Day 5282: An Elephant's Queen's Speech

Thursday:


Bit of a flashback/catch-up today, but it does follow on from what I was saying yesterday about what the next Leader of the Liberal Democrats will need to do.

Back on the day of the first Tory Queen Speech in almost two decades, Auntie Caron asked Liberal Democrat Voice's readers to suggest their own bills for a Liberal Queen's Speech.


So, I came up with half a dozen ideas, pretty much off the top of my fluffy head. Auntie Caron was kind enough to include one of them (and several others were already covered by other cleverer fluffy toys)!

In coming up with these Bills in particular, I wanted to address ideas that would be clearly LIBERAL (and not ones that either Hard Labour or Conservatory Parties were likely to come up with) AND that would make genuine and TARGETED differences to people in need.

(And of course I've included one on voting reform because, not only is it now more vitally necessary than ever to have a Parliament that reflects the genuine spread of people's opinions – whether it's us, the Greens, even moderate socialists… even the Kippers(!); and to stop Conservatories and Hard Labour from all parasitizing votes off all of us – but if there's just ONE thing people remember about us – one thing that isn't the godawful mess we made of tuition fees, that is – then it's PR.)

There is a case to be made for a Government committing to what Sir Humphrey once described as "masterly inactivity": the Coalition made many changes, particularly to the NHS and to education, and doing nothing would allow those changes to "bed in" while giving nurses and teachers some respite from change for change's sake, and give Government the opportunity to observe and gather evidence for review.

And if we were still IN government, I'd certainly warm to that idea. Hard Labour's accusation of last year being a "zombie parliament" just because the Coalition was not intent on keeping up a blizzard of legislation never appealed.

However, having just fought the general election campaign on a platform of "no change, everything's fine" – and remind me, how exactly did that work out for us? – we are now NOT in government.

And a Queen's Speech is a political event, and that means making political statements: we have to jump up and say we would make things DIFFERENT.

Here then is my list in full:

UNITED KINGDOM PARLIAMENTS ACT
The Parliament installed as a result of the 2015 General Election so manifestly fails to represent the votes cast by the electorate that it is now of vital urgency that we replace our Nineteenth Century constitution with one fit for the Twenty-First Century. To this end, a Liberal Democrat government would empower a people’s constitutional convention – after the model that successfully developed the Scottish Parliament – to decide on a fair way of deciding who governs Britain.

HUMAN RIGHTS ACT
A Liberal Democrat government would celebrate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta by reaffirming Great Britain’s commitment to the Human Rights and the European Court that were created under the guidance of Winston Churchill and the other leaders after the defeat of Nazism.

Measures will be introduced to increase Freedom of Information and to increase citizens' protection from abuse by government, including the abolition of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and a Digital Freedoms Bill to protect citizens from hacking and snooping.

CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES (DRUGS DECRIMINALISATION) ACT
A Liberal Democrat government will adopt a sensible, scientific evidence-based approach to control, monitoring, and treatment of drug use and misuse, based on the positive outcomes resulting from the changed approach in Portugal.

Funds currently wasted on the futile “war on drugs” can be transferred to more productive policing. The government will review legalizing the medical (and possibly recreational) use of cannabis.

UK PRISONS (ABOLITION OF SHORT SENTENCES) ACT
British prisons are extremely overcrowded in spite of falling crime and evidence shows that short sentences do nothing for rehabilitation and only introduce prisoners to hard drugs and more serious criminals. A Liberal Democrat government would therefore, with immediate effect, abolish all prison sentences of under one year in length to be replaced by programmes of reparative justice that have been shown to be more effective.


EMERGENCY AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND RENTS ACT
There is a critical shortage of housing in the United Kingdom which is damaging our economy by sucking capital into houses rather than investment and shutting people out of buying or renting homes near to where they want to work or where their families live.

A Liberal Democrat government would: immediately begin building more housing concentrating on new garden cities and renovating disused sites in cities, raising government borrowing but only where future rents can cover the interest; reverse Tory policies of Buy to Rent which have seen further reduction in the public housing stock and prevent further sales of public assets until the housing stock has been restored to sustainable levels; examine ways to outlaw the practices of holding large “land banks” rather than developing new housing, and keeping homes empty as “investments”; and bring in rent councils with the powers to reverse unfair rent rises or evictions.

CLEAN AIR / CAR ELECTRIFICATION ACT
The state of the air in our cities is among the worst in Europe and the only long-term solution is to replace the internal combustion engine with new, clean, green technologies.

A Liberal Democrat government would therefore begin research into the necessary changes in infrastructure to make this possible – e.g. greater generation of electricity; provision of charging points in homes and on street in addition to regular charging stations; changes to taxation.

Initial reporting to take place within one year with a view to – if evidence shows practical – trials before the end of the Parliament in two English cities (not London) and negotiating with the Scottish Government and other devolved authorities for similar joint programmes.

EDUCATION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY ACT
Under the Coalition, Liberal Democrats invested heavily of both our political capital and the little actual spending that we were able to wring out of the Tory Chancellor in targeting Education: both the pupil premium and the delivery of free school meals to early years pupils were targeted at redressing the balance and giving the best possible start in life to people who would otherwise be – by the age of six, even – left behind by their better-off peers.

To continue that investment, we would raise funds from better-off schools by removing the charitable status of fee-paying schools and spend that money to increase the number of years that free school meals are provided, and substantially to increase maintenance grants for university undergraduates, to allow them to use their time to study, rather than having to work part-time to feed themselves.

We would continue to maintain government spending on sciences. Additionally, as part of the BBC Charter renewal, we would seek to agree an increase in the licence fee in exchange for the BBC establishing apprenticeships in the arts and creative/productive industries.

I would also add a couple more to the list.

First, Mr Norman "Conquest" Lamb's

ASSISTED DYING BILL
Broadly speaking I do not, in fact, want people killing themselves, and I am deeply troubled that the largest cause of death among young men in the UK is now suicide, not to mention the way that this disproportionately strikes at the LGB and particularly T community. But as a Liberal it is not my place to deny choice to other people. It would be my hope that through a more mature consideration of the end of life, and openness about it – and a much greater openness to using medical cannabis and opium-based pain relief; and much greater care and much less stigma put into mental illnesses – we would see fewer people suffering but also actually fewer people choosing to end their lives.

and second,

ABOLITION OF VICTIMLESS CRIMES BILL
(an idea of Daddy Alex's, and a very good one, that would cover the decriminalizing of sex-working that Jade O’Neil in Auntie Caron's list proposes).

We put too much legislative effort into banning things we think are bad and then even more effort into criminalising people for doing things we have banned. We need to let go of this overwhelming desire to control others before ourselves. Among the first principles of Liberalism is the "Harm Principle" from "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, and it is worth quoting here: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

I'd also like to incorporate Duncan Stott, Kelly-Marie Blundell, Maria Pretzler and Jon Ball's suggestions to Lib Dem Voice into my Emergency Housing Bill.

(Since I wrote these, and since the Queen's speech, Mr Norman has also made some substantive proposals on reducing prison numbers, while Conservatory Mayoral hopeful Mr Zac Goldfinger has called for an electric car revolution in London. So I'm clearly surfing the zeitgeist here!)


I think that between six and eight bills is enough to get the point across without becoming too much of a shopping list. But reviewing my suggestions I think that they are not very well BALANCED between the areas where I believe we should be targeting.


As a reminder: these are the FOUR areas where I said yesterday I think we need to be campaigning:

1. Personal freedoms and Civil liberties
2. Health, Social Care and Wellbeing
3. Opportunity and Education
4. The Economy

Three of my proposed bills, and both of my "extras", fall under "1"; whereas housing and clean air are both "Wellbeing" without substantially talking about either Health OR Social Care.

So there's clearly some work to be done.

Therefore (if I can keep this new spurt of writing going!), next time I'd like to talk some more about taking the fight to those people I named as our natural enemies, the Home Office; and then share some thoughts about a Liberal Economy and the longer term direction for the Party and the country.


PS:
Today is the memorial in Glasgow for Mr Charles, our much loved former leader.

Thoughts go with his family and friends.

Day 5281: Tim Farron or Norman Lamb? We Need BOTH!

Wednesday:



I was lucky enough to attend the Liberal Democrat leadership hustings in London, and to meet both candidates.

Going in I was leaning more for Farron, and the Tim Lord did indeed play a blinder: full of that old-time Liberal religion. And his last word – "it's my job to get Norman back into Government" – was the best line of the night. But Norman was consistently impressive throughout as the one who put thought into his answers. He made it very much harder to choose. And that's got to be some kind of victory for the Norman Conquest.

Illustrative was the question: "What would you vote against the Party Line on?" (one of Alex's favourites). They both didn't answer the question but in different ways.

Tim's answer was to point to his rebellious record in the last Parliament, voting against the whip on Tuition Fees and Secret Courts. Those are his radical credentials, right there, do what's right not what's on the ticket. That's not really voting against the Party line, though. Norman, answering that question second, chose that opportunity to defend his own record as being the "good boy" and voting for those things on the grounds that practical Liberalism means doing more good by staying in and winning the fights you can win, rather than letting "best" be the enemy of "good".

So in some ways – from a certain point of view – Tim was being the more careful candidate here, embracing the Party, touching us in our warm happy place, while Norman was willing to be a bit more dangerous.

If we were still a credible force in the House of Commons, whether in Coalition or at least in contention to be in Coalition, there would be a strong case for a candidate who has shown just the sort of "winning the best deal" by "tough decisions" talent that Norman has. But we've been massacred. To his credit, Norman clearly recognises this, and that continuity – being the "establishment" candidate – are a weakness in this context, and he's been highly active in generating radical policy ideas to demonstrate that there is so much more to him than that.

When questioned on policies, both candidates were – unsurprisingly – saying the same things: we need to make tackling the housing crisis our priority; we should be first in line to defend the Human Rights Act; we should celebrate immigration not condemn immigrants; renewables not fracking. But although Tim was saying we should be the Party saying the difficult, "spiky" things, Norman was the one coming out with the "out there" ideas, in particular taking the fight to the Home Office (our natural enemies!), on drugs and on cutting the numbers in our (vastly overcrowded) prisons.

If I might paraphrase "Yes, Prime Minister" episode "The Ministerial Broadcast", it's pretty clear that Tim would be the one sat in the oak-panelled room with the leather-bound books on the shelves and the calming tones of Brahms playing to reassure you; while Norman would be all modernist furniture and Stravinsky to distract from the Continuity Clegg label.


With only eight MPs… and one of those the ex-leader, the Reverend Nick, who the public no doubt expect to step into quiet semi-retirement (or to put it another way, they would say they've seen the back of him)… and another, Alistair, the Laird Carmichael, shall we say, hors de combat… with only six MPs… I'll come in again…

At least one candidate (it was Tim) has made it clear that we will have to pick our campaigns.

I would suggest we have to cover the following:

1. Personal freedoms and Civil liberties
2. Health, Social Care and the dreaded "Wellbeing" (so including housing)
3. Opportunity and Education
4. The Economy

In the short term, it almost doesn't matter who wins.

Norman has already made himself a champion of personal rights with support for an Assisted Dying Bill, and his excellent policy announcements, in particular on the failed war on drugs and on our prisons. And (for all those "Yes, Prime Minister" reasons) the fact that he looks the more establishment character makes him just the man to be taken seriously when attacking the Home Office from the ANTI-authoritarian flank (something Labour hasn't done for twenty years).

Tim clearly knows his Beverage (and I don't mean TEA), and he's got the background (voting against Tuition fees gives him the opening to be listened to on the subject, possibly the only Lib Dem who can do that), and the talent of a natural preacher to condemn the Tories as "immoral" (which he did several times on the night): clearly he's the man to lead on housing and education.

(Obviously we should be defending our NHS too, but there's no way to make that an issue identified with us and not Hard Labour – however unjustified, they've just spent too much political capital in buying that as "their" turf. What we could and should do, in fact, is address ourselves to the "wall of bureaucracy" that often means the NHS works for itself rather than patients – of which Mid Staffs was only the most extreme example.)

We cannot NOT talk about the economy (stupid), and I'd ask Tom Brake to be our Shadow Chancellor.

Additionally, I'd ask Nick to be spokesperson for foreign policy. It means we can use his considerable talents, but at the same time allow him to step aside from the field of everyday politics, and be a (very young) elder statesman figure.

But the leadership is for more than just the short term. It is about who – as a Party – will be speaking for us for the next five years. Because the media will no doubt shut us out now, and at best we will get our leader to appear on TV's Questionable Time or the occasional talking head comment on the news.

(I did wonder briefly, Tim might be "interesting" enough to get the occasional appearance even if he were not leader, which – in Bizarro world – might be a reason to pick Norman for a "two bites of the cherry" approach. But it won't fly. If we want our best – surviving – communicator to be able to communicate, then we'd better decide which of them it is and make him leader.)

So this is the question: are we content as a Party to drift back into quasi-think tank status? Or do we want to say loud and strong that May 7th will not stand.

This Party, this liberal phoenix needs fire. Tim certainly has fire. And it may be that that's what wins it. But if it does I very much hope that his first act will be to put Norman in charge of choosing our campaigns, picking the fights we're going to pick.

I shook them both by the hand and wished each of them good luck. Whoever wins, they'll need it. But more importantly, whoever wins, they'll need the other one too.

PS: 

courtesy of Count Packula: the opening speeches of both candidates.

First to speak was Norman…



…and then Tim.

Day 5092: What Price Justice?

Wednesday:


When members of Maggie Thatcher’s Cabinet are telling you “whoa, that’s a bit right wing”, you might just want to rethink your plans for Judicial Review.

Of course, since Mr Christopher Greything usually responds to people who disagree with him by trying to abolish them, we might finally see some Lords Reform.

But the Coalition, particularly its Lib Dem ministers, are supposed to be a listening government. Let our Liberal Democrat Parliamentarians take this opportunity to say they have listened to the concerns of their Lordships and of our own membership and thought again and drop this dangerous bill.


I was ashamed – once again – at the long list of Liberal Democrat MPs voting to strike down the Lords’ amendments to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill. People ask me to justify that. I can’t.

Was there some deal? Was it part of an arrangement to get Liberal Democrat priorities like infrastructure investment, apprenticeships or anti-tax-evasion measures through the Autumn Statement? Whatever it was, the deal’s clearly off now that past-master of the political attack George Osborn has “declared war” on the Lib Dems, saying taxes would rise if we’re in government (clue: this is not a secret, Master Gideon).

Heroically, the Lords – for shame, the House of Lords! – have once again ridden to the rescue. To lose one vote in the Lords may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose one hundred smacks of absolute bloody-minded stupidity.

But there is no shame in listening. We’ve been here before with the Snoopers’ Charter. (And look to be here again with the Snooper’s Charter II, but that’s another gripe.) Take on board that there are serious and well-founded concerns with the Bill and accept the changes. It’s not in the Coalition agreement. If you can’t bring yourselves to vote against it after you’ve voted for it, all that is necessary is to say Liberal Democrats will abstain.


This isn’t about defending our traditions of justice. Magna Carta, did she die in vain etc etc. People who insist on calling Judicial Review a “foundation stone” of our democracy are both overstating and undervaluing its position. Far from defending our traditional systems this is about enshrining necessary new ones. Our system is woefully short of checks and balances and far from being an ancient right, long taken for granted, this is a much-needed modern addition to our unwritten constitution, and not one to be tossed aside.

You might like to trace it back to the King’s Writ, but that’s a fig-leaf for a legal system that places much store on precedent. Really it is a judge-made development, taking off in the Nineteen Eighties, when somebody had to stand up to a government that was unrestrained by Parliament by dint of a huge majority, with much of its force added by way of the Human Rights Act, granting the courts the power, indeed the duty, to oversee the government’s compliance with our basic human rights.

In fact it’s not really compatible with Parliamentary Sovereignty – which is why Parliament keeps writing new and sillier laws to grant itself permission to ignore one judgment or another – but incorporating independent third-party review of legislation is a vital step towards properly holding the executive and legislature to account.

But that’s not the point.

And it’s not about humiliating the Secretary of State, Mr Christopher Greything, a Tory too dull to be described as a Sinister Minister of Justice, but who just won’t be told when he’s in the wrong.

It’s not that I don’t have any sympathy for a Department of Justice facing the austerity squeeze, that’s already cut legal aid to the bone. The numbers of Judicial Review cases have tripled since 2000; they’re very expensive; and, given the large percentage that the government wins, you can see how someone might think they are often vexatious or at least time-wasting.

There’s certainly a case for arguing that justice is already far too expensive: the courts are a rich man’s playground (and I do generally mean “man”), because taking any kind of action is prohibitively expensive for anyone without thousands – if not millions, just ask former Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell – to toss around. Most people cannot even think of going to court unless forced to by the most horrible of circumstances. Changing it from unthinkably expensive to impossibly expensive is surely address the problem in dramatically the wrong direction, though.

But that’s not the point either.

We came into the Coalition with a huge mandate for reform of Civil Liberties after years of Hard Labour eroding them. Detention without trial. Fingerprinting children. Almost the first thing we did, even before that Rose Garden Press Conference was nuke the idea of I.D. Cards.

Since then it’s been one rear-guard action after another, usually against Tin-Pot Theresa of the Home Office.

But Civil Liberties are not just some abstract legal discussion. Today’s revelations about the CIA only underline that unchecked power leads directly to abuse, and even torture.

So, the point is this:

Access to justice, standing up for the citizen against the bullies, protection against “The Man”: these are the things that my Party is supposed to be for!

Day 4657: If Theresa May Was A Terrorist – a Thought Experiment

Tuesday:


This week Theresa May accused Cap’n Clegg of Hating Britain* for putting the Human Rights of terrorists and criminals above ordinary people.

That’s because Ms May does not understand that Human Rights are not to protect terrorists, they are to protect people who get called “terrorists”.

So, as an experiment, let us imagine that Theresa May is a terrorist.

It’s not that hard to imagine… she’s the head of an organisation that preaches messages of hate to frighten people, snatches people off planes for intimidation, targets certain people in the streets and, of course, occasionally shoots innocent people dead.

Er, okay, this is just a thought experiment, isn’t it?

Anyway, since Ms May doesn’t believe “terrorists” deserve Human Rights, then let’s see how well she does without them, shall we?

Let’s call her a “terrorist”.

Shouldn’t we have to prove that?

Well, a Fair Trial is one of her Human Rights, so I guess not.

So we’ll lock her up.

Oh, no we can’t do that because Liberty is one of her Human Rights… oh hang on.

But shouldn’t she be allowed to hire a lawyer at least?

Well, we’ll just seize all her money. No protection of Property without your Human Rights you see.

But we can’t just do that because of what she thinks… can we?

As it happens Freedom of Thought is another of those pesky Human Rights.

Isn’t she allowed to protest?

Aaaaactually, guess what, Free Speech is one of her Human Rights, so that’s gagged her too.

You can’t actually gag her though, that’s cruel and unusual!

But, since you mention it, Protection from Torture and Degrading Treatment is, guess what, a Human Right.

If you carry on like this you’ll end up killing her!

Funnily enough, I was just coming to that…



So Ms May, if you want to abolish the Human Rights Act, which rights don’t you want? It’s not hard; there’s only ten of them:

1. the Right to Life
2. the Right to Protection from Torture and Degrading Treatment
3. the Right to Protection from Slavery
4. the Right to Liberty and Freedom
5. the Right to a Fair Trial and No punishment without Law
6. the Right to respect for Private Life, including the right to Marry
7. the Right to Freedom of Thought, Religion and Belief
8. the Right to Free Speech and Free Assembly and Protest
9. the Right to Freedom from Discrimination
10. the Right to Protection of your Property


*Or was that was the Daily Heil.

Day 4616: No Shit Sherlock

Wednesday:

Cool as a Cumberpatch

I have to confess that I am disappointed that Cap'n Clegg's response to the detention of David Miranda and the destruction of data at the Graniad has been measured rather than robust. I can understand it - and Nick Thornton makes a good case for considering the two cases separately - but I'm still less than happy that the case for Civil Liberties has to be made by a silent protest from a famous actor when there are Liberal Democrats in government who should be doing so.

A bit less measured and an bit more Mark Pack and Julian Huppert please. And where exactly IS Jeremy Browne?

PS:

Well done old friend to Mr Nigel Booth for letter in the Graun.

Day 4614: Miranda (Not the Funny One)

Monday:

Mr David Miranda, a passenger en route from Berlin to Brazil and not entering the UK, has been detained at Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act 2000, and held for the full nine hours allowed under that Act before being released. His telephone, laptop, games console, DVDs and other electronica have been confiscated.

Mr Miranda is not a terrorist suspect.

This is an abuse of power. This is why Labour were wrong.

We need to be abolishing these laws and Labour’s Yvette Cooper needs to be apologising for her part in enacting them, not demanding answers like a victim.

Hard Labour’s terrorism laws and security theatre are wide open to this kind of abuse and this proves it. Their excuse at the time – “we would never abuse these laws” – we already shown to be hollow, if not downright mendacious, when Walter Wolfgang was arrested at their own Party Conference. But they are shown to be absurd in their cries “oh the Evil Coalition” – and who left the “Evil Coalition” with all these power to abuse, eh? And who warned you not to do anything so bloody stupid?

Nevertheless, as members of the Coalition, this certainly happened on “our watch” and for that we are to blame.

The first question has to be whether we are directly to blame: we urgently need to discover who ordered this and why.

“Who?” is either a minister who needs to be made accountable, or someone in the police or security services possibly acting ultra vires.

The Grauniad is quick to conflate the police/borders authority/security services who detained Mr Miranda with “the UK government”. (Irrelevantly to the illegality of his detention but possibly not unconnectedly Mr Miranda is the partner of one of the Grauniad journalists reporting on the whistle-blower Edward Snowdon and the American NSA, and “intimidation” has quickly – but plausibly – been suggested as a motive.)

I suspect that that is slack reporting rather than bias, but as a first step we need to establish (in decreasing order of culpability) if anyone in government – presumably the Home Office – ordered this, or were aware of this before the fact, or during the fact.

“Why?” then leads to questions of greater UK involvement in the whole Prism/email hacking scandal, or perhaps someone being too eager to do a favour for our American cousins. The possibility of the “phone call from the State Department” being at the root of this reminds us of the dangerously subservient Blair-era relationship between US and UK.

But even if we’re not guilty of direct abuse of power, we have still failed to do our part to prevent it by rolling back the police state that the last government was intent on putting into place.

Our Freedoms Bill was watered down and we have failed to move the Civil Liberties agenda on far enough. Theresa May’s Home Office in particular is rife with “little initiatives” to try and increase rather than decrease the powers that police and security services already have. Every success is treated as proof they need these powers; every failure is cited as evidence that they need more power.

Labour and Conservatives have both demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with our Rights and Liberties, except that you can trust them to take liberties with your rights while handing over more money and power to the security industry.

As Liberal Democrats even we cannot be trusted with this sort of power. That is why we must urgently press to repeal those powers to take the temptation away.

We need to take a stand on this.

Day 4529: No New Powers for the Security Services At Least Until They Explain Why They Failed to Use the Ones They've Got!

Sunday:

World War Z is upon us this summer – not the Brad Pitt monster flick, but the return of ZOMBIE LEGISLATION that we thought Cap'n Clegg had laid to rest with his trusty Silver Veto in the Quad (or Crus-he-fix).

Let's hammer this point hard: reports suggest that the security services KNEW about the murderers in advance and had all the powers they needed to find out what they were up to but just DIDN'T.

And there is a REPORT being prepared to EXPLAIN what went wrong.

Until we've had that report, calling for NEW powers is WILDLY IRRESPONSIBLE!


Normally, we ROUNDLY CONDEMN people who use the MURDER of a soldier to further their political agenda through a CAMPAIGN OF TERROR... so why do we let the Home Secretary and the alliance of Sinister Ex-Ministers from Hard Labour and Mr "something of the night" Howard to get away with it?

Watching the FAWNING Mate-of-Dave Nick Robinson standing in for Andy Marrmite (POOR Ms Facility Kendal must have needed at least two showers afterwards), we were "treated" to the vile former Hopeless Secretary and even more Hopeless Shadow Chancellor Mr Alan "I'm Selling A Book You Know" Johnson & Johnson appearing to agree with Mr Eric Pickled (and how have we come to such a pass when we have to say, "Hurray for Eric Pickled"?!) that it was "difficult in a free country" to surviel every citizen 24/7... only to go on to expound "these things are so much easier in CHINA".

Well OF COURSE massive intrusion on ordinary folks and trampling on their civil liberties is "easier" in China – China is a FLUFFING COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP WITH THE WORST HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD ON THE PLANET.

What a NUMPTY!

But, alas, Mr Johnson & Johnson was not alone in the NUMPTY stakes, as Nick Mate-of-Dave soon demonstrated with his penetrating line of questioning:

"So, Home Secretary, are there any other ways in which we can roll over and let you PROBULATE us for our own good?"

Yes, Mrs Theresa Nuts-in-May (coincidentally it IS May and she is...) was on to say how she had ALWAYS been in the "I want to open your every private letter and know every person you ever meet or talk to" camp.

We'd HOPED Mr Mate-of-Dave had set up the opening questions about the inquiry into the FAILINGS of the security services so he could follow through with the OBVIOUS line of "How can you ask for MORE powers when you can't even operate the EXISTING legislation?"

Sadly, he seemed to prefer a line of: "Isn't it true that we'd all be much safer if you knew what colour KNICKERS we were all wearing, oh SAINTLY Theresa?!"

What an EVEN BIGGER NUMPTY!


If someone crashes the car, you DON'T reward them with a faster car. They've shown they cannot control the car they've got.

If someone blows a fortune on the gee-gees, you don't reward them with a BIGGER fortune. NO, Mr Oboe, you don't. They've shown they cannot handle the money they've got.

So why if someone is a failure with the powers they've got should we even THINK about giving them extensive and intrusive new powers? It's MADNESS.

Captain Clegg needs to be answering the question FIRMLY and FAIRLY: the Home Secretary should be EXPLAINING why her department FAILED before making ANY power grab for MORE legislation.

He should ask her WHY, if the security services seem like they're saying that monitoring the THOUSANDS of people they ALREADY have powers to monitor is TOO DIFFICULT, WHY is the solution to monitor MILLIONS of people?! And she'd better have a good answer!

In fact, Liberal Democrats should go further and say there is now a BIG case for Parliament to conduct POST-LEGISLATIVE scrutiny on some of those DRACONIAN laws that the Home Office have had passed in the last few years – remember R.I.P.A? – and ask some SEARCHING QUESTIONS about where those powers have been used, have they made us any safer and have they gone FURTHER than Parliament intended when MPs were told that those laws too were "necessary" to fight the War on Terra too.

World War Z says that if we can trace their zombies back to where it started we can put a STOP to it.

Time Parliament was doing the same!

Day 4394: The Turn of the Tide

Friday:

Never give up hope.

Would I personally have celebrated the halfway point of our shackling to the Nasty Party by voting for a 1% cap on most working age benefits, another miserable compromise, watering down slavering Tory attacks on the less well off, because something is better than nothing?

Would I want to be in a place where anyone has even heard the phrase "triple dip"?

Would I call the first half of this Coalition a SUCCESS? After TUITION FEES, the NHS bill, the AV debacle, Lords Reform failing, and just Jeremy Hunt...

But Hard Labour want to ban FROSTIES.

The considered response of Her Majesty's Loyal Opportunists to the economic crisis and the health of the nation is... to outlaw a sugared breakfast cereal*.

Ladies and gentlebums, things could CLEARLY be a WHOLE LOT WORSE!

I wouldn't be QUITE so smug if I were the Labour Party on 40% in the polls given their historical propensity for dropping 10% between their mid-term and polling day, often just over the course of an election campaign.

At the moment, if you want to voice discontent, or even just grumble about the state of things, then as opposition goes they're the only game in town.

But if you look at what they're OFFERING it's just MORE OF THE SAME – more borrowing, more PFI schemes, more borrowing, a temporary VAT cut, did I mention more borrowing – another meal of reheated TURKEY, leftovers from the Mr Frown era, based on the assumption that NOTHING HAS CHANGED (except a few banks are not so popular anymore) in a World where EVERYTHING is different.

Their answer to the question raised by the 1% benefit threshold – "how would you tackle the alternative of a three billion pound overspend on the benefit bill?" – is the simply fatuous "we would have more people in employment". If Governments could DO that, do you think the Coalition wouldn't? (Actually, some people DO think that, but we'll take sane commentators only, please.) Governments of all colours have shown again and again that they are VERY BAD at creating jobs (except by directly employing people which, by simple maths, costs MORE than any possible "savings").

Labour's NEW policies have not yet been tested because, well, (banning Frosties aside) they haven't GOT any new policies. Mr Balloon tried the tactic of having no policies and springing "the Big Society" on us during his manifesto launch. History tells us this that is NOT the strategy of a WINNER.

HINDSIGHT makes it SO easy to score hits off the Coalition, and off Cap'n Clegg (now on Pirate Radio!) in particular. No one has EVER done this before, a Coalition in the era of Presidential Politics, and Parties considered to be monolithic rather than the fluid pre-War groupings. I don't remember ANYONE mapping out a way to do this, let alone a BETTER way to do this.

So if you think we should have gone for DIFFERENTIATION sooner (from Day One)... you're forgetting that we were OPTIMISTIC, we wanted this government to be SYNTHESIS, a great reforming government, the best of Liberal AND Conservative traditions, and that the Coalition Agreement looked like it could deliver that. AND we were OPTIMISTIC that the voters would see what we were doing and approve of it as "grown up politics" – kind of like the voters always SAID that that was what they wanted.

OPTIMISM isn't WRONG. OPTIMISM is what you need if you are to be creative; it's the power you need to drive great change and to carry people with you.

DIFFERENTIATION is a strategy for when SYNTHESIS isn't working. DIFFERENTIATION is for when voters are BLAMING you for compromise rather than AGREEING there must be give and take. To have adopted DIFFERENTIATION from Day One would have been to abandon any chance of greatness for this Government.

Of course it DIDN'T WORK. It's a classic PRISONER'S DILEMMA – the optimal strategy is for BOTH SIDES to work together. But GAME THEORISTS tell you your PERSONAL STRATEGY is always better to SHAFT your partner. There were a determined band of Tories (up to and including Master Gideon) who WERE practising differentiation from Day One. But that wasn't down to us.

Did they "outplay" us? That depends on whether you think being in Government is a GAME or a serious attempt to make things BETTER for people. And that's not to say that certain parliamentarians (up to and including Master Gideon) DO think of it as a GAME.

In those terms, in the short term, the answer is yes. Obviously yes. They set out to destroy Lib Dem policy after Lib Dem policy (or, still more accurately, COALITION POLICY after COALITION POLICY) and won quite a lot.

Mind you, the price is that they have made the Conservative Party unelectable FOREVER. At least as it is presently constituted. There will never, ever be another majority Conservative government. Too much of their Party now will not come in from the RIGHT. Up to and including Master Gideon and his lust for a tax cut which, by giving handouts to the rich, broke the Tories in the opinion polls. And EVERY Tory Prime Minister of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century from Balfour through to Lord Blairimort will tell you you can ONLY win from the Centre.

Which doesn't help build a Liberal Agenda for the SECOND HALF of this Coalition.

It is hard to remain OPTIMISTIC.

That's not to underplay the areas where we ARE making a big difference: in GREEN ENERGY and GREEN ECONOMY; or the work Mr Dr Vince is doing to create APPRENTICESHIPS and support and invest in British success industries; or the prospect of EQUAL MARRIAGE.

But we see ever more BARKING MAD policies being brought forward by our Conservatory uncivil partners – this week: "let's privatise the probation system!" – while constitutional and institutional reform founders.

(And the Prime Monster tosses us a bone of "fixing primogeniture" – our process for picking a Head of State may be undemocratic, promote privileged and the corruption that goes with a fixed establishment, and strangle innovation with nostalgia, but at least it will no longer be inherently sexist! The inclusion of persons married to a Catholic, who would formerly have been barred, does not WIDELY increase the pool of potential candidates. Prince Charles – more in sorrow than anger no doubt – declares his opposition to even this little reform lest, get this, some future second child should try to take the country to the European Court because HE thinks HE should have inherited ahead of his SISTER. As though a court case like that wouldn't end the whole monarchy problem for us right there and then. Charlie has always been a big one for his PRIVILEGES and, unlike his mother, never really grasped that it's actually about his DUTIES.)

As a Party we are not immune to the voices of complaint and the "I told you so" tendency. It's all too easy for us to fall back on scorn and mockery when the Party hierarchy try to suggest a "message".

We NEED a "message" if we're going to be heard at all when the LANGUAGE of the national debate has become increasingly STRIDENT and DIVISIVE, with the Parties on BOTH sides of us seeking to DIVIDE and CONQUER. If it's not outright CLASS WAR, setting poor against poorer, then it's taking INFLAMMATORY ANTI-IMMIGRATION rhetoric right up to the edge of borderline racist... and sometimes jumping right over. And if this is an age of UNREASONABLE debate, let us not ever forget Labour's contribution: screaming "TRAITOR" without rhyme or reason for two years solid. How exactly was THAT going to lead to nuanced comment?

To be halfway fair to Hard Labour, in the IMPOTENCE of OPPOSITION and the ABSENCE of POLICIES, all they've GOT is NAME CALLING. The Conservatories however are discovering the IMPOTENCE of being in OFFICE – taking the BLAME for EVERYTHING and able to change NOTHING. And last year's Budget put them fully in the frame, no longer having us as their lightning rod.

In part because we're "centrists" but more because we encourage DIVERSITY – including in opinion – Liberal Democrats are HILARIOUSLY BAD at this sort of SLANGING MATCH politics. ("Alarm Clock Britain" anyone?). We, far more than the one-idea-fits-all Parties, need to be able to EXPLAIN ourselves. Hopefully Cap'n Clegg's half-hour-a-week broadcasts – talking in SENTENCES – will do more good than any number of silly SOUNDBITES.

We need to EARN ourselves a hearing and – very gradually – we ARE winning back the right to be heard.

And then we need to have something WORTH hearing.

Far too much of what our MPs and especially our Ministers come out with is TECHNOCRATIC and MANAGERIAL. Let's have something to say that is a wee bit POSITIVE. It doesn't have to be EXPENSIVE; just LIBERAL will do.

For example:

Our parliamentarians need to be more OUTSPOKEN in OPPOSITION to the creeping SECURITY AGENDA – it's not just about the taking of liberties, it's EXPENSIVE too, and we can really make a case for NOT wasting millions and billions on security theatre.

We need to say that our aim of FAIRER TAX also means aiming for SIMPLER TAX – fewer loopholes, harder to dodge. Master Gideon has proved himself as much of a TINKERER as Mr Frown. We want to be saying we will cut through all the complex rules and make a tax system that people – not least the people at HMRC who have to run it – can actually understand.

And we need to speak more positively about FREEDOMS – freedom of speech, pushing the changes to libel laws much further; freedom to exchange and innovate on the web, reforming copyright laws to encourage creative talent, not monolithic rights holders, and supporting open-source programming though government and civil service choices; freedom from conformity, so let's talk more about ROLLING BACK the things that are illegal and less about making more crimes. The law should be there to PROTECT people, not INTRUDE on and PUNISH them for being different.

And while were' about it, we should be much more positive about how HUMAN RIGHTS are a GOOD THING. And that they are GOOD RIGHTS to HAVE: the right to NOT BE KILLED; the right to NOT BE LOCKED UP without a fair trial and a good reason; the right to HOLD OPINIONS; the right to MEET OTHER PEOPLE. They're all very simple. And people DO NOT lose their human rights – not even very bad people, in fact ESPECIALLY not very bad people – because YOU wouldn't want to be in IRAN or KOREA or RUSSIA or GUANTANAMO and suddenly told that you've lost YOUR human rights! ALL humans have human rights, and if you say otherwise, you're saying people are SUB-human and, well, there was a WAR about that.

Basically, we need to say why Liberal Democrats will make things BETTER!


So let's play FLUFFY NOSTRADAMUS for a second.

Mr Stephen Tall says we shouldn't count on TOTAL Liberal Democrat Wipe-out at the next election, so what MIGHT happen?

The election of 2015 becomes increasingly interesting. Or rather the electionS of 2015. Because I think there's every chance that we will see at least two if not THREE(!) elections next time.

We and the Tories WILL lose seats, no doubt about it. But Labour won't have done enough to achieve a majority on their own. And they'll play SILLY-BUGGERS about doing a deal with surviving Liberal Democrats. So they will try and run a minority Government (what they secretly – and not so secretly – wanted all along). And it will collapse, possibly as soon as they try to get a Budget through the House and it triggers a Sterling crisis.

Repeat THAT a couple of times over the Summer and people might just start to get the message that Coalitions are better than Hard Labour's monomania too.



*Cornflakes were, of course, invented as a cure for... well, never minds that; "They're Grrrr...ievously contributing to the obesity crisis!" says a Labour spokesperson.

Day 4112: Oh Dear Federal Conference Committee

Saturday:



Please, please, please read this GOLDEN posting from Mr Dave and then take the time to write – POLITELY – to the FCC (conferenceinformation@libdems.org.uk) about their BLITHERING proposals to let the POLICE decide who can come to OUR Conference.

Please remind them that we're the Liberal DEMOCRATS and not the "Liberal DO-WHAT-THE-FUZZ-SAYS-OCATS".

Only POLITELY.

Here's what Daddy Richard wrote:

I am distressed to learn from Andrew Wiseman's article for Liberal Democrat Voice of 14th April that once again you are considering conceding to the police the right to conduct checks on which of our members are permitted to attend Federal Conference.

The most important concern is that this is clearly an unwarranted constraint on the right of Party members to attend and participate in conference. The ability of the police to deny access to the democratic process – no matter what safeguards and party committees are required to give their approval – is illiberal.

If the police wish to stop you voting in a General Election, they are required to arrest you, and convict you by presenting evidence to a court. The proposals outlined by Andrew in his piece make no mention of whether the member in question will even be informed that the police have raised an objection, much less afforded the right to make a defence, which is clearly against natural justice.

We should be opposing this, not making it a part of our processes.

Second there is the question of intrusion. It is in the nature of state bureaucracies to gather more data simply because they can. I note, appalled, that it is necessary to "insist" on data being deleted after it is used. The routine assumption being that the police are entitled to keep data on private citizens once they have gathered it, just because! Again, we ought to resist this on principle. And on top of the general point, there are particular issues concerning the privacy of some LGBT+ members that are really not properly addressed by the proposals. As the Party that would like to think of ourselves as the most inclusive and welcoming, are we really happy to be seen closing the door to an important community?

Thirdly, but perhaps most likely to carry you, it seems that this proposal would be expensive and counter-productive, diverting limited police resources into performing background checks and away from measures that might have a measurable effect on the security of the conference. The examples Andrew listed in his piece as given by the police – the Brighton bombing and the Norwegian gunman – were both committed by individuals who were not registered for the conference and would therefore not have been prevented by any background check. Indeed, I should be grateful to know if accreditation has prevented any terrorist attack. Has any terrorist ever registered for the event which they intended to attack? Were they picked up by a review of their past associations?

I am highly concerned that the purpose of accreditation is to give the impression of security while not actually making anyone any safer. And indeed, by diverting resources, actually making the conference less safe.

Fourthly, I am sure that I do not need to remind you that conference passed a motion at Birmingham that specifically said:

"Conference therefore calls upon... The Party President to ensure that conference arrangements respect Article 6 of the federal constitution which provides that Local Parties elect representatives and that no other body within or without the party has the power to exclude in advance their attendance at conference."

(see: HERE {pdf})

To summarise: the proposal for conference accreditation is illiberal, anti-democratic, intrusive, unlikely to deliver any increase in security and quite possibly dangerously wasteful of police time and money and against the Party Constitution and the express will of Federal Conference.

I therefore ask you to please think again.



Yours faithfully,



Richard Flowers
Tower Hamlets Conference Representative

PS:

More on this from Auntie Caron and Uncle Stephen O'the Glenn
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Day 4110: Snooper Powers aka This Must Be Stomped On With Giant Fluffy Elephant Feet!

Monday:



Leaks to the press say that the government – NB: authoritarian idiot branch (note to Cap’n Clegg: please ensure this is confined to Conservatory rabble) – are proposing to “maintain” our security forces' ability to fight baddies (or indeed anyone they think is looking at them funny) by MASSIVELY INCREASING the scale and scope of their powers.

Simple solution, Cap’n Clegg NEEDS to make a statement: “This is the Conservatories FLYING A KITE. You know as well as I do that I and my Party aren't going to put up with this sort of STUFF AND NONSENSE. Case closed.”

We are NOT in a competition to see who can be the most “not quite as EVIL as Hard Labour”.

We are the FLUFFING LIBERAL PARTY. We ROLL BACK this kind of thing; we do NOT ROLL OVER for it!

That is all.
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Day 3509: Mr Chris Grayling should NOT be allowed out on his own

Tuesday:


Dear the Coalition, please remember that Mr Chris Grayling is NOT SAFE to be let out without a RESPONSIBLE ADULT present to SIT ON HIS HEAD whenever he starts spouting reactionary nonsense. Thank you.

Mr Balloon knew this before the General Election and had him quietly bundled away and locked in the playpen with Master Gideon for the duration.

But this morning he somehow managed to slip his training reins and get into the The Today Programme studio and, before anyone could stop him, started saying he would set BOUNTY HUNTERS on BENEFIT SEEKERS.

Let me just say this: SIGH.

In the firstly place, would it be REMOTELY possible to get through just one week without pandering to the Daily Hate Mail's desire to criminalise poverty and LAY OFF the people on benefits?

Handy BBC graphic shows us that deliberate fraud costs us THE SAME as mistakes by the benefits people. Here is an idea for FREE: it is CHEAPER to give your own staff proper training than it is to employ some consultants to start snooping through innocent folks credit card histories. So sort out your OWN mistakes before you start getting heavy with the people you are supposed to be helping.

And it's not even a good TARGET. As Auntie Jennie points out, tax evasion costs the rest of us FIFTEEN TIMES as much as scamming benefits!

Just one fraud, the VAT "carousel fraud" – where a fake importer/exporter claims to import stuff, say mobile phones or computer chips or, these days, carbon credits, then sells the stuff to a "partner" who then exports it again (possibly without the goods ever physically moving), reclaiming the VAT on the UK purchase while the first fella makes off into the night without paying the VAT on the UK sale back to the taxman – was estimate to cost the British taxpayer between a half and two billion pounds in 2008/09 according to Customs & Revenue's own accounts (large pdf); and it is estimated to cost over SIXTY billion euros across the EU.

Let me put that another way: if you set out to clear up fraud, you expect some success and some failure. If you target Tax Evasion and your successes only succeed in cutting it by 10%, you will still save MORE money than if you cleaned up 100% of benefit fraud.

Just think about what is REALISTICALLY ACHIEVABLE: clawing back just ONE pound in ten sounds like it might be doable; saying you'll clear up all the cheating on benefits which has defied governments from the hard right (Queen Maggie) to the also hard right (Lord Blairimort)… ridiculous.

And as I KEEP on having to say: the more COMPLICATED you make the system, the more likely you make it that SMART CROOKS will get the money and NEEDY POOR PEOPLE won't!


But in the secondly place, what, I mean WHAT in the name of all that is fluffy are we doing hiring so-called "Bounty Hunters" to start electronically snooping on people?

No, I'm not going to make this a gag about coconut flavoured chocolate bars, this is SERIOUS.

I mean did we not just go to a LOT of trouble to get RID of a Government that trampled roughshod over such trivia as the INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNISED HUMAN RIGHT TO PRIVACY?

Government's SHOULD NOT be routinely spying on their own people, effectively treating every benefit claimant as a guilty-until-forever-cos-you're-NEVER-proved-innocent potential fraudster. Hard Labour showed that governments find it all too easy to stumble from treating their voters as potential Stasi-esque informants to collusion in rendition and torture.

As for Mr Grayling, saying "oh, but the information is commercially available" is NO EXCUSE, you slap-headed NINCOMPOOP. So are LANDMINES but that didn't stop us signing a treaty that said it was MORALLY WRONG to use them ever again.

There are LOTS of things that are "commercially available" – pirate videos, Thai lady-boys, black market uranium – but would Mr Grayling suggest that the Government should dabble in any of those? No, actually, let's not go there.

For all that the Hard Labour opportunists were "milking it" over the weekend, we know that the Coalition IS capable of seeing policies that are BLOODY STUPID and changing its collective mind.

So, never mind Dog, the Bounty Hunter; this is a DOG of a POLICY. Let's send it to Battersea Dogs home. Along with the MILK.

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Day 3186: There IS a God… Delusion!

Monday:


The Greatest Show at Conference is clearly Mr Professor Richard Dawkins.

Swoon!

Yesterday he was introducing a VERY important amendment to our Civil Liberties paper, saying we very urgently need to reform the LIBEL laws so that Scientists can DISAGREE and more importantly WRITE about disagreeing based on EVIDENCE and not fear the SLAPP of a gagging order.

Today he was reading from his new book, an exploration of all the wonderful evidence for the Fact of Evolution. I particularly enjoyed the [warning: facetious] March of the Penguins from Mount Ararat to the South Pole.



In other conference news, the hall was packed out for the speech by Mr Dr Vince "the power" Cable, raising Wealth Taxes on million-pound mansions to help raise thresholds to put up to £700 back into the pockets of low to middle earners.

But I was there from the start of business – did you KNOW that Conference opens with a crash zoom onto Bournemouth from SPACE… just like the start of Doctor Who? – so not only did I hear the excellent debates on Parliamentary Expenses and an Inquiry into British Complicity in Torture, but ALSO caught the less attended but also rather good speech by Mr Tim Far'n'away (performed Balloon-style without reading from his notes) AND Mr Brian's very excellent panel on crime and prison policy, with some really interesting guests.

Terrifying facts learned this week so far (from the Civil Liberties debate): the DNA database already holds samples for a quarter of all black men… and because of the way your DNA holds SIMILARITIES with that of your family, this means that the ENTIRE black population of Great Britain can now be profiled though the database. Just THINK about that for a minute.


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Day 3021: Top Cop Dropped – Did he jump or was he, ahem, pushed?

Thursday:


Today I am practicing with the word: HYPOTHETICAL.

Here is a HYPOTHETICAL situation: the Prime Monster is VERY VERY cross that his massive photo-opportunity important world summit to rescue his job the planet's economy from the mess that he caused didn't cause, has been suddenly overshadowed by another DEATH linked to POLICE SPIN and COVER-UP.

Hypothetically… HYPOTHETICALLY… his spin doctors summon the crème de Scotland Yard in a hurry to brief them on "operation: LOOK! TERRORISTS!" And, all in a lather, PC Plod comes rushing round with the "who can we bang up" list without thinking to stick it in his briefcase…

No, no, no. You would have to be APPALLINGLY CYNICAL to suspect the police of rounding up a bunch of ALLEGED TERRORISTS just to bump from the headlines the story that another group of police were looking increasingly like LYING MURDEROUS THUGS. AGAIN.

But when someone dies and the police do their best to cover up their involvement it BREEDS cynicism.

When someone dies and it turns out that a policeperson gave the victim a thwack and a shove before he staggered off to have a heart-attack you can't help but have cynical thoughts

Three thoughts:

ONE – we must DEMAND that the law that says you cannot film or photograph the police must, MUST be binned immediately. Eye witness accounts of police behaviour apparently COUNT FOR NOTHING and only video footage can prove when the police lie. In which case, we must be able to gather that evidence.

TWO – while there are MANY good policepeople, it is clear that as a body our police have become POLITICISED. This is hardly surprising, the Labour Mayor Mr Ken Spivington spent years making the Met a branch of his office, and Second Home Secretary Ms Jacquie-boot Spliff has done her best to carry on that tradition.

"Kettling" has been described as a FAILURE. But it's only a failure if you assume that the AIM of the strategy is to maintain public safety and allow a calm demonstration that prevents damage to people or property. If your aim is to provoke people into acts of aggression in order to justify your own hyperbole, then wahey way to go. Instant attack on banks. Though for all we know, they were only breaking in to the Royal Bank of Scotland to get to the TOILETS! The police promised us a "Summer of Rage"; you might start to think that they are going out of their way to ENGINEER that!

The police have an AGENDA, and it is no longer certain that that is the same as serving the public.

THREE – Our news media are all completely COMPLICIT. The reporting of the G20 protests might as well have been dictated from the Scotland Yard press office.

And they seem to have no problem with blithely accepting the policepeople's version of YET ANOTHER "terrorism" story even at the same time as they are (SHAMELESSLY) reporting the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what the police were telling them only the day before. "Hero police tackle terrorist threat" jostles for front pages with "police-state thugs in death attack" with barely a blink.

And the resignation of a policeperson for a silly mistake seems to warrant MORE COVERAGE – the The Today Programme were like kids on tartrazine, so excited were they to have Bojo the Clown announcing live on air that he had accepted the resignation of a senior police man – than the need to address SERIOUS and DELIBERATE LYING about the LETHAL police strategy.


The resignation of Mr Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick CHANGES the STORY again – maybe not to the "successful anti-terrorist heroes" that the government wanted, but it's still not "POLICE-STATE KILLS INNOCENT MAN… AGAIN!"

That's classic SPIN.

So it was JOLLY HANDY that one policeperson was willing to "fall on his sword"…

…in case we started to take a SERIOUS look at all the others.

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Day 3019: Put the Police on Notice

Tuesday:

I guess this means I'm on another database!

Thanks to Auntie Helen via Facespace, and you can have your own go here.

Day 2949: Clogg – The Crisis in the Economy IS a Crisis in our Politics

Tuesday:


We enter the Portcullis House of Her Majesty’s newly-renamed Cashpoint Fortress of Westminster, where Daddy Richard’s civil liberties are again slapped in the face and his face is slapped all over the LASER DISPLAY MONITOR of the new security system, so that his digital identity can be recorded in yet another Government DATABASE*, there to be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, referenced, cross-referenced, sold to the highest bidder, sent to the lowest common denominator, and ultimately lost on a government memory-stick on a train somewhere between Paddington and Swansea.

Appropriately, we were there to hear Mr Clogg address Charter 88 (now Unlock Democracy) for their 20th anniversary get-together.

Mr Clogg's Charter

Introduced by Baroness Helena Kennedy, styling herself a “Liberal Socialist”, and with a reply from Dame Ferdinand Mount, bigging up Mr Balloon’s PR pose as a “Liberal Conservatory”, Mr Clogg spoke for quarter of an hour about the INTERTWINE-ED-NESS of Great Britain’s current economic crisis and the wretched state of Great Britain’s political settlement.

He began with an apology, an apology because of his pessimism about our current situation in spite of all the achievements that Charter 88 has, er, achieved: the Human Rights Act (under pressure as it is); Freedom of Information (much a the Government tries to twist its way out of it); Devolution to Scotland and Wales (well that seems to have worked out). Mr Clogg praised them for their stubbornness, their resilience, their sense of purpose, their sense of mission.

But, he said, for all the steps forward there had been too many steps back.

The mass CRIMINALISATION of our society, with Hard Labour Government making on average another TWO things illegal EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The lopsided, partial, unfair electoral system that gives untrammelled unaccountable power to a Government with the support of less than a quarter of the eligible voters.

And the advance of the surveillance state, the DNA databases and I.D.iot card schemes that no one ever asked for and that even this week the Government is looking to allow further pooling of data in spite of their notorious inability to keep it secure.

The opening sentence of the 1988 Charter, “We have had less freedom than we believed”, is truer now than in 1988, he said.

But what are we doing worry about “the constitution” when there’s an ECONOMIC DISASTER overwhelming us!

Well, says Mr Clogg, the manner in which we have MISMANAGED the economy is DIRECTLY linked to the way that we have conducted our politics.

The “Winner takes All” culture leads directly to “Boom and Bust”. The system that gives the government an unrepresentative majority allows it to BLUNDER ON without accountability or proper oversight or the need to listen to voices like Mr Dr Vince “the Power” Cable so that it is BOUND to make STUPID decisions. And a centralised, over-mighty executive is more susceptible to being captured by VESTED INTERESTS, like the way that the City of London has ruled the British Governments of either colour for the last TWENTY YEARS.

(Do you see how he tied that in to the Charter ’88 anniversary there!)

This is a crisis that rests on the POWERLESSNESS of the British people. The self same complaints, voiced by the people who talked to Baroness Helena on the Power Commission, the same anger, the same fury even about the way they are left out of decision making by politicians could be said about the way that the banking system didn’t hold the people in charge to account and let them spiral right OUT OF CONTROL.

And, going all YODA for a moment, Mr Clogg explains: POWERLESSNESS leads to ANGER and ANGER leads to QUESTIONING OUR LIBERAL DEMOCRACY and QUESTIONING OUR LIBERAL DEMOCRACY leads to EXTREMISTS.

Every crisis is seen as an opportunity by the extremists, the populists, the xenophobes and the bigots, thriving on people’s fear and offering the quick and easy-seeming answers, assigning blame rather than taking action, advocating insularity that (as we saw in the Great Depression) makes matters WORSE not better.


Fortunately, there is a “but”!

Dame Ferdinand, in replying, quoted LENIN (typical Conservatory!) saying Mr Clogg had “pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the will”.

“But” said Mr Clogg, the very crisis that exists ALLOWS us to think the radical things, to consider the impossible. As we nationalise banks willy-nilly, as we hand out billions to the car industry, as we RE-WRITE the whole way that Capitalism works… let us take the opportunity to re-write the way we do politics as well.

And these things go fluffy-foot in fluffy-foot!

As we bring greater accountability to Government, we can reform the City of London.

As we introduce fair elections so everyone has an equal voice, not just the vested interests, we can design an economy that caters for the needs of everyone, not just the best off.

As we open up Government to supervision by its citizens, and roll back the intrusive, unwanted surveillance state, we can open up companies to greater participation by their employees, and free the innovative spirit of Britain.

And as we make the MUCH-NEEDED reform to the House of Commoners and House of Lords Club, we can reform the short-termism of the “get rich quick” “something for nothing” culture and invest for a sustainable, prosperous, green future.

PS:

*Government efficiency being what it is, we expect that the database in question is either NHS Connecting for Health or ContactPoint.

PPS:

Mr Clogg also said that Unlock Democracy nee Charter ’88 should continue to badger, hector and embarrass politicians into working together. He said he had started his leadership by trying it: he wrote to Mr Frown and Mr Balloon about the possibility of organising a Constitutional Convention.

Mr Frown, he said, brushed him off saying: “all my reforms are perfect already”

Mr Balloon, though, was enthusiastic: “yes, yes, yes, let’s gang up on Gordon”

But then Mr Clogg spotted Conservatory Mr Davis David in the audience...

Politicians working together
(yes that IS Mr Davis David)

...and Mr Clogg welcomed his presence as a sign that politicians could work together to fix politics!

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Day 2904: Irregular Verbs

Saturday:


Ten Downing Street “issues statistics with insufficient attention to whether they are ready for publication”

The Home Office “gives confidential off-the-record briefings to favoured journalists”

Mr Damien Green “is helping the Police with their Inquiries under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act”

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Day 2846: Government Drops Dead Donkey: You May Resume Flirting By E-Mail (whatever THAT means).

Thursday:


Hooray! A small step forwards for our Civil Liberties as the Government offers "consultation" on its scheme to keep a record of every e-mail ever (presumably just in case Osama Bin Liner is either a Nigerian prince with cashflow difficulties, offering to donate one cent towards the treatment of a little baby with heart disease for every forward, or purveyor of the best herbal high on the Internet).

PS:

Does anyone see a PATTERN developing here?

Day 2845: Government Drops Dead Donkey: Dis-SATS-isfied

Wednesday:


Hooray! A small step forward for our Civil Liberties er, I mean, kids who would rather learn STUFF than just how to parrot test answers as Mr Frown's Balls cancels the unmitigated failure of tests at fourteen.

Day 2844: Government Drops Dead Donkey: Corrupt Concealed Coroners Courts Cancelled

Tuesday:


Hooray! A small step forwards for our Civil Liberties as the Government shelves plans to hold inquests in secret so that no one can criticise the Minister for (Not) Providing Flack Jackets.

Daddy is chuffed!

Day 2843: Government Drops Dead Donkey: 42 not the answer

Monday:


Hooray! A small step forwards for our Civil Liberties as the House of Lords Club massively defeats Mr Frown's "Look how butch I am" internment-without-trial plans, and the Government publicly humiliatingly er I mean quietly drop it from their latest Mad Terrorism Bill.