly negative campaign.
Contrary to Max Calo’s assertion I did indeed vote on the crucial amendment, which if passed would have prevented the Labour government going to war in Iraq. Once this amendment was lost, nothing could be achieved in the subsequent vote. The Guardian, the Times and the BBC are all on the record as recording me as one of the “Labour rebels” and there was never a doubt about my consistent anti-war stance. As Calo himself admits, I never voted with the government, and it is standard parliamentary practice to abstain when negotiating in private with your own leadership in an attempt to get them to change their minds.
Perhaps Nick Clegg should be told that his Liberal Democrats in Lewisham are up to their old dirty tricks.
Max Calo’s response:
First of all thanks for replying, I’ll try to clarify the point I make and that I think is important and justified.
In the letter you sent to residents you stated:
?I have always acted with integrity and stuck to my principles ? voting against the government going to war in Iraq.?.
And I think we can agree you didn’t actually do this, because voting for a motion to delay action does not mean voting against the government going to war.
For everyone’s reference here’s the text of the proposed amendment you voted for:
(this house)
- believes that the case for war against Iraq has not yet been established, especially given the absence of specific United Nations authorisation; but,
- in the event that hostilities do commence, pledges its total support for the British forces engaged in the Middle East, expresses its admiration for their courage, skill and devotion to duty, and hopes that their tasks will be swiftly concluded with minimal casualties on all sides.
When the amendment failed a large number of Labour MPs left, but an even larger number stayed and voted against.
I’m sure you agree that the stand taken by those Labour MPs that stayed on and displayed active dissent (including resigning from Government in some cases) was very principled and indeed commanded the admiration of many in the public.
Your public record I’m afraid is not so clear, and that’s why I don’t believe you’re entitled to make the claim you made in your letter. Your voting record on the war shows that you were absent in four out of 6 occasions, when you participated you voted in favour of amendments but never took part in the main vote.
You say that once the amendments failed then there was no hope of the main motion being rejected, still many thought that they needed to stay and register an open dissent on the main motions, and we do admire them for doing so.
It is also the case that a stronger dissent makes a weaker mandate, whether the vote is won or lost.
You say that in private you were negotiating in attempt to change the leadership’s mind, well, maybe you could have written that in your letter to Lewisham Central residents instead.
If you’re writing of your public record then you’re best advised to stick to the facts.
What people understand by reading your letter is what you wrote, and that’s what those that stayed on and took an open stand against the war did, not those that are now saying that they were negotiating in private.
Joan Ruddock is my MP. She is a vociferous supporter of ID cards, agreed with 90 days detention without charge, supports trial without a jury and control orders, and voted to ban protest around parliament. I seriously hope she gets beaten by either the Greens or the Lib Dems – this authoritarian nonsense simply has to stop.
And again we are supposed to accept that the ends justify the means. I love Peter Davison and David Tennant, as I loved Eddie Izzard, but this unquestioning support for a ‘caring Britain’ is just preposterous. Obviously the argument is ‘if you disagree with the bad things we’ve done you’re against the good things we’ve done’, and it’s a shocking manipulation. The Iraq war, Afghanistan, the attempts at 42 and 90 days detention without charge, the Digital Economy Act, ID cards, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, destitution of asylum seekers and detention of their children, Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, RIPA surveillance legislation, SOCPA anti-protest demonstration, the list does go on (and you can add to it in comments if you like) – none of that is caring. None of it is.
I am thinking of a future fair for all. I’m voting Lib Dem. Sorry, Doctors.
The Council of Europe has urged the UK government to hurry up and change the law on prisoner voting rights. As things stand, the UK’s 84,073 strong prison population (all avowed Conservative voters, according to reports) are barred from voting in elections under section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983.
In March 2004, however, in the case of Hirst v. United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) unanimously ruled that the maintenance of an absolute bar on convicted prisoners voting was in breach of Article 3 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to free and fair elections.
The case was brought by John Hirst, a prisoner who, in 1980, had been sentenced to a term of discretionary life imprisonment after pleading guilty to manslaughter. The UK Government unsuccessfully appealed the decision before the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR.
The High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.
So it really makes you wonder where Roger Godsiff gets off putting together an election leaflet like that, basically saying ‘Lib Dems Love Paedophiles and Murderers’ which couldn’t be less true. Godsiff meanwhile had the nerve to defend the leaflet:
Mr Godsiff defended the campaign tactic, saying the Lib Dems’ policy on the issue was “black and white” but they were not making that clear to voters.
“I agree that the imagery is strong but I do not accept that it is any stronger than anything that has been put out by my opponents,” Mr Godsiff told the BBC.
“The leaflet has been distributed in certain areas but it does not contain anything that is factually incorrect. I have put out some negative campaigning when my opponents do not tell the electorate what their position is.
“It is right and proper to ask whether they support or do not support whether people convicted of serious crimes can vote. I have invited other candidates to make their position clear….I have made my position clear.”
Labour has withdrawn the leaflet. The Liberal Democrats meanwhile describe their position on the European Court’s ruling as:
in future, [they said] judges should be given discretion to decide, upon sentencing, whether to strip someone of the vote, depending on the length of sentence and the nature of the crime.
Once a new system was in place, they said existing prisoners should be given the right to launch an appeal to try and secure the vote.
However, they insisted that those guilty of the most serious crime should never be able to do this.
Why this policy should be so offensive to Godsiff is a mystery, unless the leaflet really is a reflection of how terrified the party now is of the Liberal Democrats. I have to say I agree with the Court’s ruling, and not with the Lib Dems on this. The Court:
found no evidence to support the claim that disenfranchisement deterred crime and considered that the imposition of a blanket punishment on all prisoners regardless of their crime or individual circumstances indicated no rational link between the punishment and the offender.
The ECtHR also maintained that:
Removal of the vote in fact runs counter to the rehabilitation of the offender as a lawabiding member of the community and undermines the authority of the law as derived from a legislature which the community as a whole votes into power.
I agree with those points. I see no reason why any prisoner should ever be denied the vote. Reading the rest of the link above it’s revealing that the government is doing everything in its power not to abide by the Court’s ruling. Well done yet again to New Labour for sticking to its utter contempt for human rights. This general election will not be run in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights – that’s what’s really offensive.
This is pretty funny, but of course the first debate has so far proven to be a game-changer for the Liberal Democrats. Nick Clegg seems to have tapped into a deep resentment towards the last parliament – the worst in living memory – and towards politics in general, and as a result is riding at the top of some opinion polls. Time will tell what the effect of that will be, but I find it enormously exciting – if the Lib Dems hold the balance of power in 2 1/2 weeks then the rollback of the government’s authoritarian project, electoral reform and constitutional change get thrown to the top of the political agenda. Clegg may yet provide the most important jolt to British politics in generations, and my fingers remain tightly crossed. Interestingly Labour have now started codedly to woo Clegg:
Lord Mandelson, who heads Labour’s campaign, criticised some Liberal Democrat policies but made clear that a coalition government would not be a disaster. It is the first time a senior Labour figure has spoken about a Lib-Lab coalition, in which Liberal Democrats would sit in a Brown Cabinet. In a memo to Labour members, Lord Mandelson said: “I am not against coalition government in principle and for Britain, anything would be better than a Cameron-Osborne government.”
The Secretary of State for Business said a two-party government would not be so stable without a “big unifying challenge”. He named that as constitutional change, urging Liberal Democrat supporters in 100 or so Labour-Tory marginal seats to vote Labour to secure reform of the voting system for Westminster. He predicted, however, that the voters would turn away from their current “flirtation” with Mr Clegg.
I think some will turn away from Clegg, as people reach for what they know when they reach the ballot box. But I’ve been saying for a long time now that the two main parties have completely underestimated the electorate’s hatred for politics as usual, and to offer only that at this general election could yet prove fatal for either of them.
My question is whether that even matters, if the big breakthrough needed for constitutional change, parliamentary reform and a rollback of the authoritarian project is achieved. Peter McHugh, former director of programmes at GMTV disagrees:
It was Question Time without the fire and brimstone.
ITV News at Ten told us that Nick Clegg won on the night and Twitter agreed. But will he win on May 6? I don’t think so. But bring on the hung parliament.
And as for the show, News at Ten also managed to tell us that the debate was exciting and that we learnt lots from the 90 minutes. News at Ten told us that in three minutes, but left out the 87 minutes of irrelevance around it.
One thing for me is certain – somebody has got to look at the rules, because this programme was as sterile as the set on Holby City.
You couldn’t say for certain the audience were in the same studio. It was 40 minutes before David got in a mention about his wife’s pregnancy, but it was 9.17pm before he finally showed emotion and Gordon displayed the rictus grin.
Was it style over substance then?
Yes.
Hmm. That certainly was the risk – the presidentialisation of British politics isn’t actually desirable after all. I haven’t yet watched it, but most of the accounts I heard suggested that Clegg walked it. With that being true, this result is an absolute bombshell:
johnrentoul ComRes/ITV: CON 36 (-3), LDEM 35 (+14), LAB 24 (-3) But note polling among 4,000 people who watched the debate with view to being asked opn
The rider underneath is extremely important but this result has still already acted as a nuclear explosion underneath a campaign which hadn’t fired even the parties’ bases up. It’s true that the first debate didn’t lead to any broader a look at each parties’ policies, that much of the change of opinion appears to be based on non-political, cosmetic issues. But what if this result were even partially replicated across the board? The two ‘big’ parties would finally start having to look at what was driving ‘their’ voters to the Lib Dems, and said constitutional change, parliamentary reform and rollback of the authoritarian project might actually become critical election issues. Particularly so when:
That is so far the most important conclusion to be drawn either from today’s first polling result or last night’s snap polls. First-past-the-post might finally be proven to the majority not to reflect their views fairly. Even if were the only outcome from the first debate, it would have to go down as an unqualified success. Perhaps the argument of style over substance is too simplistic after all.
ITV has tonight blocked anyone from uploading footage from the Leaders debates to YouTube because it may violate their own copyright.
Instead, viewers are forced to watch clips from ITV’s own archive on YouTube. Even short short clips of several seconds have been taken off.
I’d be interested in someone putting a flattering clip from last night up of Gordon Brown, and then see if material which would be beneficial to the Prime Minister (and to democracy in general) is still banned on ‘copyright’ grounds. The irony would be overwhelming – truly hoist to his own petard.
I didn’t watch it last night, but of course the entire debate is available above. What were your thoughts on the evening’s proceedings? Appalled by the presidentialisation of British politics? Thrilled at Clegg’s performance, which may yet transform the entire contest?
Now I love Eddie Izzard – really really love him – but…
It’s an appalling fudge. Noone can fault Eddie for what his values are, nor for what he saw and experienced in his multi-marathon adventure across Britain last year. But he talks about Labour as a party ‘founded on fairness’, and immediately shoots himself in the foot. Control orders – are they fair? What about ID cards? The Independent Safeguarding Authority – who’s that fair to? A policy of destituting asylum seekers and jailing ‘failed’ asylum seekers’ children – I’m not quite sure that’s fair. Were the police fair when they beat protesters and killed Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protest? How’s about the Tamils’ protest soon after when they attacked women (I’ve seen the video)?
He talks about compassion, but where’s the compassion in pre-criminalising protesters on secret databases, on holding DNA profiles of entirely innocent people, children amongst them? Was it compassionate to invade Iraq, when there was no evidence of WMD? He talks about community too, but how is it fair to promise to slash public services for the poorest in society when a Robin Hood (or Tobin) Tax could recoup money from those who caused the economic crisis in the first place? Was Labour’s utter dismissal of the online campaign by tens of thousands of people to hold back the Digital Economy Bill a demonstration of ‘community’ support?
Is Eddie unaware of these issues or does he really think they don’t matter?
The man who wants to be Prime Minister isn’t above the odd terminological inexactitude, any more than the incumbent. From his article today in The Times:
So instead, we are asking you to join in the government of your nation. We want everyone to get involved in the running of their country. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you want — we are offering you a heartfelt invitation to join with us and help change Britain for the better.
A week ago, MPs ignored thousands of people who wanted a proper debate on #debill. Now, they want us to “get involved”. They can go hang.
They can indeed. New Labour promises ‘power back in your hands’:
The people will be given ‘the power to decide’ how to make parliament more ‘accountable’ and ‘democratic’, they say. Another utter fraud. They’ve already had their opportunity to be accountable and democratic, tens of thousands of us asked them to and almost to a number they refused. This general election is a whole lot of hot air – meaningless promises offering nothing to anyone. What we need is a proportional voting system. What we need is an elected Senate to replace the House of Lords. What we need is fixed term parliaments to remove the need for ‘wash up’ periods. What we need is new blood coming into the Commons who aren’t career politicians. What we don’t need is yet more platitudes about how we should ‘get involved’, but Cameron more than Brown has no interest in relinquishing the power necessary for that to mean anything.
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