Day 5651: The Dark is Rising

Tuesday:


We must turn back the tide.


In the last week there have been two murderous attacks on people who, although not close to me are only a short step away and feel like my people.

In America, my soon-to-be-step brother knows people in Orlando who have lost loved ones in the massacre at the Pulse nightclub – an attack on the gay community, my community.

And then in Birstall, I know people who have campaigned near there and who have campaigned with Jo Cox for better treatment of refugees – an attack on liberal-thinking politics, my tribe of politics.

At the Westminster vigil

These incidents do not come in isolation.

The roots of this poison go deep. Fear, anger, rage have been encouraged, fed by years of austerity. Left and right have encouraged a blame culture and simplistic answers. Our media have traduced politicians as venal and corrupt. The immediacy of social media has unleashed a tidal wave of trolls with the power of abuse. And this referendum has been the ugliest political campaign, fought in the ugliest political climate. To get to this point.

How many tweets calling a person with the opposite view a traitor does it take before some people think it's okay to shout abuse in the streets? How may expletive-laden chants of traitor have to be shouted before some people think it's okay to whisper threats of rape and violence to a young woman as she campaigns? How many whispered threats before some people think it's okay to stop threatening and use violence? How many assaults and beatings does it take before one person thinks that he will do what everyone he reads is saying he should do? To get to this point.

When did it become okay to say we've had enough of experts?

When did it become okay to say that violence would follow if you don't get your own way?

When did it become okay to just lie?

Those on the right need to be held to account for how they have promoted simplistic – and wrong – answers, seeking protectionism and blaming the foreigner, the other, despite the clear historical precedent that these answers do not work – we hear people like Peter Oborne saying the working class are fearful for their jobs but stoking that fear by repeating the falsehood that immigrants "take British people's jobs" when that is simply not how economies work.

Those on the left need to look at how they behaved during the coalition years: all the cries of betrayal and blame, never seeking to promote answers or accepting responsibility, abandoning arguments just as they abandoned the working class vote to the nationalists – the likes of Polly Toynbee who now condemns the toxic climate but never took a week off from denigrating Nick Clegg for trying to make a bad situation work.

Those in the media need to admit to their own faults, and failings and bias, who have given platforms to Farage and his rag tag minority far beyond what they deserved until the prophecy has become self-fulfilling; who have spun news stories – or just plain falsehoods – to the tune of business tycoons whose interests do not in any way correspond with the interests of the British public; and who push the idea that politicians never give a straight answer, but who won't let a politician answer the question without interrupting, and some questions need more than a soundbite to answer, who have earned far more than the MPs they bully while painting politicians as venal and corrupt and deserving of abuse and yes even death.

But I won't accept false equivalence. There are faults on all sides, but they are not the same, and to pretend that there is any sense that the Stronger In campaign mounting piece after piece of evidence that things will not be good outside the EU – dismissed as "Project Fear" by the people scaremongering about immigrant rapists – is in any way similar to the malice and lies of Vote Leave is to give succour to the racists who can hardly even be said to be hiding in plain sight any more, they are out in the open and revelling in their vile views.

There comes a time when you have to ask yourself – as in the Mitchell & Webb sketch – are you the baddies?

UKIP are not the victims here. Nigel Farage, asked about the death of Jo Cox, claimed that he was the victim of hatred. Nigel Farage is not the victim here. If you foment hate and you get hate back, that is not a free pass to go on spewing hate.

Evil exists.

It is a childish thing to think in terms of good and evil. We are more sophisticated than that. Grown up life is so much more complex and nuanced, full of difficult compromise and the best being enemy to the better. But sometimes is really is that simple. Because we have seen this road before and we know the place it ends.

It is a childish thing to think in terms of good and evil. But it is story of my childhood that keeps coming back to me – Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising". And that is what I have been feeling, for the last days, weeks, months even.

There is Darkness in all humans. And that Dark is rising.

I'm not immune. I'm not a saint. I've felt anger, fury even, at some of the things that have been said and done in this campaign. I like to tell myself that I've tried to campaign in an honest and optimistic way, that I've tried to stick to the facts and called on people to use fact and reason to build their case, to use the best of British tradition to encourage us to be part of holding together a Europe that for the first time in history has gone not one but two generations without tearing itself apart. But if you scrutinise, I would not be surprised if you found I'd sent a tweet in wrath, or posted an irate put-down on FaceBook.

Many have said that her death was the first they had heard of Jo Cox. Because she'd been working with Tim Farron and Yvette Cooper to urge Britain to do more for refugees I was vaguely aware of her work. But I can hardly say that I knew her.

But I want to try to be a better person, to not give in to that anger, as my way to honour her memory.

We must all strive to do better. And we can be better.

Today I am appalled to hear that a man was planning to assassinate Donald Trump. We cannot defeat Trump – or Farage – by killing him. That way, we only replace him.

The vigils that have been held for Orlando and for Jo Cox, the dignity of the tributes paid in parliament, have shown that there is love and there is a better way. The sudden and very obvious panic in the Vote Leave camp, and in Farage in particular, the way he's desperately trying to turn this around to make the story all about him again, the disrespectful claim that Remain are out to "profit" from the death of one of their strongest voices all tell the tale that they know they've been rumbled.

These vigils are not about any political campaign any more. They are about doing a politics that is Good.

Vote Leave's fear and anger is because they embraced the Darkness months, if not years ago. They lost the argument. All they have is driving people with fear, anger, hate, poison.

There is now the palpable sense that people have awoken to the clear and present danger of allowing free reign to this poison that has festered. There is a sense that I am not alone in wanting to strive to do better.

The Dark is rising.

But the Light is rising to turn back the Dark.


“The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.”
― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree

Day 4236: Lords, Losers, Liars and Louise

Monday:



So, Great Britain's constitutional reforms lose the Olympic Gold for "Not Crashing and Burning", narrowly surprisingly clearly pipped by the American Mars Lander "Curiosity".

Curiosity, equipped with LASERS to kill any SPIDER-CAT-MONSTERS-FROM-MARS it encounters, succeeded in making the tricky descent through the Martian atmosphere.

Lords Reform, equipped with KNIVES for stabbing Captain Clegg in the back... didn't. Instead it descended into chaos and recrimination.

Wooden Spoon goes to Ms Louise Mendacious, for "spending more time with her family" (surely the Murdochs don't have something on her after all!). Did she get wind of a non-promotion in Mr Balloon's reshuffle?

NO ONE comes out looking good.

Mr Balloon has lost control of his Party. Mr Milipede would rather score tactical points than stand for anything. And we look like we've thrown our toys out of the pram.

There are two fundamental failures here:

First, the failure to deliver on ANY constitutional reform beyond fixed term parliaments. We are the party of change, the Conservatives the party of the status quo – the clue is in the name, really – and no change is a WIN for them. Not good.

This should leave us seriously questioning our place in the Coalition. We may well end up deciding that we can still do more good IN government than out, but we NEED to have that debate.

Second, there is the failure to COMMUNICATE just how important it is to lift the dead hand of the establishment, and to give real power to people to make a difference. Our opponents in Tory and Labour Parties have been able to play the “why now” card and cash in on public apathy because we have failed to make the link between the establishment and the economic disaster clear. Power in the hands of the few is what allowed the bankers to gamble away our money and allowed Gordon Brown to double-mortgage the farm without anyone to stop or even question him.

We should have been saying "fix government or the crash will happen again". We need to spell out that the real price the Tories have exacted is another round of boom and bust.

I tried to express this to a senior MP last night, and I'm sorry to say that they just weren't buying it. "Doesn't make the direct connection to people's lives" and "we look like constitutional obsessives" were the grumbling excuses.

WELL THAT JUST WON'T DO.

It is the JOB of our MPS to communicate WHY our policies DO have a direct relevance to people's lives. WE are NOT in the business of asking what people want like some kind of Parliamentary SANTA CLAUS; we are in the business of PROPOSING SOLUTIONS and EXPLAINING why they are needed and will work.

START with this justifiably FAMOUS post by Mr Mark Reckons – showing that there is a LINK between SAFE SEATS and EXPENSES SCANDALS.

And STOP with being EMBARRASSED to be a LIBERAL!

It is in the INTEREST of the ESTABLISHMENT that we be "embarrassed" to be "constitutional obsessives" – and for FAR TOO LONG we have allowed GREEDY PIGGIES, squealingly-eager for the rewards of PATRONAGE, to dictate the LANGUAGE of the debate – we really need to TAKE IT BACK:

Why do we bang on about changing the constitution?

Because our government IS A JOKE, a BAD JOKE.

Ask ANYONE – ANYONE AT ALL! – do they think that this country has a good system that serves its people well, and they will TELL YOU it is a JOKE!

If an interviewer sneers at reforms, turn it back on them – ask THEM why THEY are defending the system? Do THEY say we have the finest government that delivers the goods? Tell them they would be LAUGHED at for suggesting such a thing and THEN ask them why THEY are shilling for the establishment.

"The economy is more important" people will cry – tell them: "How can Parliament fix the economy until Parliament itself is mended?"

The debacle has exposed that the Conservatory Party ITSELF is a COALITION, and one that Mr Balloon cannot hold together. Ninety-one GREEDY PIGGIES – too LAZY to stand up for their principles, they'd rather coast into the Commons on Mr Balloon's Etonian coat tails than tell their constituents the TRUTH about their REAL manifesto; too eager to get their SNOUTS in the TROUGH of ERMINE to support their own Leader, putting SELFISHNESS ahead of Conservatory VIRTUES like LOYALTY and HONOUR.

The behaviour of Mr Milipede, Leader of the Opportunists, is as much a SYMPTOM of this as it is a CAUSE. He claims to support reform... but he won't back it. In fact, he COLLUDES with the greedy piggies to score some kind of political "point" as though embarrassing the government in today's papers – tomorrows chip wrappings – is in the long term good of the country.

Mr Milipede MAY or MAY NOT be a progressive, but he is TRAPPED in the body of an ESTABLISHMENT MAN doing the ESTABLISHMENT'S dirty work.

He has ACTIVELY HARMED the good of the majority and supported the corrupt establishment for chip wrappings.

That is CONTEMPTIBLE. Not to mention DEEPLY STUPID.

Cap'n Clegg may have been defeated, may have tried and failed, but Mr Milipede WENT OVER TO THE DARK SIDE!

To paraphrase the Grauniad: "For the sake of the NATION, Ed Milipede Must Go! "

(I really DO NOT recommend reading the CiF comments – shrill, self-satisfied and smugly revelling in the fact the Coalition hasn't yet solved the economic chaos wrought under their new best friends in Hard Labour, the sort of people who call the Lib Dems "spineless" and then vote to support an electoral system that means ONLY conservatives can ever win power just to SPITE the progressives for being weak when that very system makes them weak... that's when they aren't calling for the overthrow of democracy itself... it's not a place to seek wisdom – but if you want a FRANKLY UNEDIFYING look into the minds of so-called Lefties who are SO STUPID that they support the Establishment merely because it lets them be snide about Cap'n Clegg, then you know where to look. Clue: it's above the line.)

GENUINE progressives – and, who knows, there may even be some inside Hard Labour, there may EVEN be some at the Grauniad – must, must, MUST break with the past, the old push-me-pull-you game of Labservative BUGGINS' TURN.

Because when our system rewards OPPORTUNISM, how can people be even remotely SURPRISED when BANKERS behave OPPORTUNISTICALLY to make their bonuses?

And when our system rewards SHORT-TERMISM, why is it not OBVIOUS that companies will SUFFER from SHORT-TERMISM because no one want to invest for strong, stable growth, only a quick profit, a fast buck?

And when our system rewards WEASEL-WORDS (or what I would call DOWNRIGHT LIES by those Conservatories who stood on a manifesto promising their constituents they were in favour of reform when in fact they were in favour of making sure their comfortable retirement club was kept exactly as it is), when our system REWARDS these things, then you cannot express SHOCK that corporate lawyers use weasel words to avoid their obligations; that litigation replaces taking real ACTION; that compensation culture flourishes; and all the "jobsworths" and "health and safety gone mad" consequences of people being rewarded for covering their FLUFFY ARSES rather than offering a helping fluffy-foot!

The Government and Opposition benches in the House of Commons are separated by TWO SWORD LENGTHS PLUS A FOOT.

When you build your government on a PLAYGROUND BRAWL not a HANDSHAKE then you really can't expect it to be anything other than CHILDISH.

The problem with Britain at the moment, and it's what is underlying the failure of recovery, is a LOSS OF TRUST. Credit, as in "credo", "I believe", is LITERALLY and METAPHORICALLY in SHORT SUPPLY. George Osborne's political, tactical, omnishambles Budget; two years of Hard Labour shrieking TRAITOR whenever they draw breath; Liberal Democrat compromises – yes, that damn Tuition Fee pledge again – ALL driven by our stupid constitutional arrangements and ALL contributing to the breakdown of TRUST.

Great Britain is NOT Broken. But it IS POISONED. And we won't get better until we address the SOURCE of the poison.

Day 4209: Lording It

Tuesday:

The House of Lords is a CANCER of PRIVILEGE at the heart of our Establishment. It needs to go.

How can we complain about UNACCOUNTABLE bankers manipulating interest rates for their own advantage or UNACCOUNTABLE media barons (haha very ironic) hacking the phones of innocent victims for a story to sell when we allow the very laws that govern us (and bankers! and newspapers!) to be made by an UNACCOUNTABLE bunch of self-interested, unrepresentative, largely-geriatric, probably-deluded, has-beens hand-picked by the Prime Monster and the Leader of the Opportunists?

WHO BENEFITS?

Not the PEOPLE of Great Britain, that's for sure.

There are the seventy-some Conservatories who SHOULD be RESIGNING their seats and facing by-election for LYING to their constituents in their 2010 manifesto. But there's no punishment for twisting words to mean anything you want them to mean (and if Mr Bunter Soames isn't a candidate for Humpty Dumpty then I'll eat a Conservatory manifesto). But there's no punishment for these people – quite the reverse, they are rewarded with publicity to make their safe seats safer (and the dinners to make their fat seats fatter) and, in the fullness of time, a safe seat for life in, yes, the Lords on their retirement (at least, so long as they can talk out the bill and ensure there's a plush taxpayer-funded retirement home still there for them).

There is the Labour Party, who OUGHT to be in danger of proving themselves UTTERLY UNFIT TO GOVERN, because they'd rather ARSE ABOUT in the House of Commons than act PROGRESSIVELY, in accordance with what they CLAIM to believe and in the interest of the COUNTRY. But there's no punishment for treating politics as a BIG OLD GAME and just adding to the CONTEMPT in which real people hold the whole process of government.

And that SERVES the Establishment too, encouraging people to DISENFRANCHISE THEMSELVES when they don't care about politics. People care about OUTCOMES – the Health Service, welfare, pensions, schools, whether the trains run on time. Or at all. But when politicians play stupid games – and our media have utterly failed us here by encouraging them to do this – it disconnects those outcomes from the process that is supposed to DELIVER. The mega-rich media owners prosper because they get good value entertainment but people suffer but they get entertainment instead of government.

(More - and BETTER - on "processes v outcomes" from Mr Andrew. Do read!)

Then there're the Lords themselves. Let's take Betty Boothroyd, since she's been mouthing off this week. She SHAMES herself and her record. She was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1992 to 2000 and therefore was Speaker during the debates over the Maastricht Treaty creating the European Union and the Scotland Act creating the devolved Scottish Parliament, either or both of which could be said to be a more substantial a constitutional change as the Lords Reform Bill. Did she denounce those changes as an "outrage"? Did she rebel against the use of programme motions then? No, she calmly wafted them through. She passed the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty on her own casting vote (unnecessarily as it turned out, but no qualms about needing a referendum there). No, it's only now – by an EXTRAORDINARY COINCIDENCE just when her OWN cushy seat is up for a touch of accountability – that she's up in arms.

This is what the House of Lords Club DOES – it turns decent people into HYPOCRITES and veneers our WORST politicians with ermine-edged nobility. As though that makes them RESPECTABLE. It makes them part of the ESTABLISHMENT, defenders of the STATUS QUO, and rewards them with a warm place to snooze and a decent London restaurant at country prices.

These people are given power and money – YOUR power and YOUR money – without asking your permission. Their hands are DIRTY. Yes, even the best of them. (Shirley, Ros, Paddy the many others who, I know, all work very hard and do good, but it's all built on SAND, and worse, it's built on LIES.)

So when they talk about "wisdom" and "tradition" ("tradition" here meaning "we've got away with it for so long, how dare you question us now") ask them "What gives you the RIGHT to pass laws over me?" And remember that their position is UTTERLY UNJUSTIFIABLE.

Because they have NO RIGHT to take your money or your power without your say so.

And for as long as we build our government on a system of doing favours for rewards, that hands out position without accountability, that lets people take POWER OVER YOU without legitimacy, then we will continue to live in a society that has darkness and corruption at its heart and we can expect to reap more Barclays and more Murdochs because they're just doing what the Establishment do.

Only smaller and cruder and THEY got found out.




Those TOP TEN anti-reform arguments in full:

1. "There's not been enough time for debate!"

Translation: there's just been nine months of open consultation that they couldn't be bothered to participate in and a cross-party committee on top of over a hundred years of discussion, but one more really good kick and they'll see it into the really long grass...

2. "They might challenge the legitimacy of the House of Commons"

Translation: if you make them more democratic it shows up the deficiencies in OUR legitimacy.

(aka: I can't bear to be challenged!)

What exactly is WRONG with the House of Lords CHALLENGING the House of Commons? Aren't they kind of SUPPOSED to do that? The legislation specifically states that the Commons will always get its way in the end.

3. "They won't be able to perform their role as a revising chamber"

Translation: I'm not singing from the same hymn sheet as "2".


4."I'm in favour of a proper democracy where the Lords is 100% elected!"

(also known as the "no one wanted THIS" argument.)

The Liberal Democrats want a 100% elected second chamber too but we also know that DEMOCRACY means COMPROMISE and the proposals in the bill aim to take into account the best ideas (and the red lines) of all parties to the consultation. This is supposed to be SYNTHESIS though there's an element of LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR too. If you're so SPECIAL and PRECIOUS that you won't accept ANYTHING except your own personally hand-crafted form of government then... you're probably going to have to buy your own island.

5. "We don't want to pay for more politicians!"

Good, because under these proposals you'd pay for FEWER politicians. About FOUR HUNDRED fewer. AND you'd get to elect them. A bit.

6. "It'll be a Parliament of Placemen!"

Well I'M pretty FURIOUS about losing STV for the Lords, but seriously, how are lists of names chosen by the Parties DIFFERENT from the present system of, er, a list of names chosen by the Parties? Plus appointed cross-benchers and totally unelected Bishops. Just like now!

At least the voters will get to choose the parties!

7. "You'll lose the wisdom of expert contributions"

Name five members of the House of Lords who have contributed EXPERT TESTIMONY to more than a couple of bills. Name TWO! Robert Winston may be great but, seriously, just how many Human Embryology bills do you NEED?

And what makes him an "expert" when it comes to the European Fisheries Act? Or the High Speed Rail Bill? Or the Business Regulations? Or tax loopholes? Or armed forces procurement? Or... continues ad infinitum.

8. "The quality of debate is so much better in the Lords than in the Commons"

So fluffy what? The House of Commons being broken is NO REASON not to fix the House of Lords. Oh, I was going to get the cooker fixed but the telly's on the blink so I guess I'll just keep eating cold cat-monster food from tins(!)

You don't get the jeers and juvenile behaviour in the Lords, it is true. But that's not because they're UNELECTED. It's because they're all ASLEEP! They manage to behave perfectly reasonably in the Scottish Parliament. Or the European Parliament. Or the American Senate. Mostly. And they're all ELECTED bodies.

The atmosphere in the House of Commons is like that because we ALLOW them to be like that. (It doesn't help that the ROOM is physically designed to be UNCOMFORTABLE and TOO SMALL and so PROVOKE conflict.)

9. "Er...."

10. "That's enough objections, Ed."

(No, not THAT Ed, obviously; Mr Milipede hasn't got enough objections but HE's going to vote against ANYWAY. Git.)


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Day 4103: Cameron Plumbs New Depths

Monday:



What's the difference between the Prime Monster, Mr Balloon, and the man behind that big boat movie (currently being remade for telly as ITV's Drownton Abbey)?

Answer: they're both FISHY stories, but we've yet to hit fluffy bottom in Mr Balloon's latest cash for access scandal.

And, like the big boat in question, Mr Balloon's denials don't cut much ice.

When he says "this is not the way the Conservatories raise money", it stretches credulity un peux since Tory Treasury Mr John "Judge Dredd bad word" Crudd has resigned because you can see him on video doing exactly that.

Saying that the visitors to the upstairs flat are in Mr Balloon's "private time" was never going to wash. It stopped being his private business the moment that a senior Conservatory was on the tellybox saying that "private time" was up for public auction. Nor is the excuse that there would be no proper record of private visitors believable. At very least, they'd need to be on the list of people for the police to LET IN. (Or are we to understand that you can routinely troll up at Downing Street and tell the office on duty: "no, I'm not on the list, I've got some private time with Mr Balloon"?)

And Auntie Maude's appeal on the The Today Programme was also less than convincing: look, he said, everyone knows you can buy access to the Prime Monster. We are completely open and honest about how nakedly venal we are.

That Conservatory menu in full:

• "Treasurer's Club": £100,000 buys you a brief meeting with the Prime Monster
• "Leader's Club": £250,000 and you get an intimate soiree for deux in the Number Ten flat
• "Inner Circle": £500,000 and you can spend the weekend at Chequers and snog SamCam
• "Masonic Rites of Dracula": £25,000,000 and he'll do bad bad BAD with a pig on live national telly.

(Look, Mr Charlie Brooker is not MADE of cash – they had to get an actor.)



It was with something approaching heroic stupidity that Hard Labour fielded Lord Levy on this subject, the man who was cleared of selling peerages by a Metropolitan police commissioner who later received a peerage. No relation. Fortunately it turned out to be a TOTAL COINCIDENCE that every single person to donate one million pounds to Hard Labour received a knighthood or a seat in the House of Lords, or THAT might have been AWKWARD!

Brave, too, of Mr Milipede to demand an inquiry into "Cash for Policymaking" given where that's likely to go in his own Party, and the way that Hard Labour keep on scuppering cross-Party agreement on donations so that the Unions can continue buying access to Hard Labour policymaking, er, I mean making fraternal donations for NO REASON WHATSOEVER and dropping those changes to Hard Labour's constitution last year was ENTIRELY a COINCIDENCE too. HONESTLY.

Another inquiry, though, will get us NOWHERE. We already KNOW what the answer is: limit donations, a proper register of lobby interests and lashings of HUMBLE PIE.

It is EASY to lampoon politicians as in the pocket of SHADY PLUTOCRATS... because they ARE. We ALL get tarred with that particular brush. Protesting that it's "just the Conservatories" will only get us slapped with a "well YOU'RE in bed with them".

Mr Mark Reckons is DEAD RIGHT on this: the Liberal Democrats need to announce an immediate self-denying ordinance of only accepting donations of ten grand or less.

(If nothing else, it would spare us the embarrassment of another Michael Brown fiasco – our one and only big donor in all of history and it was a bad-word up of such, forgive me, Titanic proportions that one suspects he was actually a Conservatory sleeper agent all along, intent on providing that Tory blogger Dale Winton with an "all Parties are corrupt" riposte to be used every single time that his own Party are caught red-fluffy-footed with another brown envelope.)
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Day 3949: Does Europe Make Referendum-dums of Us All?

Monday:



"The people haven't had a say on Europe since before I was born," declared one so-called rebel Conservatory.

Or indeed for the TEN THOUSAND years before that, you might remark. And yet still the continent has refused to go away.

Why not have a referendum on the MONARCHY? The people haven't been consulted about that since, oh, ever. And Mrs the Queen has a big-ish role in our constitution. Or why not a referendum on POLITICAL PARTIES?

For that matter, why not have a referendum on TIES? Are, in fact, bow ties cool after all? A nation must know!



Why does the government not want a referendum on Europe?

This is what the Liberal Democrats' manifesto SAID about a referendum:

The European Union has evolved significantly since the last public vote on membership over thirty years ago. Liberal Democrats therefore remain committed to an in/out referendum the next time a British government signs up for fundamental change in the relationship between the UK and the EU.

This is what the Conservatories' manifesto SAID about a referendum:

We will ensure that by law no future government can hand over areas of power to the EU or join the Euro without a referendum of the British people.

and specifically:

We will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that any proposed future treaty that transferred areas of power, or competences, would be subject to a referendum on that treaty – a 'referendum lock'.

And this is what the Coalition programme for government SAYS about a referendum:

The Government believes that Britain should play a leading role in an enlarged European Union, but that no further powers should be transferred to Brussels without a referendum.

and specifically:

We will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that any proposed future treaty that transferred areas of power, or competences, would be subject to a referendum on that treaty – a 'referendum lock'.

which, obviously, and if you are a Conservatory backbencher claiming to be on a moral crusade you OUGHT to be paying attention to this, is a direct quote from the Conservatory manifesto.



So let's be COMPLETELY CLEAR: BOTH Parties ACCEPTED the status quo, and ONLY said there should be a referendum if there was to be a CHANGE.

Has there been a change? NO. So let's not hear any nonsense about "broken promises".

Those Conservatories getting up on their high horses about "moral duty": THEY are the ones breaking their manifesto!

However, as has been noticed, people do not do NUANCE. Not even nuance as BROAD BRUSH as "when there's a change".

So since both Parties IN the Coalition have at least given the APPEARANCE that they were vaguely, notionally in favour of the IDEA of a referendum, some people – by whom I mean "Conservatory right wingers who've been caught out by the need to keep a parliamentary seat in the musical chairs brought on by their own plan to reduce the number of constituencies by fifty" – have CYNICALLY and DECEITFULLY rebranded this as "we were promised a referendum" (add sounds of toys being thrown out of pram to taste).

This is a story that has legs because, unfortunately, governments have FORM on this: Hard Labour promised a referendum on the European Constitution… which then didn't happen so we didn't get a referendum. Mr Balloon gave a "cast iron guarantee" of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty… which was then passed anyway, 'cos it wasn't his to promise, so we didn't get a referendum… you see what it LOOKS like!

So why not just go ahead and have one?

Well, in the first place, there is no pressing NEED for a referendum now – beyond the "needs" of certain Conservatory backbenchers to, er, get their ballots off.

We NEEDED to do the AV referendum this year in order to decide what electoral system we were going to use in 2015 and have time to prepare for it. There is no such deadline looming over our relationship with Europe.

In fact, the reverse is true. Right now, we don't actually know what we'd be voting ON.

You cannot have failed to notice that there is a bit of a FLAP on to do with the Euro and the amount of borrowing by SOME Union countries.

Four countries, in particular, are a bit of a worry. Greece is the main one, because they are already over the edge and into freefall. Greece needs to be GIVEN money, not loaned money; they need their debt written off. Portugal is close to the edge. More worrying are Spain and Italy – they are more worrying because their economies and associated debts are larger and harder to wipe clean.

Not Ireland, though. Ireland, to whom Britain DID lend money, after their crisis last year appear – touch wood, wish for luck, pray to the nice blue lady – appear to be pulling out of their crash. So look, it's not impossible that these bailouts CAN WORK.

With all that going on, it is clear that the idea of "Europe" is very much in FLUX, which means CHANGING. We need to let things sort themselves out: either it will fall to bits with no help from us, or more likely just in the nick Germany and France will come up with a rescue package that will be just about acceptable to everyone.

What Europe doesn't need is Great Britain to start flapping on about in/out referenda when they need to be concentrating on fixing their economies. And, to appeal to self-interest too, WE need them to be concentrating on fixing their economies, because OUR economy is so bound up with theirs.

Mr Balloon talked about our neighbour's house being on fire and saying we should help. What he could have added as well was: what we SHOULDN'T do is rush round there flapping our arms shouting "look at me look at meeee!"

And it's not like we wouldn't like our own government to be concentrating on fixing our own economy.

The aim of the Coalition, first and foremost, has been to reduce the deficit. We also want a strategy to promote GROWTH. And it's increasingly clear – especially in prevailing economic World conditions – that the one is precluding the other.

Do we REALLY want the government to be committing a lot of its time and effort to negotiating an exit strategy from our treaty obligations and taxation agreements?

Or might that not be seen on both sides of the Channel as a MASSIVELY SELF-INDULGENT way to cause titanic damage to everyone's economies?

It's ALSO worth a remark that the people who are demanding a Europe referendum are many of the SAME people who spent last year WHINING that the AV referendum was an enormous waste of money at a time when we should be cutting back!

Time to update the dictionary definition of HYPOCRISY, I suspect.



Unfortunately it's all too easy to characterise these as excuses because we think we'd LOSE.

Obviously it doesn't help that I DO think we'd LOSE.

I don't think we would lose on the FACTS, but since when do FACTS come in to it?

We've just HAD a referendum on one bit of the constitution: the DEBACLE that was the voting reform referendum where people were clearly more swayed by a ruthless, reactionary, conservatory campaign than by the progressive hope for something better, even though almost everyone thinks that the existing system is utterly broken.

What on EARTH would make ANYONE think that a pro-Europe campaign would be any more successful than the shower who were in charge of the pro-AV?

And polling suggests that there is already a (small) majority in favour of LEAVING the EU; twice as many favour leaving as think they're happy staying in.

But the LAST thing that this country needs at the moment is to make 50% of our trade more difficult by leaving the single market.

People only hear about the COSTS of Europe without being told the benefits.

This is because, for years – no, for DECADES – cynical politicians have blamed Europe for anything that goes wrong and taken the credit themselves for anything that Europe puts right. And even-more-cynical newspapers have sold copies off the back of jingoistic little-Britain-ism while ensuring that they pay as little tax as possible IN Britain.

So-called "free trade" Americaland – so beloved of the very Europhobes who want us out of the Union – has EYE-WATERING barriers to entry, and Bush the Lesser actually INCREASED US Protectionism during his term, while on the other fluffy foot being in the Union grants us free access to a half-a-billion customers for our exports.

Explain to me where GROWTH is going to come from if we leave? Not so much cutting off our nose to spite our face as cutting off our BODY to spite our BRAINS!

Conservatories often bang on about the "small state". Well Europe is it! The whole EU is run on a tight budget (whatever UKIP may tell you), with a bureaucracy that is famously cheaper than the Scottish Office. And – post devolution – has more POINT.

Of COURSE there is a net transfer of money from Britain (and Germany!) to southern and eastern Europe. Just as there is a net transfer of money from London to EVERYWHERE ELSE in Great Britain.

There's a case to be made for France paying her fair share.

And a BLIND PERSON could see that the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy need reforming. But for all the inefficiencies and corruption, the CAP has contributed to the fact that we haven't had a famine in Europe in living memory. And the EU Fishing rules helps to PROTECT our fish stocks from Spanish trawlers in a way that we could not do outside of the EU without actually SINKING SHIPS and ending up at WAR.

We should judge things by whether they are a SUCCESS.

In contrast to the Euro – which is still very much in debate – I think that Europe and the Union have been a success.

Sixty-five years uninterrupted (Lord Blairimort aside) by war, famine or plague is unprecedented in European history. The rolling back of dictatorships in Iberia, Greece and Eastern Europe is a triumph of human spirit and freedom, and one that it is to be hoped might be a beacon to the newly-liberated countries of North Africa too. The affluence and well-being of hundreds of millions of people to a standard beyond anything dreamt of in the rest of the world or the rest of history is something to be treasured not tossed away.

It astonishes me… well no, it saddens me but I'm curiously un-astonished that Europe is now being scapegoated for our own economic crisis, even though European banks were better regulated than British ones (it's just a shame that some European GOVERNMENTS may have been as PROFLIGATE as British ones).

In hard economic times it's all too familiar to hear DOMESTIC woes being blamed on FOREIGNERS, the easy populist platitudes of why-do-we-have-to-pay-for and we'd-be-better-off-on-our-own rhetoric.

We were happy to be in the Union for the GOOD TIMES. Now times are hard all over and some people want to go all selfish and pull up the drawbridge.

Folly.

Our position as a BRIDGE between Europe and the rest of the planet has always served us for GOOD. But nowadays, that position depends more on the CONCEPTUAL territory of treaties and agreements than it does on our island geography.

But let's look at the Euro.

I think that the Euro is a really good idea. That's think, present tense, not thought. A single currency improves transparency and reduces exchange risk promoting intra-Union trade, generating jobs and so on.

But clearly, there's a massive downside.

The Greeks' governments of many years standing have been spending money that they didn't have. Worse, money that they were NEVER GOING TO HAVE. And they were able to do this because they were issuing bonds in Euros, nice safe, reliable, German-backed, guaranteed or your money back Euros.

(Which, of course, is why leaving the Euro would be INSANE for Greece: their DEBT would STILL be denominated in Euros and would actually spiral UP as their own currency collapsed.)

(Sidebar: Great Britain, not in the Euro, can make OUR debts "cheaper" by devaluing our currency: if I give you an I.O.U. for one TRILLION pounds (*actual numbers!*) when the pound is worth two dollars, and I buy two trillion dollars' worth of, oh let's say sticky buns… mmmm, two trillion dollars' worth of sticky buns… I'm drifting… if I then devalue the pound so it's only worth ONE dollar… I only have to repay effectively one trillion dollars, even though I got two. The PRICE that I pay for this is INFLATION – all of my exports are now twice as expensive. Americaland (as a whole) STILL GET their two trillion dollars back – they just get it in different ways and it gets spread among different people.

Funnily enough, the HIGH inflation that we are experiencing AT THE MOMENT is caused not a little by the way that we devalued our currency through Quantum of Easing.)

Where was I? Oh yes…

It seems this flaw may be inherent to the Euro. And may be fatal. There is NO incentive for governments like the Greeks' – and on a bigger scale the Italians' – to control their borrowing and spending whereas there are MASSIVE incentives – or RIOTS as they are called – for them to carry on burning other people's money so long as Germany will back them at the baccarat table.

The only solutions to this appear to be: don't let irresponsible economies into the currency (too late!) or don't let governments in the currency decide independently on how much they will borrow and spend.

This, in a nutshell, is the deal that the Union are edging towards. Germany will pick up the tab for EVERYONE ELSE'S overspending and in return they will hand over control of their treasuries to Berlin.

The extremely serious questions that linger over this are (a) can Germany actually AFFORD to BUY the whole of the rest of Europe (sure, they did it with East Germany, but that was peanuts in comparison) and (b) in spite of what we are supposed to think of them, do they actually WANT to? Because, despite what the SHRILLER of our xenophobes may want you to think, the Germans are actually a remarkably easy-going bunch and taking control of sixteen recalcitrant economies might just be too much bother, even if it DIDN'T mean having to sit in a room listening to Mr Balloon blow hot air about "leadership" when he won't take ANY responsibility himself.

(seriously, the number of times Mr Balloon and Master Gideon have prated about the need for the Eurozone countries to work closer together while praising themselves for staying out of the Euro and NOT working together with the Eurozone countries, you start to think Monsieur Sarcastic, President of France, might have had a point when he told Mr Balloon to– [cue Blackadder theme])

Plus, the other countries involved might not really want to surrender their sovereignty to the Bundesbank.

(Sidebar 2: fiscal union really OUGHT to lead to political union, so that people have democratic oversight of the bodies controlling their cash. But it might not. Europe would be, in a way, recreating the situation as exists in Great Britain between Westminster and Holyrood/Cardiff. The Scottish Parliament is of course the HAPPIEST Parliament in the World, because it always gets to be SANTA CLAUS. Nasty Master Gideon in London raises all those HORRID taxes that people have to pay, but Kindly Uncle Alec™ is there to hand out bounty and largesse to all and sundry, and if he's not got enough money then it's all the fault of those thieving Tories to the South. All of the pleasure of power, none of the pain of paying for it. That might be an attractive model to e.g. the Greek government – oh, here you are, my friends, cash for all; oh, so sorry, we can't pay any more this month, the nasty German tax inspectors won't give us any more, etc.)



So where does this MANIA for referendums come from?

Parties – and the Liberal Democrats should put our fluffy feet up to this because we're as guilty of this as the other lot, if not more so – seem to call for referendums from Opposition quite a lot, because it's a way of making a populist point and by-passing lack of actual support in Parliament as much as a principle of democracy.

It's ALSO a way of side-lining policies that while central in importance to the Party membership are unpopular in the general public: "look, we know you hate this Europe stuff, so we'll give you this promise that we'll ask for a second separate mandate on that, so you can trust us with your vote on everything else!"

We all know that the ORIGINAL referendum on Europe was – ironically – a wheeze by the political pinball-wizard Mr Harold Wilson because – ironically – his Labour party was in government but split down the middle on the subject.

So he punted the whole business over to the public to avoid an EMBARRASSING parliamentary defeat.

How times change.

But why SHOULD people except to have a separate say on this subject, separate that is from the NORMAL run-of-the-mill say that people get in our REPRESENTATIVE Democracy, where for the last couple of decades they have expressed their total indifference on the subject by conspicuously not electing a single UKIP MP to Parliament.

Most people are not well informed on all the subjects that Parliament legislates on. That's why we elect REPRESENTATIVES so that they can be properly informed and look into the details for us.

And yet, and yet, and yet…

Does anyone REALLY believe that that is a true description of our Members of Parliament?

And don't we really think that the reason UKIP don't have any MPs is because the electoral system is horribly rigged in favour of mainly the two over-represented Parties with a slight side-order of massively underrepresented Liberal Democrats and no/virtually no representation for other Parties?

And when it comes down to it, aren't we supposed to TRUST the people whether they are well-informed or not, and who are we – Westminster bubble elite – to SAY that the people are well-informed or not?



It's all very funny to have a laugh at the wingnut fringe of the Conservatory Party wailing and gnashing its teeth and tearing themselves apart when finally given an excuse to vent their frustrations about Mr Balloon – because let's face it, this IS about Mr Balloon, and the fact that he made them bury all their Nasty Party tendencies and STILL didn't win them an election, and that they're convinced that (in spite of all the evidence of successive election defeats in 2001 and 2005) they could have taken an overall majority if only they'd been MORE RIGHT WING.

(If the pie-faced lummox wasn't such a self-satisfied nincompoop you could almost feel sorry for him. Almost. Thanks to the Coalition, he might actually have a chance of being a decent Prime Monster, but his Party will never forgive him for it. Though if he HADN'T formed the Coalition they'd have never forgiven him for that either! Sometimes, as Mr Balloon proved in the election, you just can't win. But then he did WANT the job!)

But what if the loonies are RIGHT?

Parliament, and by large majorities in ALL THREE BIG PARTIES (and technically in the Green one too), kind of just voted to tell the people to SOD OFF!

I REALLY don't see how this is going to make things better.

It LOOKS undemocratic. It LOOKS like MPs are conceding the case that a referendum would be unwinnable (which it probably is!). And it LOOKS like we’ll be getting wall-to-wall Nigel Farrago telling us that we are being denied our basic rights to shoot ourselves in both feet with a pitchfork. Or something.

Is it any wonder that politicians have lost the trust of the electorate aka THEIR BOSSES?

Here's a CURIOUS COINCIDENCE about the number SEVENTY-NINE: seventy nine is the number of Conservatory backbenchers who voted against Mr Balloon AND seventy-nine is the year to which one of their leading lightweights, Mr Jacob Rees-Moggadon, wants to turn the clock back. Specifically EIGHTEEN-seventy-nine – the year in which he was accidentally pickled in formaldehyde only to be revivified again in the twenty-first century.

So HOW, can anyone please tell me, has it come to pass that this unreconstructed antediluvian fogey is able to stand in the House of Commons and pass himself off as the authentic MAN-OF-THE-PEOPLE?

Good grief I feel awkward saying this because I think that the benefits of being IN Europe are almost immeasurable and the consequences of voting to leave unimaginably dire (and they wouldn't have us back in if we changed our minds after a year out in the cold) and yet I still think that we would lose a referendum. But I might be WRONG.

If we want to win trust back, we need to show a bit of trust ourselves first.

But why should it be up to the Frozen Fogey to decide when we turn the country upside-down?

Given that the outcome of the current Eurozone crisis will almost certainly require a FUNDAMENTAL rethink of the Union, and a MAJOR renegotiation of treaties – and the Prime Monster as good as said as much in his speech at the start of the referendum debate – would it not have been as wise – or at least, better POLITICS – to ACCEPT the motion IN PRINCIPLE but with the reasonable amendment that the promised referendum would take place ONLY once the Euro situation was resolved so that people knew what they were actually voting on.

Because (…and it's in the Coalition agreement, the Conservatory and Liberal Manifestos and the words of the front benches of all three main parties…) THAT'S WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY!



But in the longer term, I think we really need to WEAN ourselves OFF this habit of calling for one-off referendums.

I really do.

We are in favour of EMPOWERING people and referendums, while they're GREAT for Conservatories who want to wave their electoral willies about, and for governments that want to duck decisions or kick them into the long grass, are actually one of the WORST ways of making people empowered.

Look at the AV referendum: the turnout was pathetic. Look at the confusion that arose among people who wanted PR but not AV. They're votes are being CLAIMED by the anti-reform dinosaurs, where actually AV wasn't reform ENOUGH! How has the AV referendum properly represented the will of ANYONE? Apart from the reactionaries?

Referendums LOOK like huge exercises in democracy, but actually it's all a TRICK, an enormous game of FIND THE LADY. You know, pick a card, any card… from these TWO I am offering you…

The public do NOT get input into policy. At best, they get an EITHER/OR question (or in this case an EITHER/OR/OTHER question) over which of the ALREADY DECIDED policies will be implemented.

By their very nature, referendums are DIVIDE-AND-CONQUER. Rather than a synthesis of good ideas, they promote cynical attempts to crush opposing points of view. Explanation and understanding are side-lined in the exchange of soundbites, and if knowledge is power then that ACTIVELY REDUCES people's control over outcomes. They INFANTILISE the public, by saying that all they can cope with is a simple binary decision, when most people handle far more sophisticated decisions all the time.

These issues are TOO COMPLICATED to reduce to a simple yes/no question. Even the "X Factor" allows more sophisticated voting than THAT!

They need NUANCE. But as we've seen, people do not DO nuance.

Remember, the Liberal Democrats plans for constitutional reform were never a single yes/no referendum. Not even for PR. We were and remain in favour of a Constitutional Convention where people together would develop the constitution and voting system. And THAT is the sort of model we should be looking for: town hall meetings, drop in shops, volunteer committees, suggestion boxes. Policy should grow from the bottom up, not be imposed from the top down.

Which, ultimately, is the same problem we have with Europe. We need a movement to RECONNECT the people of Europe with the policy-makers and power-brokers in Brussels and Strasburg and, increasingly, Berlin.

We need Europe to listen to her people, and the people to feel a part of Europe, not apart from Europe.

And no referendum is ever going to achieve that!
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Day 3783: Police Action! aka Correcting Conservative Contradictions on Constitutional Change

Wednesday:


Doesn't it seem EXTRAORDINARY that sections of the Conservatory Party are crowing about last week's rejection of AV while AT THE SAME TIME trying to implement a HUGELY BIGGER change to the way we elect our public servants than ANYTHING the Alliterative Vote might have done: namely replacing APPOINTED police authorities with ELECTED Wild West Marshalls, er, I mean Police Commissioners!

I mean, our coalition partners couldn't be MONSTROUS HYPOCRITES could they. So they must mean that the "No2AV" vote is ONLY a rejection of a not-very-good electoral system and are keen as mustard for MORE FAR REACHING REFORM.

Certainly anyone who claims that Constitutional Change is off the agenda for a thousand years (or thereabouts) is clearly an opponent of Mr Balloon's REFORM AGENDA, and so not at all to be taken SERIOUSLY.

And that is why it CAN'T be right to suggest that the Conservatories are fighting tooth and nail to STOP any locally elected presence overseeing health, when they are clearly GAGGING FOR locally elected oversight for crime! I mean, that would be like suggesting that they want to rig up a system of elections for HANGING and FLOGGING (where Conservatories think of themselves as STRONG), but not for CARING and SHARING (where Conservatories might think Hard Labour would be more likely to be the election-winners)!


Liberal Democrats are, of course, IN FAVOUR of giving more power back to our bosses, the people of Great Britain. That's why it's right there in the Coalition Agreement that:

We will introduce measures to make the police more accountable through oversight by a directly elected individual…

Though we might just have to put a steadying fluffy foot on our partners to restrain their FERVOUR to overturn the constitutional status quo and remind them that that sentence finishes:

…who will be subject to strict checks and balances by locally elected representatives.

That's why it is QUITE RIGHT that Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords stepped in to call a pause to this ADMIRABLY RADICAL race to change to our DEMOCRACY.

Call us OLD-FASHIONED, call us CAUTIOUS if you must, but we thought – as with Mr Andrew Landslide's Health Service Reforms – it might be better to GATHER EVIDENCE and RUN TRIALS before diving in with all four fluffy feet into an UNTRIED and UNPROVEN policy.

For example: we asked one Police Commissioner about his SUCCESS in reducing crime through a policy of allowing a BARKING MAD billionaire-in-tights to go vigilante on his city's ass, but, being fictional, Commissioner Gordon declined to comment.

There is, of course, as much evidence for the existence of BATMAN as there is for the benefits of the Conservatories' policy.

So, while we are VERY GRATEFUL that the Conservatories want everyone to know that "No2AV" means "Yes 2 REAL CHANGE", let's do this in a MEASURED and EVIDENCE-LED way.

In fact, I think that – since he is the MAIN MAN in charge of guiding constitutional change – Captain Clegg needs to step in, take this reform away from the Home Office and make it part of a PROPER LOOK at local democratic representation, perhaps linking it to greater accountability in HEALTH as well.

Best of all would be to make it part of a LOCAL REPRESENTATION ACT and introduce reform to the whole of local government elections – starting with using British PR for council elections.

I'm sure that that is JUST what the Conservatories want! It's certainly what they DESERVE!
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Day 3778: The People Have Spoken… the Bastards!

Friday:


Well, THAT went well, didn't it.

{…tumbleweeds… …tumbleweeds… …tumbleweeds…}

Okay, how about this then:

I’ve never really GOT poetry, but today made me think of this:

“Between the idea
“And the reality
“Between the motion
“And the act
Falls the Shadow”

We KNEW this day was coming, was inevitable really, as a consequence of the position we were left in at the end of the last General Election.

But there’s a difference between “knowing” that and the reality of it actually happening, the difference, the “shadow” that we put between ourselves and the abyss staring us in the face.

Hence all the WAILING and GNASHING of TEETH today. Hence the RENDING of GARMENTS and SILLY calls for Captain Clegg’s head on a plate. And all the GENUINE pain and heartbreak.

Cold comfort for all our friends who've lost council seats, I know, but actually they all did BLOODY WELL to stand up AT ALL under UNPRECEDENTED fire. The No2AV campaign was, basically, a not-very-disguised MASSIVE ATTACK on the Liberal Democrats and on Captain Clegg in particular, with every voter getting at least two leaflets that can be summarised as: "Don't vote Lib Dem! Traitors! Scum! Broken Promises!"

We faced the full might of the anti-democratic vested interests, the “right” AND “left”. And they won. But some of us, at least, survive.

Remember, our choice, our ONLY choice, last May was whether to face electoral ruin here and now, or irrelevance and annihilation at Westminster in a snap general election last October.

And I know some people will think we chose the wrong forum to take our whipping.

But this is politics: it’s not a SPECTATOR SPORT; it’s about GETTING THINGS DONE, and that only comes from BEING IN POWER. We could not, at Westminster level, opt out of that without making ourselves POINTLESS. And although there are now councils across the country where we AREN’T in power; nationally WE STILL ARE.

But there's really no dressing up that these results are a BIT of a BLOW.

It's difficult not to see this as a victory for Labservatism.

The British People may SAY that they prefer their politicians to behave like grownups, but when it comes to it, they punish the junior coalition partner – nationwide, the Liberal Democrats; in Wales, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid Cymru. Depressingly, this suggests that, contrary to all my beliefs, the electorate is stupid. But then, the "No2AV" campaign appear to have prospered by assuming that the electorate are stupid. So what do I know.

The worst thing will be if Hard Labour decide that eleven months of screaming TRAITORS! SCUM! BROKEN PROMISES! in the faces of Liberal Democrats is a successful electoral strategy.

Worst for us, obviously, because they'll keep on doing it and believe me it is NO FUN AT ALL.

But worst for our already damaged democracy, since reducing your entire position to NEGATIVITY and PARTISAN NAME CALLING abdicates your responsibility as opposition to present alternative policies. You can't complain that "there is no alternative" when you can't be bothered to PROVIDE ONE!

And actually worst for them too. Because it's NOT a successful strategy. At BEST Labour have made themselves the repository for anti-government protest votes. And then, ONLY where they are seen as the only alternative; in Scotland, the voters preferred to switch to the Scottish Nasties.

(And whoever thought that we'd say "thank goodness for Mr Salmon"!)

But thanks to the hopeless Mr Potato Ed's BRILLIANT strategy of telling the Scots that their election was just for sending a message to Westminster – nice that he thinks Scotland is just a warm-up act for his own doomed election campaign – and he may have secured the break-up of the United Kingdom and the end of any hope of a British Labour government ever happening again.

And, it has to be said, whoever advised him to make the "Well, dur!" observation that the Coalition "split down the middle" over AV needs to get fired. (It was almost certainly an alien space-lizard thinking it was a week early for the Apprentice!)

Mr Potato Ed's MAIN contribution to the referendum seems to have been to LOSE CONTROL of TWO-THIRDS of his own Party. And his PETTY and IDEOLOGICAL decision to refuse to share a platform with Captain Clegg was a GODSEND to No2AV's "Hate Clegg" campaign. Genius lead there, Mr Ed, showing us that before we can have grownup politics we're going to need some GROWNUP POLITICIANS.


As far as I can see, nothing has changed my forecast for the outcome of the NEXT General Election: either a small Conservatory majority or another hung Parliament.

Hard Labour are just not doing that much better, and (worse-for-them, worse-for-us) they are only doing better against US, better enough perhaps to switch some Liberal Democrat marginals to the Tories; but that HELPS the Tories and NOT Hard Labour.

So in 2015, either Mr Balloon gets to keep his job, and then we'll be able to say: "look, you see, we DID make a difference. Look at them NOW!" Or else Mr Potato Ed is going to have to accept looking VERY SILLY INDEED when he has to ask Captain Clegg to be HIS Deputy PM. Oh yes. Because the answer to his PETTY and IDEOLOGICAL "the price of a Lib/Lab Coalition would be Nick Clegg's head" (haha, very "Rewenge of the Frown-ites") is "fine, bye then". Because under those circumstance, either Mr Millipede can be Prime Monster or he can be the ex-Labour Leader.

Captain Clegg's intervention in the referendum campaign – repeating the mantra "our electoral system is broken, we need a change" and "if you think our electoral system works, think again; we need a change" – clearly shows that he was the ONLY ONE WITH A FLUFFING CLUE!

So just look at him doing his job – doing it, as Captain Paddy puts it, superbly well with tremendous grace under pressure – and you must realise he's the best we've got. And we've got a LOT of good people!

There are JUST TWO messages in politics: "don't rock the boat" and "time for a change". Captain Clegg gets it. "Yes2AV", hmmm, not so much, it appeared.

Only an IDIOT would call for him to resign, now. (And we Liberal Democrats HAVE THAT IDIOT!)

As for a leadership challenge… look, I am a BIG FAN of Mr Huhney-Monster – and look, in Eastleigh we actually MADE GAINS; so clearly what we need is a charismatic, aggressive millionaire cabinet minister in every seat and we're sorted. Sigh. But I CAN'T believe he would mount a leadership challenge. And actually I DON'T believe it, because he's too smart and too loyal and this rumour smells too much of STIRRING. And if anyone ELSE want to challenge Captain Clegg then they'll have an angry baby elephant to go through first!

This ISN'T the end of the Coalition.

Ironically, Captain Clegg's position may actually be strengthened. Mr Balloon had to do BIG FAVOURS for the rightwing loony tunes of his own Party and he knows it. So he knows he OWES us BIG TIME. Absolutely, we need to trade that for PROPER REFORM in the House of Lords Club. And it's probably the end for Mr Andrew Landslide and his NHS plans too. And if we're getting three wishes, Mr Balloon can sack Lady Insider Warsi before she appeals for votes from the BNP again makes his government look any MORE two-faced and incompetent.

This ISN'T the end of Electoral Reform either. In fact, this is merely the beginning. The pressure to fix our broken politics is only going to get more and more urgent.

We've got lessons to learn. Starting with a big bang conversion of Westminster elections was NEVER the way to do it. Not because – as cynical Lady GoreGore has it – the very thing that gives us the power to ask the question simultaneously taints any question to which we want the answer "yes". No, it's because if we've learned ANYTHING from our Liberal traditions it's that it's no good just giving people a TOP-DOWN solution IMPOSED take-it-or-leave-it Hobson's Choice. We need to re-grow our democracy FROM THE ROOTS UP.

That means starting with the LEAST democratic part of the system: much needed reform of local government.

We DESPERATELY need more voices to be heard in our council chambers, and that makes them the perfect fertile ground for PR (and that tiresome and frankly half-untrue "constituency link" argument falls immediately because most wards already HAVE multi-members.)

And we need to do this PROPERLY, do it in a way that people can see what they are getting and decide if they like it, running local trials first, letting people find out what works for them, bringing in local PR, bringing in House of Lords PR, working UP towards the Liberal Democrat policy of a Constitutional Convention, where everyone in the country can contribute and have their say.

Because BADWORDS they may be, but the people HAVE spoken, and it's up to us to LISTEN and come back to them with what they WANT.
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Day 3777: Have You Voted YES Yet?

Thursday:


Vote YES to CHANGE to our broken democratic system. You CAN make the difference!

There's still time for YOUR VOTE to make a REAL CHANGE, a change that will give YOU more power in future elections and make politicians work harder for YOU!

But don't just take MY fluffy word for it! Here are EIGHT reasons, in proper preferential order, from Daddy Alex:

#1 YES: I want my MP to be supported by a MAJORITY rather just the BIGGEST LOSER!

#2 YES: I want to THROW OUT crooked incumbents!

#3 YES: I'm smart enough to count up to THREE!

#4 YES: I want my MP to think twice before filling in the EXPENSES claim!

#5 YES: I'd ENJOY putting my least favourite party last!

#6 YES: I want to vote without tactical SKULDUGGERY!

#7 YES: I've had enough of DINOSAURS ruling the Earth!

#8 YES: I want to STICK IT to the British Nasty Party!

So what are you doing still sitting there reading my diary! GET OUT and VOTE YES!

And May the Fifth Be With You!
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Day 3769: If You Strike This Referendum Down, We Will Become More Powerful than You Can Possibly Imagine!

Wednesday:


Look, I see people in South Africa queuing round the block for their right to vote; I see people in Afghanistan risking Taliban bombs for their chance to have their say; I see people in the Arab Spring facing down murderous dictators because they want democracy, and in this country we get our FIRST CHANCE EVER to decide on our own system of elections and I AM DEEPLY SHAMED that NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE.

WAKE UP BRITAIN!

This is your chance to GET A GRIP on the people who DECIDE on schools and taxes and wars and everything!

I'm told, oh if it was a vote on whether taxes will go up or down, or on whether schools will get funding or not, THEN people would turn out.

Well that IS what this referendum is about.

This is the BASICS, people; this is the FUNDAMENTALS of YOUR democracy.

If you WANT politicians to LISTEN to you, about schools or taxes or wars, then you've got to fluffing well MAKE THEM LISTEN TO YOU.


This referendum hasn't been won or lost yet. In fact it's still virtually NECK and BRASS NECK, pretty much in spite of, I'm sorry to say it, a total shambles of a campaign from #Yes2AV.

(Which pretty much proves how STRONG the desire for REAL CHANGE really is!)

And it does sometimes seem that some of the best minds in liberal campaigning have come together to produce the sort of winning campaign that usually comes THIRD in elections. So I suppose coming SECOND in the referendum will be a WIN for them!

First Past the Post is a system where NO ONE REACHES THE POST… and yet you let the #No2AV campaign seize the racing metaphors! Honestly, it's like you're not even TRYING!


In contrast, #No2AV have kept their message SIMPLE, DIRECT and EVIL – all the things that usually WIN, especially when backed by HUGE wodges of cash from UNDISCLOSED donors. c/o Bank of Belize. Possibly.

#Yes2AV have spent entirely too much time responding to #No2AV's lies and misinformation (giving the lies a second round of free publicity) with too much detail (no one listened to the answers).

Simple example: if #No2AV say: "AV will cost you quarter of a billion pounds" then you DO NOT reply with a line by line rebuttal and complaints about their adding up

You just say: "FPTP DID cost you half a billion pounds in expenses scandal; that's why we need a change."

Let the #No2AV campaign be the ones spluttering about factchecks and waving their calculators around.

And to Mr Huhney-Monster and Mr Hugs PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't bang on about taking legal action. It makes it sounds like you've already lost and are throwing toys out of the pram.



Yes, the MEEJA coverage of the debate has been SHOCKINGLY PATHETIC. Debate? What debate? It's only ever been about the personality spats.

No one has bothered to impartially explain the ISSUES. Auntie Beeb, I am looking at YOU!

And then there's the META-NEWS, the reporting that no one is interested in the issues, meaning no one in the NEWS is interested in the issues.

Plumptiously well-off columnists opining that at their fat-cat Islington suppers everyone is SO BORED, SWEETIE, with the whole business, as though this is the CLEVER and WITTY informed opinion rather a bunch of LAZY old FARTS gobbling up the rich puddings that are their rewards for supporting the STATUS QUO.

Well news for you, meeja people. The job of a JOURNALIST is to MAKE people CARE about the news. So, frankly, you're all just telling us you are FLUFFING AWFUL AT YOUR JOBS.

But print is dead, isn't it, and thank goodness for the wibbly wobbly web because a FUNCTIONING MEDIA is ESSENTIAL to a FUNCTIONING DEMOCRACY, and if we relied on our print journalists we'd be right up the Galactic Empire without a Jedi paddle!


Let's be clear about this, the pressure to reform our BROKEN and UNFAIR electoral machinery is NOT going to go away; it's only going to get stronger and more urgent. People didn't march on the coalition negotiations last May urging them to keep the status quo.

There WILL BE another Hung Parliament, probably at the next General Election, if not then the one after that. And – whether we get AV or not – it will be IMPOSSIBLE to offer anything OTHER than PR as a Coalition deal, because there won't be anything else TO offer.

Captain Clegg's Constitutional Reform agenda WON'T STOP just because the referendum is over. More devolution, reform of the House of Lords Club, reform of the Monarchy, more local government…

And when the NEXT Coalition Agreement comes up, we WILL HAVE PR for the House of Lords, we WILL HAVE PR in Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland.

He never called AV a "miserable compromise", that was just the deal that Mr Frown put on the table when desperately clinging to power by his bitten fingernails, but he's always admitted that as an improvement on First Pass the Port this is only a small first step.

This referendum is WIN-WIN for reform:

If #Yes2AV wins, we get rid of the WORST possible voting system.

But if #No2AV wins, we get rid of NEARLY the worst possible voting system.

And when the NEXT Coalition Agreement comes up, any suggestion of a "miserable compromise" over AV will be trumped because IT WILL HAVE BEEN DECIDED. The only thing on the table will be a PROPER PROPORTIONAL SYSTEM.

Now go out and be positive for CHANGE!

And May the Fifth be with you!
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Day 3403: As the Tory Panic Continues… A Hung Parliament Means Parties having to "Make Agreements" – isn't that what Parliament is FOR?

Tuesday:


You'd almost feel SORRY for Mr Balloon's Conservatories, seeing their carefully laid plans of "wait for the electorate to drop power into our smug, entitled laps" all fall to pieces at the first whiff of people getting a GENUINE CHOICE in this General Election.

Almost.

But then along comes Master Gideon, the Boy Blunder, with another video rushed out in a fit of panic to say that if the public CHOOSE a Parliament where Parties have to work together, then the Conservatories CAN'T play nicely with the other kids.

Which is why they're not FIT to be in Government.

Nice pledge there, by the way, Gideon.

How it works: new Conservatory honesty

Maybe could have framed that a bit better, still…


You would have THOUGHT, with all the polls pointing to an even split between three Parties (in votes if not in gerrymandered seats) and with public opinion registering in FAVOUR of a BALANCED Parliament for a change… and for CHANGE… that the Conservatories would be willing to take that on board.

After all, this is their "Big Society" accepting their "invitation to join the government" and telling them just how they want to contribute.

But no.

Apparently, the Conservatories are now the Party of NO CHANGE, and the people can only have their say if they say what Mr Balloon wants to hear.

Isn't it just a bit ARROGANT to be telling the voters that they're wrong even before they've had a chance to vote?

To say that if they don't get an overall majority then the Conservatories just can't bring themselves to talk to anyone ever, ever, ever seems a bit SMALL-MINDED, a bit STICK-in-the-MUD, a bit well CONSERVATIVE.

And to say that if they don't get an overall majority all their friends in the City will make everyone poor in revenge, seems a bit like, well SCAREMONGERING.

What does Mr Balloon say?

"I just think it is disgraceful to try and frighten people in an election campaign … You should not be frightening people in an election campaign, it is just not right."

So this can't be scaremongering, right?


Anyway, Master Gideon introduces his new home movie, all very hahaha, with a dire warning!

"For five years Britain was condemned to weak government and economic instability…"

But enough about the Conservatories in the 1990s…

"…a vote for the Hung Parliament party is a vote for politics behind closed doors; indecision and weak government; a paralysed economy; yet another election; and very possibly, waking up on the 7th of May to find out that Gordon Brown is still in Downing Street."

Well, unless you're planning on evicting him with even more brutality that is usual, I think we all know that we'll be waking up on the 7th of May to find out that Mr Frown is technically still IN Downing Street!

Anyway, Mr Oboe continues

"Jeremy is going to explain why a hung parliament would not bring about a new politics – in fact it would plunge us into the bad old politics of the 1970s, with horse-trading and deals behind closed doors instead of transparency and reform."

Master Gideon seems to have FORGOTTEN (or wants the rest of us to FORGET) the most recent time we had a minority government: under Mr Major-Minority.

Of course THAT happened because the "behind closed doors" politics that goes on INSIDE the Conservatory Party broke down and a bunch of Europhobic wingnuts walked out.

We have "behind closed doors" politics AT THE MOMENT, and to suggest otherwise is so stupid as to be DECEITFUL.

Or is Master Oboe going to let us all in to the Conservatory HQ for planning meetings?

(This is as STUPID as those "you've got nothing to fear if you've got nothing to hide" people – oh, if you've got nothing to fear, then tell me your bank details and PIN. No? You must have something to HIDE then. IDIOTS!)

"Behind closed doors" is what lets politics WORK – we have to give people a place to make compromises and change their minds or we end up stuck in fossilised positions based on dogma rather than what the country needs. And THEN you get 12% interest rates and the pound crashing out of the exchange rate mechanism. Perhaps Master Gideon should ask Mr Balloon about THAT.

But no… the USUAL Conservatory SCARE TACTIC of going back THIRTY YEARS to the Winter of Discontent having suddenly become OBSOLETE, they're now going to go back THIRTY-FIVE years to the first election of 1974. Or possibly the SECOND. Mast Gideon seems confused as to which resulted in a Hung Parliament and which was followed by a five year government.

(Remember, people voted for an Old Labour majority in the second one. A TINY one, for sure, and it got frittered away – and let's just not get into the antics of Mr John Stonehouse right now – but it was a majority when people VOTED for, in spite of what Master Gideon seems to claim.)

Still, back to the scaremongering not-scaremongering-at-all:

"…let me say something about the very real risks that a hung parliament poses for our economic stability and prospects for recovery. We know from our country’s history that these risks can become a reality."

You know, it's a bit DODGY making your predictions based on ONE data point.

Not to mention historically and economically ILLITERATE!

(From Master Gideon? Let me borrow Auntie Jennie's Face-of-not-surprised.)

The suggestion that the ONLY thing leading to economic instability in the 1970s was the weakness of the Mr Wily Wilson / Mr Unlucky Jim Callaghan government is, er, a bit of a stretch.

The Oil Shock, the Yom Kippur War, OPEC, our exclusion from the EEC, the debt crisis… and that's without mentioning the mass industrial turmoil caused by the recently-ejected Conservatory Government of Mr Grocer Heath trying to appear BUTCH.

And of course, the REAL political instability was caused by Mr Wilson having the MAGICAL POWER to call another election on a whim, or rather six months later when he thought the OMENS had turned FAVOURABLE.

This power of Royal Prerogative meant that he didn't HAVE to agree with anyone; just run a quiet minority for a bit until he could engineer a better result. A proper fixed-term Parliament would have put a stop to that.

Anyway, Gideon's asked ALL HIS FRIENDS if they like the idea of not getting complete power and do you know what? They don't!

"Today the British Chambers of Commerce published a poll of their members. Two thirds are concerned about the potential impact of a hung parliament."

I'd love to have seen the questionnaire that THAT was the last question on. Worried about the recession? Worried about the credit crunch? Worried about the banks behaving like spoiled teenagers? Worried about the need to control public spending? Finally, worried that the public spending cuts won’t be handled by people you play golf with?

Business ALWAYS worries – I'd be SURPRISED if two thirds weren't concerned about ANY possible Parliament!

Never mid that, though. Let's ask some City boys. People trust the City boys, don’t they.

"A survey earlier this month of investors managing more than £1.7 trillion of assets found that almost twenty times more respondents thought a fall in the pound was most likely under a hung parliament than under a conservative government."

Now, while it's unnecessary to point out that in English the comparison of TWO options is "more" and not "most", I really DO need to point out that since the odds of a Hung Parliament ACTUALLY happening shortened, the pound has ACTUALLY… RISEN!

I should get some new fund managers, if I were you, George.

"More than ten times more respondents thought the same about a credit rating downgrade"

And yet funnily enough an ACTUAL credit rating agency, Mad Eye Moody's, says that a Hung Parliament could be GOOD for the UK's economic stability, as Parties have to agree to work TOGETHER in the national interest.

As Mr Huhney-Monster said in the FT – and he should know because he used to LEAD a sovereign ratings team – there are fourteen AAA-rated counties on Earth… only one of them has EVER had to call in the IMF, and it's the one that elects its government with First Past the Port, not the ten that use a proportional system. Only one country in recent years has LOST a AAA-rating, Japan, and there they have had a majority government for a single party for FIFTY YEARS.

Mr Oboe cites Belgium as a country where the coalition has broken down. Belgium seems to be getting along fine WITHOUT a government. Arguably they're getting on BETTER without a government, interfering and legislating all the time.

He cites Italy. Italy didn't elect Mr Silvio Barelylegal under a proportional system, now did they? Mind you, I doubt Master Gideon wants to get too closely into questions of a media magnate buying the election.

Mr Oboe cites Germany… he does WHAT? If you're making the case against coalition government, you really DON'T want to be identifying the most powerful economy in Europe as a signpost of inevitable failure. The IRONY, of course, is that it was the BRITISH who design Germany's successful electoral system at the end of World War Part II. If only we'd adopted it ourselves… sigh.

"forecasts by the Centre for Economics and Business Research published at the weekend show that a hung parliament would lead to higher mortgage rates and a falling pound – even in their best case scenario."

Higher mortgage rates… could that be because an interest base rate of ½ a percent is UNSUSTAINABLY low? A rise in interest rates is INEVITABLE under almost ANY "scenario" best case worst case basket case or otherwise. It would be a boon to savers and investors, to pensioners. Nor, whisper it, is damping the mortgage market down necessarily a bad thing. Or have the Conservatories forgotten the bubble so soon?

And a falling pound? A falling pound is GOOD for exports, making our goods cheaper for people abroad to buy. Again, remember what happened when we crashed out of the ERM? Pound down, exports up, economic recovery. This really is macro-economics 101. What DOES Master Gideon think he's saying?

Oh yes, it's "vote us":

"Because only a Conservative majority guarantees change for the better."

Nothing, but NOTHING could guarantee NO CHANGE better than a Conservatory majority!

Anyone, ANYONE at all – even US! – saying "we want a majority" is saying that they want things to CARRY ON AS THEY ARE

"Strong Government" is CODE for the old Labservative Parties taking turns to have ALL the power on a MINORITY of the support. "Strong Government" means more power to the PARTIES; a strong Parliament, properly elected, means more power to the VOTERS.

A strong PARLIAMENT – a Parliament where the executive has to PERSUADE rather than IMPOSE – means a weak GOVERNMENT.

A "Strong Government" means a feeble Parliament that cannot control the executive and becomes corrupt though the whips offering advancement or peerages or government positions or "fact-finding" trips or any kind of freebies and handouts.

This is what a system BUILT on PATRONAGE and Royal Prerogative, on Prime Ministerial favour and a whips office gets you: a political system based on FEUDAL POWERS and the offer of BACK-HANDERS.

This is OUR political system, bloated, corrupt and BROKEN.

Our "First Pass the Port" voting system is NOT incidental to this – it is at the very HEART of this: the ability to grant the "favoured sons" (and they usually ARE sons and not daughters) the GIFT of a SAFE SEAT, be it a Conservatory Squirarchy or a Hard Labour City Ghetto, is the FIRST step on the road of CORRUPTION, the road of "doing favours for the Party" in return for the SPECIAL TREATMENT.

IF you want CHANGE, if you want REAL CHANGE, then it has GOT TO GO.

This is the point where the Conservatories are MOST EXPOSED as the SAME OLD LABSERVATIVES.

If you want CHANGE, if you want REAL CHANGE, then they have GOT TO GO too.


Don't give in to fear and scare tactics.

You CAN vote for CHANGE.

You CAN vote for BETTER.

You CAN vote for the Liberal Democrats.


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Day 3320: Are we AV-ing a laff? Or: What would a REAL New Economic Model look like?

Tuesday:


First thing, Mr Frown is going to ram voting reform through the Cabinet today and force it down Parliament's throat next week. But being Hard Labour his idea for "fair votes" is actually LESS fair.

Second thing, Master Gideon says he'll be bench-pressing the UK into a "new economic model" which looks suspiciously like the OLD economic model of "free-market capitalism with a hint of Government intervention".

Third thing, an e-mail from the POWER2010 people pops up saying that their 25,000th contributor has posted his vote for "None of the Above".

Funny thing: all these things are TOTALLY interconnected.


This urge to REJECT the entire political establishment, to vote "None of the Above", arises out of the perception that "all the parties are the same".

But that perception is driven by exactly the sort of language that Master Oboe uses today: dancing on the head of a pin so that he can say that HIS policies are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to those of Hard Labour which in turn are completely different to those of the Liberal Democrats, when in fact everyone – yes even us – are offering relatively unimaginative VARIATIONS ON THE SAME THEME.

But that in turn is because those policies are driven by the choices of the electorate, or rather a very small sub-section of the electorate whose opinions are HUGELY MAGNIFIED by the DISTORTED calculus of the electoral system. Anyone who wants to get elected is FORCED into a very narrow range of options to satisfy a very narrow range of people: in short, swing voters in marginals.

And that, ultimately, is why we NEED a reform of the voting system that opens up politics to HUGE change.



Now, saying we want to vote for "None of the Above" is a SYMPTOM of people's disaffection, but as a solution it's nowhere NEAR good enough. In fact, I'd say it was both MEANINGLESS and it's LAZY.

Meaningless, in part, because it doesn't tell us WHY none of the above satisfy the voter. Did they want a candidate who was more socialist or more capitalist? Or more liberal or more authoritarian? Or more female or more male? Or more local? Or more famous?

"None of the Above" adds together all of the splinters of people not satisfied with what's on offer and artificially adds them together. And it would STILL probably be fewer than the votes cast for real candidates because it's not the lack of a "none of the above" box that causes people to NOT BOTHER TO VOTE.

People don't vote through a combination of "they don't think they can change things" and "they don't think things need to change (because they ain't that bad, really)".

But much more than that "None of the Above" is meaningless because what actual EFFECT is it supposed to have on the election?

It's just an "I turned up but didn't vote" box. Now, a "Re-open Nonimations" box, that comes with REAL power – i.e. if "RON" is elected they HAVE to re-run the election with new candidates – that maybe has some merit. Some. Maybe. But just giving people a chance to stick two fingers up at the candidates seems totally pointless.

And it's also LAZY because it's saying "I see a problem here and I refuse to try and solve it"; it is expecting someone ELSE to come along and present you with another option. Well, why SHOULD anyone be bothered if YOU can't be, eh?

And it's not like people AREN'T presenting you with other options.

IThere already ARE lots of choices beyond " the Above", because I'm assuming that by "the Above" what you really mean is "the three nationwide parties (oh all right, four, if you MUST count UKPnuts just because Mr Bob "elected-as-a-Conservatory" Stink sits for them these days… and in Scotland and Wales add a smattering of nationalists) who have representation in the House of Commons".

From Anarcho-Communists to Anti-Abortionists to Sickly Greens to British Nasties to Vanity Candidates to Respect the Leotard Gorgeous Pussycat George Supporters to Monster Raving Loonies… you have got a lot of choices.

But, comes the protest, they don't get elected.

That's partly because they don't have the support and partly because of the system. And those two things do feed off each other too. Our current system biases the results in favour of very large Parties or very concentrated-in-one-place Parties and completely ignores Parties with support spread out across the whole country. Under first-pass-the-port, you can of course get 49% in every seat in the country and still get no MPs at all.

In fact, it's the very geographical POLARITY of the two red-blue Parties – one in the urban strongholds of the industrial and post-industrial North, one in the Home County retreats of the moneyed South-East; neither can really be called broad based anymore, and both suffer from nasty inflammations of the Core Vote Strategy – that contributes to their unhealthy stranglehold on the Government and, more cogently, the DISTORTED importance of those few seats where swing voters can pick which of them will win.

So either organise a revolution and change the system or get involved with the Liberal Democrats and change the system. Or you can always start your OWN political movement to try and capitalise on that big wave of we-reject-all-the-other-parties that you think is out there. And see how far you get.

Anything less is just WHINGEING.

Which, quite naturally, brings me to Master Oboe.

His idea for a "new economic model" includes his eight-step programme of:

• Ensure the whole country shares in rising prosperity – by raising the private sector's share of the economy in all regions of the country, especially outside London and the South East (as thought the Government can actually DO this… does he mean he'll actually REDUCE the public sector in areas where private investment isn't matching London?)

• Get Britain working (well who doesn't want that?)

• Ensure macro-economic stability (well who doesn't want that?)

• Make Britain open for business (well who doesn't want that?)

• Reform public services to deliver better value-for-money (like EVERYONE says they'll do)

• Create a safer banking system that serves the needs of the economy (no, do you think?)

• Build a greener economy (gee, an original thought… when everyone else had it five years ago)

And

• Create a more balanced economy – presumably with both more motherhood AND more apple pie.

So, basically it's a recipe for BUSINESS as USUAL.

The Government (Hard Labour OR Conservatory… or even Liberal, if you credit the idea we could win) will raise most of its money from a not-very-graduated income tax and a regressive sales tax and then spend a third of it on pensions and benefits, and another third on the health service and schools and the army, and the rest will go on lots and lots of little things that are all important to SOMEONE.

(And remember, this system benefits a relatively narrow range of people, i.e: people on slightly better than moderate incomes who want their health care and pension paid for don't want the unemployed actually to starve but don't want to pay more tax to see them "dossing about" and would quite like various things, from the Arts Council to continuous supply of electrical power, to continue without them being bothered about the details, or more succinctly, voters in marginals again.)

Saying you want a Britain built on "savings, enterprise and exports" is saying you want them exactly as they are… but a bit better. It's really NOT a new economic model.


A GENUINE, but still MODERATE, change would involve actually addressing some of the things that the Government DOES.

For example, the NHS. Make it a separate corporation, like the BBC, paid for by a health insurance that would not be much dissimilar to the licence fee or a subscription. But oh yes, that's the great HOLY COW of British Politics and tinkering with it is as unthinkable as GOOSING Mrs the Queen!

Or the benefit system. Pay every UK Citizen over the age of 16 a Citizen's Income of £100 per week, paid for by an income tax rate of, say, 45% on all other earnings (abolishing employee's National Insurance), and abolish all other benefits. Depending on how much Employer's NI generates, it even raises money for the Treasury. And there would be a bit less bureaucracy. In theory EVERYONE on benefits is quite a bit better off and NO ONE has to be humiliated with means tests or medical exams ever again. But it's crazily difficult to work out how it impacts people on tax credits and of course everyone earning over about sixteen grand is going to be slightly worse off. That's not even average national earnings, so you'd never get THAT past those marginal voters!

Of course REAL change to our economic model means looking at the factors that are limiting our freedom and doing something about them. The BIG limiting factor is ENERGY. If we can greatly increase the supply of energy we can actually increase people's freedom too. This happened in the Industrial Revolution when we moved from person-power to machine-power, unfortunately fuelled by, well, fossil fuel.

("Unfortunately", because not only is it running out, and not only are we as a country increasingly having to import our energy supply but of course we now know that we are seriously damaging the planet that we happen to be STANDING ON!)

What we need in order to achieve a step-change is to invest in a new and more abundant energy source… if we can FIND one. (The obvious candidates would be hydrogen fusion – if it can be made to work like it hasn't for fifty years – or solar power – probably based on orbital platforms, which requires not just a lot of engineering but a lot of international co-operation too – or something from the exploitation of Outer Space – so we'd better not cancel the Moon Base… oh dear.)

The truth is, though, that GAME-CHANGING revolutionary developments like that tend to be EXTERNAL to the Government. To an extent, the best you can hope for is to LIMIT how much Government HOLDS BACK innovation – which certainly means stopping Lord Mandelbrot intervening to decide what universities should be studying! Because Government tends to be a conservative force even when the Conservatories AREN'T in power.

ALL Government is based on COMPROMISE – not just democracies, though there it becomes obvious, but even dictators have different power blocs to balance – and ANY compromise between change and status quo will take the edge off the radical, blunting it, even turning it back.

Ironically, the so-called "strong governments" generated by our first-pass-the-port system are in fact MORE compromised, more small-c conservative, more, in fact, WEAK, because there is a NARROWER number of people to whom they owe their majority.

That is why we have had conservative government for the last THIRTY YEARS, preserving the status quo for large business interests in the City at the expense of real progress; that is why Hard Labour turned themselves into rouge Conservatories; that is why when they said "things could only get better" things DIDN'T.

That's why everything comes back to electoral reform. And it's why Mr Frown's proposals don't go nearly far enough.

The Liberal Democrats favour STV, or Single Trunk Voting, because it gives most power to the VOTER – you get to choose between parties AND between members OF those Parties, so you can choose Orange Booker or Soggy Liberal, local candidate or high flyer, man or woman whichever you want. And we think it should promote MORE diversity because Parties will naturally favour MIXED slates leading to more women and minority candidates getting elected.

The AV system that Mr Frown proposes is really kind of like first-pass-the-port only MORE SO. The Parties RETAIN control over the candidates standing in each constituency, rather than giving the voter the chance to express a preference, and it REINFORCES the effect of local polarity, with a chance of making safe seats SAFER.


On the one fluffy foot, AV IS pretty similar to STV with single member constituencies. And once you've convinced people of the benefits of ranking the candidates – as opposed to systems with LISTS where the candidates are just RANK – then the move to multi-member constituencies is as simple as of grouping them by fives. Your five constituencies still have five MPs; you just have a better chance of having one you voted first preference for. You might even be able to use the results of the AV election to map out what an STV election "might have done", to show people how easily things could be different.

But, on the other fluffy foot, it's not always the BEST idea to accept compromise as your "first step". I mean look just at the House of Lords Club… we took the first step to reform in 1911 and compromised and STILL the buffers hang on!

And you know, even STV isn't some magical solution. It's not ENOUGH.

What we have at the moment is a BIZARRE system, where our representatives talk to THEMSELVES to make decisions. One where the lobbyists and the vested interests are all hidden behind the scenes and all we get to see is a weekly pantomime at Prime Monster's Questions. What we NEED is a system where the MPs SHUT UP and listen to US.

We need a Parliament that is open to EVERYONE to ADDRESS. We should not have to sit quietly in the Visitors' Gallery like good little children lest someone cry "I spy strangers"! WE should be the ones making the speeches, for and against. We're the ones it matters to! Raise a petition, get enough support and you should be able to take it to Parliament and have them vote on it. We shouldn't be beholden to the Great and the Good – more often the Mediocre and the Malicious – to decide what laws are good for us. WE should be in CHARGE.

We can't just TINKER round the edges. We need to EXPLODE our politics – that's in a METAPHORICAL sense, dear MI5 reader, no ACTUAL explosions – so that we let in the daylight so that everyone can see and let in new ideas so that everything can change.


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