Day 6623: Trigger the TIGgers

Monday

Apparently, there’s a new political absolutely-not-a-Party-unless-you-ask-them-nicely on the block.

Hilariously, their website gives a list of their value, and only gives you the option to agree with all of them. Which, as I understand it, was their problem with Mr Corbyn. But there you go.

Let’s have a look anyway, and see what they believe in and see if we agree to tick any boxes, shall we?

Number 1:

Ours is a great country of which people are rightly proud, where the first duty of government must be to defend its people and do whatever it takes to safeguard Britain’s national security.

This is not a good start.

Leaning heavily into the nationalist, jingoist language of the Leave campaign, and subsequent government opposition love-in, and putting authoritarian “protection” as their first duty.

It’s a bizarre choice to open their manifesto rejecting Mr Corbyn’s pandering to the presumed category of “Labour-supporting white working class leave voter”… with a direct appeal to that same category.

Number 2:

Britain works best as a diverse, mixed social market economy, in which well-regulated private enterprise can reward aspiration and drive economic progress and where government has the responsibility to ensure the sound stewardship of taxpayer’s money and a stable, fair and balanced economy.

So we’re starting to see what they are doing here, which is if you want to look at the positive fluffy foot, picking and choosing values they agree with from across the political spectrum, and if you want the cynical negative fluffy foot, trying to have something that will appeal to everyone.

In this case, a typical wet centrist Tory. Wonder who they could be trying to recruit?

Number 3:

A strong economy means we can invest in our public services. We believe the collective provision of public services and the NHS can be delivered through government action, improving health and educational life chances, protecting the public, safeguarding the vulnerable, ensuring dignity at every stage of life and placing individuals at the heart of decision-making.

Now we are flashing back to core Labour belief in big government shall provide. We really are touring all the Parties, aren’t we.

Number 4:

The people of this country have the ability to create fairer, more prosperous communities for present and future generations. We believe that this creativity is best realised in a society which fosters individual freedom and supports all families.

And so, if it wasn’t for all that had come before, and the fact that obviously it’s OUR TURN, then this might be interesting – trust in people, and expressing belief in creativity through freedom. This is written to appeal to orange book Liberals

Number 5:

The barriers of poverty, prejudice and discrimination facing individuals should be removed and advancement occur on the basis of merit, with inequalities reduced through the extension of opportunity, giving individuals the skills and means to open new doors and fulfil their ambitions.

And this is a Coalition-era Cleggity interpretation of “no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity”. Or if you prefer “allowing everyone to get on in life”.

Number 6:

Individuals are capable of taking responsibility if opportunities are offered to them, everybody can and should make a contribution to society and that contribution should be recognised. Paid work should be secure and pay should be fair.

This is, to me, a weirdly Labour view of what Liberalism is about – note that people “SHOULD” make a contribution, and the insistence on fixing paid work. This is more derivative of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Protestant work ethic, than anything truly Liberal, in spite of the language trying to nod at freedom from poverty.

Number 7:

Our free media, the rule of law, and our open, tolerant and respectful democratic society should be cherished and renewed.

Begging the question “but how?”

These values are the bedrock and necessary foundation for a functioning democracy. The fact is we DON’T have a free media and the rule of law has been and continues to be flouted by the Leave Campaign and the May government. Tolerance and respect are not words that could describe the current political climate either.

So how do we cherish what is failing and dead?

Number 8:

We believe that our parliamentary democracy in which our elected representatives deliberate, decide and provide leadership, held accountable by their whole electorate is the best system of representing the views of the British people.

And not any more referendums!

Which is fair actually. Asserting the primacy of representative democracy really is a necessary starting point to rowing back the anything goes interpreting of the referendum outcome and Willa Thepeople populism.

But it’s not enough, given they are standing under a big slogan of “Politics is Broken. Let’s Change it”.

If the answer is “change it back to what it was before we uncorked the genii of promising millions of people their voices would be listened to” then this lot are going to make things EVEN WORSE.

Number 9:

In order to face the challenges and opportunities presented by globalisation, migration and technological advances, we believe the multilateral, international rules-based order must be strengthened and reformed. We believe in maintaining strong alliances with our closest European and international allies on trade, regulation, defence, security and counter-terrorism

Again begging the question “but how?”

Is membership of the EU are prerequisite? An option? An extra? Or ruled out?

Number 10:

As part of the global community we have a responsibility to future generations to protect our environment, safeguard the planet, plan development sustainably and to act on the urgency of climate change.

We are back to them picking up the agenda of other Parties. Just to cover their bases with any green voters they can attract

And Number 11:

Power should be devolved to the most appropriate level, trusting and involving local communities. More powers and representation should be given to local government to act in the best interests of their communities.

And so we end (on an odd number of values) with coming again to an authoritarian/Labour-eye view of what they think Liberal devolution is about.

I’d prefer to see *decisions* devolved to local government and the power given to *local people* to hold their councils accountable.

Labour has always thought they had the answers, and that anyone who questions that is a “Tory” or a “Class Traitor” or some other reason to reject having their homework marked.

So what does all this MEAN?

Well, probably NOTHING.

It’s just another flash in the pan of the febrile post-referendum, pre-Brexit fustercluck that is British politics continuing to implode under the pressure of doing something impossibly stupid in an impossibly stupid way.

The great cry of the referendum – if you can ask me to do something as moronic as to try to sum up all of the different yearnings that the vote to leave really meant – was “NOT LIKE THIS”.

(So it really should be no surprise that the only thing the House of Commons can agree on is the ridiculous Brady Amendment that says “we agree the Prime Minister’s Deal except not like this”!)

And there is just a CHANCE that BOTH Labour and Tory Parties might break up under the Brexit collapse, and that more than anything would give us the chance to change British Politics in a truly transformative way, with proportional representation and breaking up the Tory and Labour fiefdoms that mean safe seats can be given to favoured sons (and daughters, though it’s usually sons).

IF that happens, change can finally come.

THIS, though, this is not “not like THIS”. This is MORE THIS and extra custard!

This is continuity-Blairism, or more Tory-lite (all of the same policies, but you can still feel good about yourself). Tony Blair MP as anagram of I’m Tory Plan B

What it ISN’T is Liberal – there is nothing at all in their values about holding government accountable or speaking truth to power. In fact, several of them read as “power would be quite nice, thank you”.

I am happy to welcome more diversity on the political scene. But Liberal Democrats should be looking for a VERY LONG SPOON if they plan on supping with these devils.

PS, Auntie Jennie has more along these lines here…

Day 6459: Movement Pie

Friday:


Once Upon a Time, the people of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland decided that their king had got too uppity and chopped his head off.

And then, being very British about it, decided that what they really wanted was another king again, thank you very much.

And some MPs thought that things should go back to just how they were, with the King having absolute power over everything.

But some other MPs said, isn’t that what caused all the bother in the first place, and maybe unfair power is something we should do something about.

And so, in the end, Liberalism was born.


Mr Dr Vince “the Power” Cable, isn’t king of the Lib Dems. But he might want to be a bit more cautious about sticking his neck out…

Today he is making a few suggestions about how to turn the Party into a Movement. And, like the “Movement Pie” in TV’s “The Preventers” it is… “strangely unappetising”.

Captain Paddy used to have what was called the “Bungee Squad”, so that when he leapt off a cliff with a new notion, they could reel him back in. This press launch of a proposal to bounce the Party into following is more Lemming Squad – take the leap and expect all the rest of us to follow.



What is behind this is Brexit – obviously – and the cowardice of MPs in government and opposition. The Tory Rebels don’t want to split the Tory Party. The Labour moderates don’t want to split the Labour Party. Their tribalism is what is preventing Parliament coming together to stop Brexit. But that is on THEM not on US.

But creating a “safe space” for disenfranchised members of OTHER PARTIES – at the further expense of our own identity – doesn’t do us any good. Or in the long run the country any good. Last time we behaved like the only adults in the room, we agreed to a coalition and were annihilated for our pains. We no longer have the political capital to do that again! And look what has happened without Liberal voices being heard in Parliament?

I WANT more Liberal voices. So I WANT people to be Liberals, to support and join the Liberal Democrats.

But I’m actually pretty AMBIVALENT about a “supporters scheme”.

On the one fluffy foot, the more the merrier. On the other fluffy foot, this is wasting a lot of time and potentially money (especially if the Leader want’s his own Special Conference to make the changes) on PROCESS when we could be spending that time and money on telling people how GREAT Liberalism is. It looks an awful lot like the Politician’s Syllogism (“Yes, Minister”): we must do SOMETHING – THIS is something – we must do THIS!

(And didn’t we say One Member One Vote would get the members more involved? Now that that’s not worked we want to get the not-even-members more involved?)

We’re not in politics just to be a bigger club for people who like being in The Politics Club. Liberals are in politics to do something DIFFERENT, or we’d just have done the easy thing and joined one of the bigger clubs in the first place.

And that’s why this Movement Pie is the wrong way round. It starts from the idea of being welcoming – which is GOOD – but offers nothing different once everybody gets there. Worse it’s more “None of the Above”

For better or worse – usually worse – that’s why the likes of Brexit or Corbyn are brilliant recruiters: because they have something exciting that appeals to converts.

Liberal Democrats need to be bolder in offering something different, something that ENTHUSES people into signing up. Liberal ideas are a beacon that inspire people, and Liberals should always welcome aboard all the new people inspired by Liberalism.

If your only big idea is to say you’ll welcome as many people as you can find but only for more of the same (but not EVIL!), you may well find that not many people will be very interested in tucking into your biggest pie ever…!

Because it’s a Pie with no FILLING.

Oh it may be EYE-CATCHING. So is any SPECTACULAR BELLY-FLOP. But is it the right answer? Is it even answering the right question?

Because the Liberal Democrats have had, let’s be honest, bit of a problem for a bit of a while now: post-joining the Coalition, no one knows what the Party stands for.

To most people The Tories stood for the people with money, Labour stood for the people without and the Lib Dems USED to stand for “the None of the Above” Party. And then we were in government and we weren’t none of the above any more.

To possibly too many of our MPs and members, we were the “Nice Moderate in the Middle Party”, not to profligate not too evil, just right. The kind of people who thought John Major was too exciting a shade of grey. And while, in the current political climate, you can see the attraction of being the “we’re not nutters” Party, it’s also heavily contributing to the belief that we are the “We stand in the middle, we’ll stand with anyone, not for anything” Party.

Saying we will welcome all and sundry, no need to sign up to our values, and we will have any leader you like so long as you like them… if ANYTHING that is MORE OF THE SAME PROBLEM.

And THIS fluffy elephant says FLUFF OFF to that!

I am a LIBERAL and I want to see my Party doing LIBERAL THINGS – taking part in Europe, cleaning up our air, standing up for people who are a bit different, challenging the RIGHT-WING consensus of Labour and Tory Parties that immigrants are bad and big government is good.

Liberalism started off by being about taking power away from central control and giving it away. It started with the biggest centre of power of them all, the divinely appointed King. But it also became about taking away the power of other bullies over people.

We talk about Human Rights, which are to protect you from a bullying government, and about workers rights which are to protect you from a bullying employer, or about protection for minorities which are to protect you from a bullying mob.

Socialists might talk about seizing power from the capitalists; conservatives might talk about protecting the status quo. But they are just arguing about who has the power. Only Liberalism wants to abolish the idea of there being someone in power.

How we give power and freedom to people are big big questions: how do we – for example – free people from poverty? Lloyd George answered that with a People’s Budget and pensions; Beverage answered it with the Welfare State; today maybe a British dividend or universal basic income might be the answer.

But the question is still relevant.

Which means Liberalism is still relevant.

Which means WE need to have an answer to prove that WE are relevant!

Day 6200: The Triumph of the Dark. The Victory of the Light

Friday:


The shortest day. The blackest night.

The Tories tearing the country apart almost as fast as they tear each other apart. The Labour Opposition slavishly not opposing. The Lib Dems going nowhere.

Winter is here. Even your passport is turning as BLUE as a White Walker.

Seems like things have got pretty DARK recently, doesn’t it?

So, disguising myself as a BB9-E-for-Elephant droid, I got the Daddies to smuggle me into Stockport’s new cinema, The Light – half Hipster Cornflake Bar; half Interior Star Destroyer, but they do a decent hotdog – in (first) order to watch the new STAR WARS movie.

BB9-E

BB9-Esque

Which was very excellent, but about as CHEERING as Emo Kylo Ren watching a double bill of The Empire Strikes Back and The Empire Strikes Back AGAIN (it’s his favourite).


Non-spoilery review:

It’s a wonderfully faithful examining of the original ideas about “The Force of Relations” that really hasn’t been attempted at all by these movies yet.

At the same time, it completely upends what you thought it meant to be a Star Wars story, by deliberately throwing away the tropes and clichés of Campbell that have been the lynchpin of Lucas from the very beginning in part IV (if you see what I mean).

The first great twist comes in the title crawl, pointing out that actually the First Order WON halfway through The Force Awakens, but you might have missed it what with the second half of Episode VII covering a bigger remake of A New Hope. Again. Then Luke does [THAT THING] with [THAT THING].

Rey finds new ways to be feisty while learning the ways of the Force. Finn makes a new friend and learns to be braver. Captain Poe gets to double-check with BB8 about “naked Finn” before learning lessons in leadership from a lady with purple hair who is PROBABLY AUNTIE JENNIE. And Emo Kylo Ren pouts gloriously as he trembles between the Dark Side and the Light. Then HE does [THAT THING] with the [THAT THING]. Which is awesome.

So, if The Force Awakes was a reverent remake of A New Hope, then The Last Jedi is very much doing the The Empire Strikes Back Thing (yes, down to the “let us do [THAT THING] together as [THAT RELATIONSHIP] and [THAT RELATIONSHIP]”) but by DOING ITS OWN THING.

Also Green Milk.

Also you can still apparently get doughnuts once you’ve become one with the Force, as the appearance and sugar-rush of [THAT PERSON] clearly demonstrate.

On the DOWN side: the giant AT-M6 Walkers are apparently called “Gorilla Walkers” even though they are much BIGGER than the AT-ATs. (Evil metal war elephants are STILL elephants and should still be the BEST!)

Later in the week we saw an article in the Grauniad asserting that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is “as left-wing as Jeremy Corbyn”.

Now it’s EASY enough to think that MAYBE our columnist has been indulging a wee bit much on the EGG NOG at the Graun’s Winterval Cheese and Wine Do.

But perhaps he’s not ENTRIELY without a point as – mild spoilers for the STAR WARS – the BADDIES are the SPACE NAZIS.

But it’s more than just that. And, to get a teeny bit more spoilery, actually there IS a bit of a flavour of the “99%” movement about the film, both in the side-arc where some of our working-class heroes visit the casino-planet of Cantor Bight where the ultra-rich of the galaxy gamble with their ill-gotten gains or watch the races like it’s Space Ascot, and even more so in the way the narrative explicitly rejects the “Chosen One” narratives of the Prequel Trilogy for an egalitarian “The Force is for Everyone” theme.

But is that REALLY “lefty” in the Jez-We-Can Kenobi cult of personality Chosen One sort of way?

A lot of “fans” I understand are a bit Emo Kylo Ren about Luke Skywalker (of all people) saying it’s time for the Jedi to end. (That’s not a spoiler: he says it in the TRAILER. And also, that is the START of his character arc in the film, so I do recommend you go see it to see where that arc is going to take him.)

But, he IS right that that the Jedi Order was WRONG. Not because of the JEDI. Because of the ORDER.

The Jedi had decided that they would do GOOD by RULING THE GALAXY. Which is where Mr Corbyn comes in. And which isn’t that different from what the SITH wanted.

I mean, the REAL lesson of the Prequels – apart from “Don’t Let George Lucas loose with too much money and a CGI paintbox” – is beware of overthrowing your democracy for the nice kindly-seeming man who promises to solve all your problems for you by taking you back to a time that seemed simpler.

Daddy Richard was asked recently: “If you want to be an MP, why don’t you just join the Labour Party?”

To which the FLIPPANT answer is: “Have you SEEN the Labour Party?”

But, more seriously, if you REALLY HAVE SEEN the Labour Party when they get into unchallenged power, like in places like Tower Hamlets, you see how quickly power corrupts them absolutely, but also when you see that candidates like the missing-in-action MP for Sheffield Hallam are not, in fact, unusual, but products of Labour’s SYSTEM of rewarding the people who do not THINK but JUST do what the Party tells them (and behave HOWEVER the heck they want outside those parameters), then you do not want ANYTHING to do with them.

But, most seriously, this comes down to a VERY FUNDAMENTAL difference of philosophy between Socialism and Liberalism.

Socialism believes that they are doing good and will do good to you WHETHER YOU WANT THEM TO OR NOT.

Liberalism, informed by JS Mill and Harriet Taylor on the HARM PRINCIPLE, says that “doing someone good” is NOT good enough reason to override their freedom to choose; only stopping them harming someone else is reason enough to do that.

It is why Labour feel able to promise you everything you want – and rainbows and unicorns – because they will give you what THEY decide is good, regardless of whether you want it. Or even whether it really IS good. (see also, Iraq War.)

And why Liberals have to think VERY HARD before making promises like that, and by and large ASK MORE from people. We TRUST people. So we EXPECT BETTER of them.

Liberals are the real rebels.

Socialism, and the Labour Party, are just another kindly Senator Palpatine, ready to turn into the Evil Emperor, ready to bring peace and justice to the galaxy with Sith lightning and a red lightsabre. (see also, Iraq War.)

It is, as the saying goes, a DARK TIME for the galaxy, when the Conservatories are being absolutely terrible, but the alternative is not much better and not really much alternative. And the Lib Dems still on single-digit polling.

Those polling figures, I am SURE – and I mean this from TALKING to REAL people – are NOT a sign of huge love for EITHER big, establishment Party.

I mean it hardly seems likely that there is a huge wave of Love for Mrs Mayhem in the country. Pity, yes. Love, cough cough, I think not, actually.

And although there ARE a lot of people in love with Mr Jeremy – or at least their IDEA of Mr Jeremy, which is rather not the same thing at all – I think not 40% of the population.

No, those polls to me are more a sign of FEAR.

40% of people are absolutely terrified of getting a Labour government, after what the last one did to the economy; 40% of the people are absolutely horrified at the idea of the Tory government continuing after what they’ve done with austerity.

And FEAR is, as we all know by now, the path to the DARK SIDE.

Hope is thin on the ground. And the Liberal Democrats are the Party of hope. Of Freedom and the Future, which depend on hope.

So why do we do this? Why do we carry on, when it’s at its darkest and it’s so, so hard?

A brief swerve to paraphrase Dr Woo from his (soon to be her) recent adventure down a black hole: “We don’t do this for the rewards. We don’t do this because it’s fun. We do this because it’s right, it’s necessary and above all because it’s kind.”

But to return to the Star Wars movie (and this is in the trailer too):

“We are the spark. That will light the flame. That will return freedom to the galaxy!”

The Dark Side has taken control from the very beginning, from halfway through last time even if you didn’t notice. But they cannot extinguish the last of the Light. And that is why, in the end the Light will win.

May 2018 be with you.

Day 4446: The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge

Monday:


Daddy Alex has challenged Daddy Richard to come up with a brief statement of Liberal Democrat belief in fewer than a hundred and fifty words.

But stuff that, it's MY diary, so I'M having a go...

At a pinch, I THINK I can trim our core message down to:

“The Liberal Democrats stand for the freedom to live your life enjoying the rewards for your own endeavour*, governed by your own choices – with equality before the law; without harming others.”

(*and before anyone else has a go, that's "fruits of your labours" translated into language a Conservatory might understand!)

But I would wrote MORE than that (slightly) because... well. that's what I DO.

Okay, but here are reasons too:

(a) when Daddy Alex wrote “freedom for every individual”, I immediately thought of the way he always says that Liberalism works in EVER-EXPANDING CIRCLES, starting with the individual, but linking to family and community and wider and wider to the whole world. So I wanted to add that in.

(b) I wanted to make those circles go through TIME as well as SPACE, because that means including protection for the next generation, which is where the need for GREEN ACTION and FIXING the DEFICIT both come from.

and (c) I definitely wanted to include that bit from the Preamble about "poverty, ignorance, and conformity", because that in turn is a kind of a reference to Mr Beverage's evil “Five Giants”: Squalor, Ignorance, Want and Dec, Idleness, and Disease.

Though I suspect that NOWADAYS we combine into "Poverty" the giants of "Squalor" and "Want" and "Idleness" (by which of course Mr B meant "Joblessness" not "Laziness", little clue for Conservatories like Master Gideon "workers v shirkers" Osborne and Hard Labourites like Mr Liam "strivers v skivers" Byrne there); that "Sickness" means supporting the NHS which all Parties did at its creation and which all Parties still do (no matter what Hard Labour hubristically think about it being "theirs"); and I'm rather glad that we've added the evil of "Conformity" to the list.

So, I end up with:

“The Liberal Democrats stand for freedom.

Freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity.

Freedom for every individual, family, group, community, society or nation.

Freedom from inheriting the financial and environmental mistakes of earlier generations.

Freedom to live your life enjoying the rewards for your own endeavour, governed by your own choices – with equality before the law; without harming others.

To make that freedom real needs both fairness and practicality; opportunity and compassion: an economy that works, but where everyone also pays their fair share.

The Liberal Democrats believe in a better future. That’s why Liberal Democrats are working to build a fairer, greener society and a stronger economy, enabling every person to live the life they want.”

I’d also add the following riders as “derived” beliefs that follow logically from the above:

On government:
Liberal Democrats believe that government should act to protect these freedoms, but cannot be a blanket solution to solve all problems. We also accept that government itself can be a threat to freedom, that no government always knows best, so everyone must have a better say in decisions.

On taxes:
We accept that governments need to raise taxes – in order to relieve poverty, to supply education, to provide a safe and supportive society, to nurture and sustain the environment, and to encourage personal growth and freedom of expression – so we say these should be raised as fairly and as simply as possible, with a tax system that is progressive, understandable and works to release locked up wealth to work for the nation.

On Welfare:
We believe that everyone should be treated with dignity, protected when circumstances mean that they are unemployed, supported when they are unable to work, through age or disability, healed when they are sick. The Welfare State should free people to live lives free from the tyranny of dependence on their employer, making the labour market work for the individual while protecting from any failures of the free market, and enabling society to flourish by not wasting the potential of any individual.

So, the shortest form is 30 words, but the full thing has cut down Daddy's 158 words to, er, 323.

That WAS what he wanted, wasn't it?



Right, now I TAGSIE...

Auntie Jennie (Chaotic Good) for passion and heart;

Mr Mark Reckons (Lawful Neutral – for his saintly forbearance on House of Comments) for rock solid pragmatism and unshaking principle;

and I WAS going to tag Auntie Caron (Lawful Lovely) for the biggest smile and the soul of the Lib Dems... but Daddy got there first, so I will pick Uncle Andrew Hickey (Chaotic Sensible) for wisdom and sticking with the least worst Party instead!

Day 3830: Either Or-ery

Monday:


Over the weekend Mr Mark Reckons wrote a piece I'd recommend reading on "Whataboutery", which is the way to play politics dirty so that you can attack someone who's proposing a policy you actually agree with.

This is the FALLACY of the RED HERRING: introducing an irrelevant case into an argument.

I'd like to give you a companion to Mr Mark's piece with one on another FALLACY, the fallacy of the FALSE DICHOTOMY.

Most famously presented by the former-Monkey-in-Chief, President Dubbya, as "you're either with us or against us", we've been seeing a LOT of this at the moment.

The most common occurrence is the "NHS fallacy": any reform is to be opposed with cries that the "only choice" is between the status quo and "privatisation", usually "privatisation by the back door" (to get around the fact that whatever it is clearly ISN'T going to be an actual privatisation). In fact, of course, the Hard Labour government oversaw the genuine privatisation of great swathes of our NHS through their Public Finance Initiative, which saw hospitals bought up by private companies and leased back to the public at often excessive rents (which is one of the things leading to the embuggerance of the NHS in spite of above inflation increases in government spending).

Topical this week, the public sector unions are going to go on strike over pensions because the "only choice" is between their current arrangements and "absolute daylight robbery".

Although SOME people might say that it's the UNIONS' position that is: "your money or your life public services"! I mean, just WHO is holding the "gun" saying "don't make me hurt the children" here?

Actually, the double standards employed by the Unions in this "debate" are outrageous. First, the Unions announce that they are going to go on strike. Then Mr Danny sets out the government's position. Now I call that being open and honest with the public, but the Unions call it "deeply inflammatory". They call it deeply inflammatory AFTER they've already announced that – regardless of the ongoing negotiations – they've decided to call a strike. Check the dates on the last two quotes: "Public sector workers back mass strike": 15th June; Danny Alexander's speech: 17th June. Deeply inflammatory. Right.

And now we have Ms Mary Bousted, leader of the ATL teachers' union, accusing the government of a "doing a Robert Maxwell on our pensions". So that would be saying that the government is illegally taking money OUT of the teacher's pension funds and using it to prop up, what, the rest of government spending?

Well, at the moment there is NOT ENOUGH money in those pension funds to meet the expected needs of the teachers (and other workers) who are paying in. So the government has to top that up from general taxation (that's ON TOP OF the employers contributions that we make).

So that would basically be the EXACT OPPOSITE of "doing a Robert Maxwell". That would be keeping the pension fund afloat at the expense of everyone else.

They tell LIES and they call us NAMES and then they have the CHEEK to try and distract your attention from it by saying that WE'RE traducing THEM!

I'd call Ms Mary a Bousted Flush!

Meanwhile, here is another example, this time from the Labour Conspiracy website:

"Our choice is to treat people with dignity or go back to the 1930s"

Is it actually USEFUL to polarise a very difficult debate about benefits and disability into "basic dignity" versus "1930s work programmes, institutions and eugenics" (and that's really not sufficiently coded to avoid cries of Godwin's Law, now is it)?

Could we not start from a basic recognition that the government isn't TRYING to be evil?

The aim of Mr Drunken-Swerve's reforms is SUPPOSED to be to enable people who want to work to be better off if they go to work, not - as the quote implies - to euthanase the disabled.

For the last thirty years, governments have been hiding unemployment among the genuinely long-term ill. It seems to me that one thing that could actively harm the interests of those who are ill is having to support the long-term unemployed out of the same pot of benefits. So, I have to ask: would a benefit system that undid that be better able to provide basic dignity for those in genuine need?

(You COULD reasonably argue "no"; e.g. you might argue that a sort of quasi-universal provision might be more effective, but you would need to justify that as a position, rather than just start from the assertion "any reform must be bad for the long-term ill".)

And if you are going to undo that hiding of unemployment, how are you to do it?

Again, it seems that either you let anyone claim disability-related benefits and accept that the benefit will be spread so thin that it helps no one, or you accept that at some point there's going to be some kind of medical testing involved.

At which point we're down to a question of degree.

So, the proposed tests sound to be too intrusive and too impersonal. And they sound like they are FRIGHTENING people (which I have to say language of "eugenics" exacerbates, which if you think about it puts you on the same side as the scary people - even though the LabCon author is clearly also one of the ones who are scared). Surely the useful question then is: "how do we conduct any testing that we have to in the most sympathetic and dignified manner?"

Clearly there ARE problems on the Coalition side here, almost certainly stemming from a terror at the department of benefits of seeing a huge spike in unemployment claims. So clearly they want to do the undoing by not jumping people from disability benefits to unemployment benefits, but by jumping them straight from disability to work, and that's just impractical. Equally, this is clearly a terrible time to be doing any forward thinking reform because the overriding need for spending cuts will at best muddle your thinking. Like, WHICH target is your main aim? Making sure that sickness benefits go to the sick? Making sure that work actually rewards the worker? Or cutting the overall benefits bill? (And your opponents are ALWAYS going to come back at you with "it's about the cuts" "it's ideological" (yawn)!)

Wouldn't it be better to think about OUTCOMES rather than INTENTIONS? The road to the toasty place being notoriously paved with the latter (as anyone who experienced the last government can testify), saying that a policy is wrong because it does this, or because it fails to do that is both more PRACTICAL and more HONEST than saying that it is just "evil".


The biggest false dichotomies, of course, are on the ECONOMY. And BOTH SIDES are guilty of using 'em.

"We must do this or the economy will fall over!"/"We must not do this or the economy will never recover!" is the now too-familiar battleline between the Coalition and Opposition, and this obfusticates the fact that the policies of both sides are REALLY VERY SIMILAR.

"It was the fault of the last Labour government"/"it was the fault of the bankers", is another.

OF COURSE it is in the Coalition's political interest to portray the Labour Party as credit-crazed spendthrifts, ruinous wastrels who would have us in penury and our children in hock forever. We, after all, are the ones who have to be in power while the agonisingly painful policies of deficit reduction are enacted.

But equally, the Coalition has to have an answer to Hard Labour's naked political opportunism when they seek to pin every scintilla of economic agony to Master Gideon's incompetence at the reins (a "bad news" policy by the Shadow Pocket Money Thief that leads to some frankly bizarre doublethink: for example, when there is a fall in unemployment, apparently, it's because unemployment is a "lagging indicator" when it goes down but "evidence of why we need a plan B" when it goes up).

(This of course was Mr Balls recent interview with Mr Marrmite, the one where he said that "the trade unions must not walk into the trap of giving George Osborne the confrontation he wants" because he spotted that choosing between supporting strikes or supporting the government was a trap for HIM!)

Any half-way decent economist (I do NOT include Mr Bully Balls in that category) will tell you that the cuts have neither begun to bite nor had nearly enough time to change the direction of the economy. The two main things affecting the economy are that MASSIVE RECESSION that happened in 2008 (in case you somehow missed it) and the fact that the government printed like a GAZILLION POUNDS leading to inflation and devaluation. (Though neither of these things are NECESSARILY as bad as they are painted either – another false dichotomy. E.g. inflation reduces the national debt as a share of GDP – as any property owner who survived the Seventies will tell you, it didn't half make their mortgages a doddle; though, flipside again, long term it started the inexorable house price inflation that leaves us now so overburdened.)


The truth is, the policies of Labour and Conservatories (and Liberal Democrats!) are not that different – in fact, given for example the discovery that Mr Alistair Dalek was secretly planning a VAT rise, you can bet your bottom dollar (which may be the only one you have left by now) that had they been returned to power, Hard Labour would have conducted a swift spending review and said "oops, it's worse than we thought, guys, have you SEEN what's happed in Greece? We have to cut faster and deeper!", and done EXACTLY what the Coalition is doing.

The MYTH of Labour's "pain free" cuts… their airy assertion that they would cut 80% of the deficit that we would but their tactical oppositionalism against every single £ reduction in spending… their repeated false dichotomy of "our way or the evil, ideological inflicting of pain on the poor"… it makes it VERY DIFFICULT to have anything approaching a RATIONAL DEBATE.

"We'd like to cut this."

"EVIL!"

"Well, maybe if we only cut it by half."

"INFINITE EVIL!"

I'm sure it plays well to the Labour Chorus, but it gets the country nowhere.

Regrettably, Mr Millipede's response to talk of a leadership crisis is a power grab for control of Shadow Cabinet appointments showing that Hard Labour are turning more INWARDS than looking outwards. While Mr Bully Balls, apparently, no longer even sees the need to run policies by the Shadow Cabinet before launching them. And sofa government worked so WELL for Lord Blairimort, after all.

In an equation where it is EITHER the Coalition OR the Labour Party, Labour seem intent on making themselves IRRELEVANT.

But even THAT is a false dichotomy. The Coalition of course consists of TWO Parties, and the true clash of ideas is now between Conservatories and LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.

You see, the ULTIMATE "either/or" is the MEEJA's HEADS WE WIN-TAILS YOU LOSE game of EITHER "on message" OR "gaffe". If you're "on message" you're a ROBOT, no to be trusted, only lying when your lips move, enemy of the people. If you" gaffe" it's even worse. Hence all this recent fuss over "U-Turns", as though LISTENING to people, DEBATING policy even, shock, CHANGING YOUR MIND were BAD THINGS for a government in what we still LAUGHINGLY describe as a DEMOCRACY (leading to the UTTERLY INSANE suggestion from a Questionable Time panellist that governments should do what is in their manifesto and only what is in their manifesto and the people should shut up for five years and only judge them at election time). DEBATING policy – in CABINET as well as in PARLIAMENT rather than at intimate tête-a-têtes with Fleet Street Editors – reduces the meeja's POWER to dictate the agenda. That's why, for them, a thinking government is a "weak" government and one that does what it's told (by a Prime Monster who does what she or he is told) is a "strong" one.

Obviously the REAL truth is the reverse, and that is why the Liberal Democrats bring real STRENGTH to this Coalition.

We are used to having Government and Opposition. In the Coalition, the Liberal Democrats are BOTH.

And how LIBERAL is that? Liberalism has NEVER been an EITHER/OR; it's always been BOTH: one and many; individual and community; local and global.

That is how I can write a big old self-important diary about "great big, important-y things" like the ECONOMY and SPACE and STUFF, and Auntie Caron, bless her heart, can read it and bring it right down to the REALLY important and PERSONAL with a post about the need for a real Liberal Voice. And they are BOTH what Liberalism is ABOUT.
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Day 2567: A Society Willing to Take Risks

Saturday:


"A Society Willing to Take Risks" was the phrase used by Councillor Cathy Bakewell in her response to the challenges and opportunities for the Liberal Democrats.

Wouldn't it be FANTASTIC to see that on a MANIFESTO? It would scare the PANTS off the other Parties! Fewer rules; less nannying: what WOULD they do?

We'd already heard from Mr Clogg, a good speech with a couple of "sharp intake of breath" moments from the audience. But you know all that, because it was in the news. What you REALLY want to know is how we go forwards from here.

And this was why we'd gone along to the Liberal Democrats' Mini Manifesto Conference, where we all got to take part, listen and contribute our own ideas back again. There were also a dozen parallel sessions to choose from, so we couldn't go to them all. (I decided to send my daddies along to hear about how to sell PR in the morning and to see Mr Brian and discuss policies for London in the afternoon.)

But the morning was very much given over to the "where do we go from here" question, and we were joined by two guests from outside the Party to give us an alternative perspective.

Mr Matthew Anaconda opened by referring us to this article in the Sunday Telegraph by Auntie Maude and Mr Steven Dorrell. (Though it is possible that this is something he's referred to before!)

It's an analysis that sees us as having SUPPLANTED the Conservatories as the voice of opposition to the Labour across Urban Britain; AND become the anti-Conservatory vote of choice in rural communities.

Crucially, it identifies the STRENGTHS of the Liberal Democrats as seen from the Conservatory perspective: authentic, credible, achievable policies in areas that matter to people coupled with sounding "as though [we] approve of the modern world, and are glad [we] are living in the 21st century. Too often their Conservative counterparts look and sound as though we regard the modern world as an aberration and look forward to the restoration of a lost golden age."

Similarly, went on Mr Anaconda, Dr Vince managed to define himself as the "voice of the public", the "normal person" puncturing the frothing hatred of the grudge match between Mr Frown and Mr Balloon.

The opportunity for the Liberals is to be the AUTHENTIC party: we mean it, and we're not being opportunist; we are listening to the public; and most of all we look like we can achieve it.

He suggests that our TONE needs to be pragmatic, and our POLITICS needs to be personal, about closing the GULF between the citizen as "consumer" and the public services as "provider". At the moment, he suggested, too many people are left to take what they are given by health services, police or schools while the rich operate the "politics of secession" and opt out of the system, often literally shutting themselves off behind walls and fences.

Mr Frown and Mr Balloon, he said, are LENINISTS. They are in favour of centralisation NOW, in order to achieve decentralisation LATER… maybe.

So, Mr Anaconda wants us to be the radical liberation front, making the public services more responsive in the way that we are used to from online and telephone direct companies, breaking up the state's monopoly of control in order to find opportunities for new providers to give a better service.

Now my thought is that this is all very well but it doesn't half sound like the "Producer Choice" idea that Mr Davros Birt brought to the BBC in the nineties. In this model, the BBC is the public service provider, contracting out the provision of actual services (in this case television programmes) to independent producers. It caused one heck of a fuss and ruined a lot of television for ages until Mr Greg Dyke came along and spent an awful lot of money putting it right. Now you need to ask yourself: does the BBC's current creative high come out of the pains (and the freedoms) of Producer Choice or out of what Mr Greg did to fix it?


After this we heard from Professor John Curtis, who is a top PSEPHOLOGIST or "Opinion Poll Dancer". According to him, in 2005 the Liberal Democrats showed that, against the popular belief, we COULD do well against an incumbent government of the LABOUR. He suggests THREE key ingredients: first, to be CLOSE enough to the government to appeal to the people who supported that government; second, to have a CRITIQUE of where that government has gone wrong; and third to have solutions that are DISTINCT to those on offer from the unprincipled principal opposition.

The Iraq War was of course the example that he gave: the Labour's supporters thought that it was WRONG, they saw that we said so too and that the Conservatories had backed the war. So voters chose to switch to the Liberal Democrats.

Although he did not spell it out, clearly Prof Curtis was hinting that our CURRENT position does NOT satisfy his three conditions. Mainly, I suspect, because shifty Mr Balloon has moved perceptions of the Conservatory position – on the environment, on taxation, on public services reform, on civil liberties – so that we no longer have that vital THIRD point, a policy distinct from the Opposition.

A limited Conservatory revival at the Labour's expense could actually be good for us – especially if a Hung Parliament is the outcome. But a Conservatory revival at OUR expense, which is what we have had in the last year, is always going to be BAD!

Looking to the future, Prof Curtis said that the Leadership election will probably have put many of our difficulties behind us, but that we need to recognise that in the meantime the Conservatories have got back into business in a BIG way, and that Iraq is now a dying issue.

But, that the issue of ECONOMIC COMPETENCE may be our new trump card. Take, for example, the Northern Rock issue – there we have a solid criticism of the government's failure, but our policy (short term nationalisation) is completely different to the Conservatories. And also, Master Gideon is a nincompoop.


Now, it is easy to see how this analysis ties into our developing narrative of being the ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT Party, the ones on the OUTSIDE of the Cosy Conservatory Consensus between Mr Balloon and the Labour government.

But, on the other fluffy foot, I think that Professor Curtis has limited himself to a rather BI-POLAR sort of thinking.

Liberalism is NOT just about hugging close to one or other of the OLD parties on the OLD left-right spectrum.


Liberalism, localism, is about putting decisions into the hands of people, and that is where we come back to our title: "A Society Willing to Take Risks". It IS a risk, because you will get different outcomes in different places. But it's also EMPOWERMENT and FREEDOM for those people. Without risk, our children are mollycoddled, our creativity is stunted and our enthusiasm is crushed. Centralisers like Mr Balloon and Mr Frown talk about a "postcode lottery" to try and FRIGHTEN you all into having every outcome THE SAME.

It wasn't until the END of the day that we heard the ANSWER: a LOTTERY is when you take your ticket and then have NO CHOICE but to take what you are given; LOCALISM is where you TAKE CHARGE, and rather than accepting what you are given, you DETERMINE what you end up with.

Day 2489: On Message; Off Liberty - The Prime Monster Cross-Dresses

Thursday:


Today it was Mr Frown's turn to put on a borrowed LIBERAL FROCK.

(Being a SECRET STALIN, of course, he naturally leaked to the Grauniad first.)

But – and this is IMPORTANT – being a Liberal Fluffy Elephant, I say: if a man wants to dress up in a new frock… there is nothing wrong with that!

People have noticed that the Prime Monster seems clinically incapable of pronouncing the words "Liberal Democrats", always in the House of Commons referring to the third party as "The Liberal Party". Is it just possible that this is actually a sign of AWE and ADMIRATION rather than PIG-IGNORANCE that we have previously assumed?

Or is this new "liberal Labour" just another knock-off that Mr Frown has picked up along with all the other ideas that fell off the back of Mr Balloon's "liberal Conservatory" lorry?

Mr Frown draws an elegant argument for the essential need for a LIBERAL revolution in our country, both as a natural progression from history and as the only really workable alternative in the face of totalitarian terrorism.

The problem seems to be that, having done so, he then jumps to the non-sequitur conclusion that what we need is MORE trampling over our liberties.

Headlines may trumpet that "Secrecy is to be rolled back!" and "Protest curbs are to be reviewed" but looking at what Mr Frown actually has on offer, I would have to say I am DISAPPOINTED.


It was PRETTY CHEEKY of Mr Frown to call his speech "On Liberty" and then to only mention Mr John Stuart Mill only once, and Ms Harriet Taylor not at all. Particularly since he appears to have spectacularly missed the point.

You can read the full text of the Prime Monster's speech here.

His first half reads like a gallop though a liberal history that, based in a struggle for religious tolerance, has seen us slowly and haltingly widen emancipation and stand against discrimination. It can best be summed up in Mr Frown's own words when he says:

"My starting point is that from the time of Magna Carta, to the civil wars and revolutions of the 17th century, through to the liberalism of Victorian Britain and the widening and deepening of democracy and fundamental rights throughout the last century, there has been a British tradition of liberty - what one writer has called our 'gift to the world'."

Contrasting British Liberty with what he sees as an American obsession with the individual, he links it to the idea of civic virtues, something he then, and I think wrongly, expands as shared responsibilities. The idea of responsibilities leads to requirement and compulsion, and these are the very antithesis of "virtues", which you do because they are GOOD not because you have to.

In fact, I think that this is one of the problems that the authoritarian culture of both the Labour AND the Conservatories has created. With the Conservatories thumping on about the "Me Me ME!" ideology of Thatchianity and the Labour emphasising the GOVERNMENT as universal NANNY, at once the benefactor who will provide all solutions AND the punisher who defines what is "good", the two party twins have UNDERMINED the very necessary culture where people want to do (and be seen to do) not just the right thing but good things and generous things.

Oddly enough, Mr Frown almost seems to see this too, when he comes to criticism of the right for reducing liberty to libertarianism and criticism of the left for seeing equality as more important than liberty.

And his conclusion would appear to be one that I HEARTILY agree with:

"I am convinced that both to rebuild our constitution for the modern age and to unify the country to meet and master every challenge, we need to consciously and with determination found the next stage of constitutional development firmly on the story of British liberty."

But then we get to some proposals. And here I notice that the GOOD STUFF is all couched in the language of "reviews" and "investigations" and "if, but and maybes".

So, the right to protest outside of Parliament is to be "reviewed" – if we're good little serfs we might get it back, do you think? But if we're too rowdy, then we clearly will not deserve it. Mr Jack Man'O Straw will "investigate" the idea of a "freedom of expression" audit for future legislation – whatever that means – and the entirely-sympathetic-to-the Liberal-point-of-view newspaper editor Mr Paul Dacre will consider the "Thirty Year Rule" that protects government papers from being published in, er, newspapers.

(This last may look like a great step forward for freedom, but really will just serve to drop Queen Maggie's government in it ten years early while not affecting Lord Blairimort's time in office – because Lord Blairimort never kept anything on paper anyway!)

Genuinely good news is the announcement that there will be no tightening of the regulations on Freedom of Information. The Government had THREATENED to reduce the number of questions that bodies like the BBC or newspapers could ask of them because it was too much bother, er, money to find all the answers. I am glad that they have not gone down this route, though really they would have made themselves look VERY VERY bad by closing down the already small chinks into Freedom of Information that they have opened.

(Freedom of Information legislation is what allows us to discover the SHIFTY goings on of people in power, people like Sir John Bourn (again), now to be FORMER Head of the National Audit Office after his resignation, who we discovered had spent £336,000 on his expenses on 45 trips in three years. Two weeks ago the Liberal Democrats described his travel bills of £16,500 spent on trips between April and September, paid for by taxpayers, as "absolutely shocking".)


Greater openness on the Security Services is to be welcomed too, with publication of the Government's security strategy and Parliament to have a role in selecting members of the Intelligence and Security Select Committee (the one that is currently hand-picked by the Prime Monster and reports only to him – you know, the one that Lord Blairimort assures us cleared him of wrongdoing, though of course we have to take his word for it that that is what they said).

But things take a more SINISTER turn when Mr Frown starts to talk about simplification of the (many) laws governing right of forced entry to private homes for the police and other public bodies. While I suppose it is true that simpler laws are fairer because they are easier to understand, I am not sure that making it easier for the police, or for that matter the local food hygienist, to break your door down is a complete guarantee of LIBERTY.

Equally, I am most DUBIOUS about Mr Frown's idea of what "protecting data" means. He alleges that identity used to be "protected" by registering of births, marriages and deaths – but that's NONSENSE: that was how data was CONTROLLED, and how the church USED that data FOR control, you idiot.

Identity data, including DNA data, can, says Mr Frown, prove very useful to a number of Government agencies (I'll just BET it can!) and might offer the chance for simplifying services to people, like pensioners (play for the sympathy vote), if it was more widely available.

All of this is a CODED endorsement of the Government's identity database plan, the suspicious MASTER COMPUTER behind the I.D.iot cards scheme.

Even Mr Frown admits that it could be open to abuse (I'll just BET it can, encore!), so he and Mr Man'O Straw have "asked the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas and Doctor Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, to undertake a review of the framework for the use of information".

We will have to await the outcome of this review to see whether it turns out good or bad.

Definitely BAD though is Mr Frown's statement that he is "…in no doubt about the desirability of a debate over pre-charge detention."

How, after the fierce debate last year that saw the Government have to concede to a limit of 28 days (itself a doubling of the only recently extended limit of 14 days), it is possible to say that there is "no doubt" that reheating this argument is "desirable" is completely beyond my FLUFFY BRAIN to understand.

And trying to work out how LIBERTY is protected by TAKING IT AWAY on a whim for up to three months… it is likely to make my fluffy brain just EXPLODE!

Finally, more alarm bells sound when we hear that Mr Man'O Straw is apparently "signalling the start of a national consultation on the case for a new British Bill of Rights and Duties". Duties? I do NOT like the sound of THAT.

A PROPER Bill of Rights is an agreement that limits the powers of the Government to those that the people it serves will ALLOW. A "Bill of Rights and Duties" ought to be a contradiction in terms.

The Labour have NEVER really understood this – they have always seen "rights" as lucky charms that the Government in its INEFFABLE GOODNESS sees fit to visit upon an UNDESERVING PROLETARIAT. Duties, naturally, are owed to the Government, and this is just to underline the point.

In fact, it is just the old, old DIVINE RIGHT of KINGS rewritten in a glossy new cover, with THE PARTY replacing the old monarch in a modern FEUDALISM. LIBERTY has nothing to do with this.

Mr Michael Wills, Justice Minister says a referendum on a Bill Of Rights would be "inevitable".

Oh, but the Conservatories mock that, after the Government's failure to offer a referendum on the tinkering with Europe treaty. (That would be the treaty that Mr Balloon won't promise to offer a referendum on repealing either.)

Mr Frown is a phoney, says Mr Balloon. You can make you own JOKE up here, to be honest.


So, is this the dawning of a BRAVE NEW AGE OF FREEDOM under Mr Frown? No, not really. In the end, I think we have to judge the sly old Secret Stalin by his ACTIONS not just his WORDS.

By invoking the SPIRIT of British Liberty, Mr Frown has set himself a HIGH STANDARD to meet – so far, though, his record is one of falling rather short of the standards he sets himself, so I do not recommend anyone holding their breath waiting for the new liberal Labour to appear!