Thursday:
Why shouldn't we hold a General Election?
Mr Frown says it would cause "CHAOS"! Well, that shouldn't stop us; as a naughty elephant on a sugar rush I might say CHAOS is GOOD!
Ms Harriet the Harminator appears on the The Today Programme and refuses to answer the question.
But why NOT?
Well, the answer that they are ducking is that IT WON'T SOLVE ANYTHING.
As with all of Mr Balloon's ideas it SOUNDS simple… but Mr Clogg said it to the Prime Monster's face:
"…all you get is a few new faces and the same old rotten rules."
Just swapping one load of numpties for ANOTHER load of numpties is action that only LOOKS like a solution: how typical of Mr Balloon!
Here's what we REALLY need to do:
We need to tell the VOTERS that they are in charge again.
So first, the new Mr (or Ms) Speaker needs to use their fresh authority to call a CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION where EVERYONE will be allowed to contribute to writing a NEW BRITISH CONSTITUTION.
We will want to have open Town Hall meetings and submissions over the Internet. We should get the BBC involved: Mr Graham Norton can host "How do you solve a Problem like DEMOCRACY?" in which members of the public can phone in to choose their own Royal Commission.
We should do everything we can to make this the BIGGEST exercise in participative democracy EVER.
I know what I want: STV or SINGLE TRUNK VOTING – and I think we have really GOT to go out and sell people on the idea, convince them that the BEST system is one where the Parties can put up a number of candidates, but the VOTERS choose amongst them. PEOPLE's choice, not PARTIES' choice. And it's just like Primaries, but without the fuss of having to vote twice! The Conservatories LIKE the idea of Open Primaries; but we know that people DON'T LIKE wasting their time with too many elections. So go STV which does the same job and is much more powerfully democratic!
I want Fixed Term Parliaments, with fewer MPs, maybe four-hundred from Multimember Seats elected by STV. I want a STRONGER Parliament with Committees that can hold the Government to account, a Parliament that can subpoena ministers (or ANYONE) and demand answers. I want MPs to have a better career path on the Committees: like US Senators, they should wield real power.
I want a SMALLER Government, fewer ministries means less wasted money; fewer ministers means less pointless patronage. I want an elected House of Lords, and if you want special seats for members of religious communities then they should be allowed to speak but not vote.
Politicians should get round the table and SORT IT OUT! And if they can't agree someone should tell them what to do… someone WISE… someone FLUFFY… no! hang on, I've come over all MANIKIN SKYWALKER! That's exactly what SHOULDN'T happen!
I know what I want… but what do YOU want? After all, it's YOUR Parliament too.
"The people" say that they want this cleaning up – well they have to understand that THEY are the ones who have to do the cleaning up.
And then in six or maybe nine months (that might be pushing people's patience) we will have a REFERENDUM to adopt the new Constitution.
And three weeks later we have a General Election under the NEW rules.
Mr Clogg says "Of course we need an election", and he's right.
We just need a REVOLUTION first!
.
Showing posts with label Mr Clogg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mr Clogg. Show all posts
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Day 2999: Nick versus Barclays
Wednesday:
Mr Clogg battles on behalf of all citizens who pay our taxes and (nowadays) own our banks.
Yesterday, the Grauniad published a secret document from Barclays Bank on how best to AVOID TAX. They then UNPUBLISHED it when Barclays obtained a GAGGING ORDER on the grounds that revealing how they AVOID TAX might be commercially prejudicial.
Mr Clogg went into a meeting with the Barclays boss, Mr John Vastley, and gave him what for!
"It didn't come to a stand-up row," Mr Clogg told the The Today Programme, "because I used my JEDI POWERS to subdue him first. Ahem."
Mr Vince "The Power" Cable, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor also weighed in.
"At a time when banks are receiving massive support from the Government, the public has a right to know if those same banks are also trying to avoid paying their tax bills," he said, pointing out that Barclays are looking for BIG BIG government guarantees at the same time as they are short-changing the Exchequer.
Personally, I think that any bank that has substantial support from the public purse, whether it is nationalised or just getting its loan book held afloat, should be subject to the same Freedom of Information laws as any other department that is spending public money. After all, WE OWN YOU NOW, Mr Bankers.
Of course, this news comes on the same day that Lord Airhead Turner, head of the banking regulator the FSA (Fully Subservient Authority), announced plans for tighter regulation.
Lord Airhead, and forgive me if this gets a bit technical, thinks that the rules should be: don't lend every last penny you've got to people who can never, ever pay it back.
But I'd like to make my own suggestion: DO NOT CHEAT THE TAXPAYING PUBLIC.
And that goes DOUBLE in the week you are asking them to pull your nuts out of the fire!
.
Mr Clogg battles on behalf of all citizens who pay our taxes and (nowadays) own our banks.
Yesterday, the Grauniad published a secret document from Barclays Bank on how best to AVOID TAX. They then UNPUBLISHED it when Barclays obtained a GAGGING ORDER on the grounds that revealing how they AVOID TAX might be commercially prejudicial.
Mr Clogg went into a meeting with the Barclays boss, Mr John Vastley, and gave him what for!
"It didn't come to a stand-up row," Mr Clogg told the The Today Programme, "because I used my JEDI POWERS to subdue him first. Ahem."
Mr Vince "The Power" Cable, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor also weighed in.
"At a time when banks are receiving massive support from the Government, the public has a right to know if those same banks are also trying to avoid paying their tax bills," he said, pointing out that Barclays are looking for BIG BIG government guarantees at the same time as they are short-changing the Exchequer.
Personally, I think that any bank that has substantial support from the public purse, whether it is nationalised or just getting its loan book held afloat, should be subject to the same Freedom of Information laws as any other department that is spending public money. After all, WE OWN YOU NOW, Mr Bankers.
Of course, this news comes on the same day that Lord Airhead Turner, head of the banking regulator the FSA (Fully Subservient Authority), announced plans for tighter regulation.
Lord Airhead, and forgive me if this gets a bit technical, thinks that the rules should be: don't lend every last penny you've got to people who can never, ever pay it back.
But I'd like to make my own suggestion: DO NOT CHEAT THE TAXPAYING PUBLIC.
And that goes DOUBLE in the week you are asking them to pull your nuts out of the fire!
.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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-renamedCashpoint 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.
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!
.
We enter the Portcullis House of Her Majesty’s newly-renamed
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!
.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Day 2862: Nick Clegg: I'll Never Satisfy Polly Toynbee and Jackie Ashley…
Saturday:
We have driven all the way to Sheffield, which is in the NORTH, to interview Mr Clogg with some NEW Liberal Democrat diarists.
He got a good quizzing on the economy from Mr Joe; on Barry O and the question of populism from Ms Charlotte; on the danger of protectionism in the current climate from Mr Jonathan; and on appealing to Labour voters; and what, if anything, counts as Conservatory territory by Mr Mat.
Meanwhile, Daddy Alex led us in a chorus of "lesbians, lesbians, lesbians", and I asked about that resignation that has rocked the BBC: who should be the new Doctor Who?
The Team
Mr Clogg's answer to MY qestion: our very own Dr Vince "the power" Cable. Very generous of him considering the way he batted aside rumours that Mr Frown might sack Sooty as Chancellor and offer the job to Mr Vince.
What we thought afterwards was how much more CONFIDENT Mr Clog has gotten in his role as leader, clearly feeling able to knock back questions rather than trying to circumnavigate very issue by thinking aloud, and determinedly holding his own against, er, ROBUST questioning from Daddy Alex. He also seems to have gained in VIM, positively bouncing around the conference venue, quite rightly slapping Daddy's wrist for DRIVING rather than taking the TRAIN to Sheffield, and enthusing everyone!
The Boss
On the issue of the party's split on the Human Embryology Bill, which has apparently broken a manifesto commitment to equal treatment for lesbian mothers and thus outraged the gay community, Mr Clogg admitted that there are some issues where the leader cannot simply command, and that the Parliamentary Party had decided that, because of the very strongly held opinions – particularly RELIGIOUSLY held opinions – that it was necessary to allow a free vote on the Bill, and that it should be a free vote on ALL aspects of the Bill, as cherry picking out bits here and there to whip would be crackers. It was a difficult position to put him in, because he himself actually voted FOR the Bill, and agreed with party policy and Daddy Alex. But Daddy wasn't beating him up for fun: he has received lots and lots and lots and LOTS of messages from people saying "ask Mr Clogg about this!" and so I thought that it was IMPORTANT that he should do so.
Mr Clogg warned against treating the manifesto as "tablets of stone", and thought that they have become shopping lists that are too long.
But I do think that there is some DANGER in this. People lobby to make sure that certain policies are IN the manifesto precisely because we want to be able to say to people in groups that we support: look! here is what we say we will do for you; this is why we deserve the trust you have placed in us.
It's not surprising, then, when people ever so slightly expect us to keep our word.
Better NOT to make those sort of promises if we are later going to overlook them.
On the other fluffy foot, until Daddy Alex suggested a BETTER question about Dr Who, I WAS going to invite Mr Clogg to NOT say anything about Mr Brand and Mr Woss. So I was PLEASED that he said he wouldn't be saying anything about them.
I ALSO agree with him that it was a bit PATHETIC to see Mr Balloon and particularly the Prime Monster Mr Frown – who you would have thought would have had more important things to do at a vital summit to save the financial world – jumping on the bandwagon and joining the villagers with the pitchforks and flaming torches.
Anyway, after all that driving, Daddy Richard has unfortunately been unconscious for forty-eight hours, so I apologise for the delay in writing up out interview!
We have driven all the way to Sheffield, which is in the NORTH, to interview Mr Clogg with some NEW Liberal Democrat diarists.
He got a good quizzing on the economy from Mr Joe; on Barry O and the question of populism from Ms Charlotte; on the danger of protectionism in the current climate from Mr Jonathan; and on appealing to Labour voters; and what, if anything, counts as Conservatory territory by Mr Mat.
Meanwhile, Daddy Alex led us in a chorus of "lesbians, lesbians, lesbians", and I asked about that resignation that has rocked the BBC: who should be the new Doctor Who?
The Team
Mr Clogg's answer to MY qestion: our very own Dr Vince "the power" Cable. Very generous of him considering the way he batted aside rumours that Mr Frown might sack Sooty as Chancellor and offer the job to Mr Vince.
What we thought afterwards was how much more CONFIDENT Mr Clog has gotten in his role as leader, clearly feeling able to knock back questions rather than trying to circumnavigate very issue by thinking aloud, and determinedly holding his own against, er, ROBUST questioning from Daddy Alex. He also seems to have gained in VIM, positively bouncing around the conference venue, quite rightly slapping Daddy's wrist for DRIVING rather than taking the TRAIN to Sheffield, and enthusing everyone!
The Boss
On the issue of the party's split on the Human Embryology Bill, which has apparently broken a manifesto commitment to equal treatment for lesbian mothers and thus outraged the gay community, Mr Clogg admitted that there are some issues where the leader cannot simply command, and that the Parliamentary Party had decided that, because of the very strongly held opinions – particularly RELIGIOUSLY held opinions – that it was necessary to allow a free vote on the Bill, and that it should be a free vote on ALL aspects of the Bill, as cherry picking out bits here and there to whip would be crackers. It was a difficult position to put him in, because he himself actually voted FOR the Bill, and agreed with party policy and Daddy Alex. But Daddy wasn't beating him up for fun: he has received lots and lots and lots and LOTS of messages from people saying "ask Mr Clogg about this!" and so I thought that it was IMPORTANT that he should do so.
Mr Clogg warned against treating the manifesto as "tablets of stone", and thought that they have become shopping lists that are too long.
But I do think that there is some DANGER in this. People lobby to make sure that certain policies are IN the manifesto precisely because we want to be able to say to people in groups that we support: look! here is what we say we will do for you; this is why we deserve the trust you have placed in us.
It's not surprising, then, when people ever so slightly expect us to keep our word.
Better NOT to make those sort of promises if we are later going to overlook them.
On the other fluffy foot, until Daddy Alex suggested a BETTER question about Dr Who, I WAS going to invite Mr Clogg to NOT say anything about Mr Brand and Mr Woss. So I was PLEASED that he said he wouldn't be saying anything about them.
I ALSO agree with him that it was a bit PATHETIC to see Mr Balloon and particularly the Prime Monster Mr Frown – who you would have thought would have had more important things to do at a vital summit to save the financial world – jumping on the bandwagon and joining the villagers with the pitchforks and flaming torches.
Anyway, after all that driving, Daddy Richard has unfortunately been unconscious for forty-eight hours, so I apologise for the delay in writing up out interview!
Friday, October 03, 2008
Day 2830: Did the Turkeys Just Vote for Christmas? Or will the Dead Cat-Monster Keep Bouncing?
Tuesday:
It was quite a SHARP INTAKE of BREATH moment when the American Congress voted to reject the multi-billion dollar "Bankers' Unaccountable Rescue Plan" (or BURP) put to them by the Monkey-in-Chief and Secretary Hank "trust me I'm a banker" Paulson.
Now, the Senators of Americaland have accepted the Monkey-in-Chief's revised BURP (now with added slap-on-the-wrist and time-on-the-naughty step).
But will the Congressmen choose to follow their lead or are they going to remain focused onhanging onto their slender majorities the righteous anger of their constituents at a plan that lets the bankers get away with ruining the economy?
To an extent they've got to, because a failed bailout is actually worse than no bailout at all.
You see, the PROBLEM with proposing a plan like the Monkey's BURP is this: once you've SAID it, the greedy fat-cat-monsters of the Stock Exchange and Wall Street start to EXPECT it as a RIGHT.
So think about this before you float the notion that you might add an extra digit to the national debt to buy up all the TOXIC WASTE that they've been pretending is lovely yummy goodness:
BEFORE you mention it, they will be grumbling and griping and worrying. And maybe one or two are actually in danger of failing.
But AFTER you make the suggestion… and then threaten to take it away again, even though they never had it, they throw a tsunami-class tantrum, fling their toys out of the pram – and more importantly, fling their shares out of the window – and before you know it they've trolleyed the entire American economy.
And the Asian economy.
And the European economy (well… not so much, actually).
But here is a THOUGHT: just looking at London, rather than Americaland, in the last two or three years (2005, 2006, 2007), thousands (in fact reports say at least THREE thousands) of people working in the City got BONUSES of over a MILLION POUNDS.
This year, it turns out that they did NOT REALLY deserve them!
So, if they all gave the money back… that could be (3 x >3,000 x >£1,000,000 = ) nearly ten thousand-million pounds to help out the banks that they have caused to collapse.
You can see why people are QUITE CROSS with the City banking types. That may not be QUITE as much as the Monkey-in-Chief's three-hundred-and-eighty thousand-million pound bailout bonanza… in fact it's not even enough to buy the twenty-five thousand-million pound Busted and Bungling Building Society… but it's a sizeable step on the way!
And as you can imagine the same is true on Wall Street. Which is why the American Congresspersons are getting bombarded by e-mails from ordinary Joes and Jos saying "oi!"
(And when (millionaire) Mr Balloon makes silly statements saying "we're all in it together" that is why some people might think "well, mate, some of you are more it together than others".)
In a lot of ways it is the INJUSTICE that most sticks in your fluffy throat. After all, these losers were gambling with OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY.
That is why Mr Clogg is quite right to call for a guarantee for all savers that their deposits will be safe.
And that is why Mr Frown is – typically – rubbish for refusing to agree.
"I'll do anything to save the economy…" says Mr Frown "…but I won't do THAT!"
Does he think he's MEATLOAF?
Greater protection for savers is also one of the changes that were added to the BURP to make it more acceptable to Senators, along with a larger public stake in the banks that their money is used to rescue, and stricter regulations… along with some pork-barrelling stuff like tax cuts for small businesses.
House Dumbocrats would apparently also like to add some measures to protect people against losing their homes. Homelessness is terribly destructive of lives and families, and the whole community suffers when you turn potentially productive contributors into welfare claimants, so this is obviously a GOOD IDEA. The Replutocrats are against it such measures on principle.
Who knows what is going to happen?
When TWO-THIRDS of Replutocratic Congresspersons are willing, eager even, to vote against their own Monkey-in-Chief, when the contribution of the Replutocratic Candidate for the White House is thought to have made matters worse even by his own side, and with the markets reacting badly to pretty much EVERYTHING that Washington says, then ANYTHING might happen!
And frankly, it probably will!
It was quite a SHARP INTAKE of BREATH moment when the American Congress voted to reject the multi-billion dollar "Bankers' Unaccountable Rescue Plan" (or BURP) put to them by the Monkey-in-Chief and Secretary Hank "trust me I'm a banker" Paulson.
Now, the Senators of Americaland have accepted the Monkey-in-Chief's revised BURP (now with added slap-on-the-wrist and time-on-the-naughty step).
But will the Congressmen choose to follow their lead or are they going to remain focused on
To an extent they've got to, because a failed bailout is actually worse than no bailout at all.
You see, the PROBLEM with proposing a plan like the Monkey's BURP is this: once you've SAID it, the greedy fat-cat-monsters of the Stock Exchange and Wall Street start to EXPECT it as a RIGHT.
So think about this before you float the notion that you might add an extra digit to the national debt to buy up all the TOXIC WASTE that they've been pretending is lovely yummy goodness:
BEFORE you mention it, they will be grumbling and griping and worrying. And maybe one or two are actually in danger of failing.
But AFTER you make the suggestion… and then threaten to take it away again, even though they never had it, they throw a tsunami-class tantrum, fling their toys out of the pram – and more importantly, fling their shares out of the window – and before you know it they've trolleyed the entire American economy.
And the Asian economy.
And the European economy (well… not so much, actually).
But here is a THOUGHT: just looking at London, rather than Americaland, in the last two or three years (2005, 2006, 2007), thousands (in fact reports say at least THREE thousands) of people working in the City got BONUSES of over a MILLION POUNDS.
This year, it turns out that they did NOT REALLY deserve them!
So, if they all gave the money back… that could be (3 x >3,000 x >£1,000,000 = ) nearly ten thousand-million pounds to help out the banks that they have caused to collapse.
You can see why people are QUITE CROSS with the City banking types. That may not be QUITE as much as the Monkey-in-Chief's three-hundred-and-eighty thousand-million pound bailout bonanza… in fact it's not even enough to buy the twenty-five thousand-million pound Busted and Bungling Building Society… but it's a sizeable step on the way!
And as you can imagine the same is true on Wall Street. Which is why the American Congresspersons are getting bombarded by e-mails from ordinary Joes and Jos saying "oi!"
(And when (millionaire) Mr Balloon makes silly statements saying "we're all in it together" that is why some people might think "well, mate, some of you are more it together than others".)
In a lot of ways it is the INJUSTICE that most sticks in your fluffy throat. After all, these losers were gambling with OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY.
That is why Mr Clogg is quite right to call for a guarantee for all savers that their deposits will be safe.
And that is why Mr Frown is – typically – rubbish for refusing to agree.
"I'll do anything to save the economy…" says Mr Frown "…but I won't do THAT!"
Does he think he's MEATLOAF?
Greater protection for savers is also one of the changes that were added to the BURP to make it more acceptable to Senators, along with a larger public stake in the banks that their money is used to rescue, and stricter regulations… along with some pork-barrelling stuff like tax cuts for small businesses.
House Dumbocrats would apparently also like to add some measures to protect people against losing their homes. Homelessness is terribly destructive of lives and families, and the whole community suffers when you turn potentially productive contributors into welfare claimants, so this is obviously a GOOD IDEA. The Replutocrats are against it such measures on principle.
Who knows what is going to happen?
When TWO-THIRDS of Replutocratic Congresspersons are willing, eager even, to vote against their own Monkey-in-Chief, when the contribution of the Replutocratic Candidate for the White House is thought to have made matters worse even by his own side, and with the markets reacting badly to pretty much EVERYTHING that Washington says, then ANYTHING might happen!
And frankly, it probably will!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Day 2819: It’s Just a Luntz to the Left…
Friday:
The Newsnight Show's resident Replutocrat finds favour with Mr Clogg?
Could my old fluffy sparing-partner Mr Frank “I invented the phrase DEATH-TAX” Luntz have completely lost his marbles this week or has he been replaced by a genuinely fair-and-balanced POD PERSON?
The answer is NO.
If a stage magician kept convincing you to pick the Knave of Diamonds (that’s Mr Balloon in this analogy, obviously) then pretty soon his act would get OLD!
Likewise, if Fluffy Frank (NOT a stage magician) wants to keep being IN the news, he has to generate SURPRISING new news from time to time. Then he can look IMPARTIAL. That way when he goes onto his REAL agenda and say that the Labour should keep Mr Frown, everyone will nod at how WISE he is.
Has he actually told us anything new?
We Liberal Democrats all knew already that if people actually LISTENED to what Liberal Democrats say – as opposed to the MEE-JA version (e.g. Mr Nick “mate of Dave” Robinson: "…and today the Lib Dems voted to lift the ban on SPOONS*") – then people actually like us. The evidence is there in the way our poll ratings get a boost every time there's an election on and the Representation of the People Act MAKES the news channels give us coverage.
*made-up example
Has he given up on his old (I keep telling you, Mr Luntz is NOT a stage magician) tricks, either?
Well, obviously Mr Luntz is ALWAYS as surprised by the outcome as the viewers are, but someone on his research team certainly did Mr Millipede no favours (in the "who should lead the Labour" piece shown on Friday) by choosing clips of all the OTHER possible candidates (plus Mr James Purnell) that had them sat down being interviewed by Mr Andy Marrmite but had Mr Millipede stood at a GILDED podium delivering a diplomatic address. Oddly enough, the focus groupies thought Mr Millipede was "out of touch" – how could THAT have happened?
Mr Purnell, incidentally, Junior Minister for Photoshop, what was HE doing on the list of choices, when the likes of Sooty and Ms Jacqui Spliff were not? You would have thought he could have benefited from being in "poll position" at the top right (remember, I said that that might have helped people think positively about Mr Balloon?). But of course, Mr Frank (no doubt quite ACCIDENTALLY) totally undermined that by opening with the question "Does anyone know who this is?" Not only does this EXPECT the answer no, the natural tendency to avoid putting your fluffy foot up to the first question subtly and OBVIOUSLY quite by chance reinforced this. Having got silence as a first response, then asking "Does no one know who is?" is only going to get more silence – who wants to look a NANA and admit that they DID know at this stage? So that's him shot down.
Ms Harriet Harpic was next, of course, and having made everyone feel dumb for not knowing the first person, all Mr Frank's subjects were keen to show that they weren't total thickoes… but what a stroke of luck that someone was SO keen that they shouted out her name so that EVERYONE knew who she was. Ms Harriet survived the Big Brother-stylee evictions until the final three, in spite of some strong negative reactions too her.
But in the end, Mr Frank had convinced his panel to whittle it down to a choice between keeping Mr Frown or replacing him with either Mr Alan Johnson or Mr Jack Man O'Straw. So that's the Prime Monster or a choice of Postman Pat or the Sinister Minister.
If this were a three card trick, you could have a choice between keeping the King or swapping for a Knave or a Deuce. Well what card are YOU going to pick?
Does it actually HURT the Conservatories, for Mr Frank to say that people who HEAR Mr Clogg PREFER Mr Clogg?
Well with Mr Balloon's drinking buddies SO FAR ahead of us and the Labour in polling numbers then no, not directly; and with it depending on that CONDITIONAL “IF people get to hear us” then since Mr Luntz can anticipate that the MEE-JA will NOT suddenly start giving Mr Clogg a decent hearing then actually that won’t make a difference either.
Or perhaps I am just being a CYNICAL old SOCK.
One thing that we CAN take away from this, is that we have a good answer the next time some interviewer is only interested in asking Mr Clogg "aren't you just Mr Balloon?"
That's not what Newsnight found when they asked real voters to choose between us, Mr Clogg can say.
The Newsnight Show's resident Replutocrat finds favour with Mr Clogg?
Could my old fluffy sparing-partner Mr Frank “I invented the phrase DEATH-TAX” Luntz have completely lost his marbles this week or has he been replaced by a genuinely fair-and-balanced POD PERSON?
The answer is NO.
If a stage magician kept convincing you to pick the Knave of Diamonds (that’s Mr Balloon in this analogy, obviously) then pretty soon his act would get OLD!
Likewise, if Fluffy Frank (NOT a stage magician) wants to keep being IN the news, he has to generate SURPRISING new news from time to time. Then he can look IMPARTIAL. That way when he goes onto his REAL agenda and say that the Labour should keep Mr Frown, everyone will nod at how WISE he is.
Has he actually told us anything new?
We Liberal Democrats all knew already that if people actually LISTENED to what Liberal Democrats say – as opposed to the MEE-JA version (e.g. Mr Nick “mate of Dave” Robinson: "…and today the Lib Dems voted to lift the ban on SPOONS*") – then people actually like us. The evidence is there in the way our poll ratings get a boost every time there's an election on and the Representation of the People Act MAKES the news channels give us coverage.
*made-up example
Has he given up on his old (I keep telling you, Mr Luntz is NOT a stage magician) tricks, either?
Well, obviously Mr Luntz is ALWAYS as surprised by the outcome as the viewers are, but someone on his research team certainly did Mr Millipede no favours (in the "who should lead the Labour" piece shown on Friday) by choosing clips of all the OTHER possible candidates (plus Mr James Purnell) that had them sat down being interviewed by Mr Andy Marrmite but had Mr Millipede stood at a GILDED podium delivering a diplomatic address. Oddly enough, the focus groupies thought Mr Millipede was "out of touch" – how could THAT have happened?
Mr Purnell, incidentally, Junior Minister for Photoshop, what was HE doing on the list of choices, when the likes of Sooty and Ms Jacqui Spliff were not? You would have thought he could have benefited from being in "poll position" at the top right (remember, I said that that might have helped people think positively about Mr Balloon?). But of course, Mr Frank (no doubt quite ACCIDENTALLY) totally undermined that by opening with the question "Does anyone know who this is?" Not only does this EXPECT the answer no, the natural tendency to avoid putting your fluffy foot up to the first question subtly and OBVIOUSLY quite by chance reinforced this. Having got silence as a first response, then asking "Does no one know who is?" is only going to get more silence – who wants to look a NANA and admit that they DID know at this stage? So that's him shot down.
Ms Harriet Harpic was next, of course, and having made everyone feel dumb for not knowing the first person, all Mr Frank's subjects were keen to show that they weren't total thickoes… but what a stroke of luck that someone was SO keen that they shouted out her name so that EVERYONE knew who she was. Ms Harriet survived the Big Brother-stylee evictions until the final three, in spite of some strong negative reactions too her.
But in the end, Mr Frank had convinced his panel to whittle it down to a choice between keeping Mr Frown or replacing him with either Mr Alan Johnson or Mr Jack Man O'Straw. So that's the Prime Monster or a choice of Postman Pat or the Sinister Minister.
If this were a three card trick, you could have a choice between keeping the King or swapping for a Knave or a Deuce. Well what card are YOU going to pick?
Does it actually HURT the Conservatories, for Mr Frank to say that people who HEAR Mr Clogg PREFER Mr Clogg?
Well with Mr Balloon's drinking buddies SO FAR ahead of us and the Labour in polling numbers then no, not directly; and with it depending on that CONDITIONAL “IF people get to hear us” then since Mr Luntz can anticipate that the MEE-JA will NOT suddenly start giving Mr Clogg a decent hearing then actually that won’t make a difference either.
Or perhaps I am just being a CYNICAL old SOCK.
One thing that we CAN take away from this, is that we have a good answer the next time some interviewer is only interested in asking Mr Clogg "aren't you just Mr Balloon?"
That's not what Newsnight found when they asked real voters to choose between us, Mr Clogg can say.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Day 2813: Millennium Elephant Discovers that THAT PINK DOG has crashed his interview with Mr Clogg (oh, and some other people)
Saturday:
In what I HOPE will become a tradition, I have arranged for the nonimees for the Liberal Democrat Blogger of the Year (and, apparently, THAT PINK DOG) to join me for an interview with the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Mr Nick Clogg.
We have had incredibly super support from the Party Leader, last year from Sir Mr the Merciless and this year Mr Clogg, who has generously found fifty minutes in what is a PACKED week for him to talk to Top Lib Dem Bloggers. And that Pink Dog.
Who Let the (Pink) Dogs Out?
So I was joined by nonimees Ms Steph Ashley and Mr Neil Stockley and My Daddy Alex, along with Ms Helen as assistant to a certain crimson canine. Unfortunately Mr Jonathan Bonkers and Citizen Alix were unable to join us, but Ms Steph WAS able to ask a question that we hope Ms Alix would approve of.
Before that, though, we opened with me offering MR Clogg our FLUFFY CONGRATULATIONS, and asking: "are you very happy?"
He says yes! Of course it's not actually happened yet and he just hopes, like any prospective parent, that the pregnancy goes well.
It is, he says, very very exciting. Of course it's madness, he confesses, they are going to be just utterly exhausted, both working and with three young children. But it will be wonderful.
That is a situation lots of young families can sympathise with, which lead into my first question: now that the Labour have so OBVIOUSLY and PAINFULLY abrogated the role, how do WE convince people that we are the party to stick up for, well, everyone but let us say the common person?
"I think," Mr Clogg began, "we do that by first identifying what it is that is harming people, bothering people, holding people back, listen to those concerns, develop the policies that provide answers and then go out and campaigning on them.
"What I like to think is that by the end of this conference and certainly in my speech on Wednesday though I haven't finished writing it yet, is a sort of "gritty" feel and tone to this week.
"And I think that's right because a looming recession changes everything, it changes the political mood utterly and it makes the public – quite rightly – more demanding of politicians and more unforgiving of politicians who don't answer straight and don't provide clear solutions."
Liberal Democrats, says Mr Clogg, ARE the party with those straight answers and clear, practical solutions, and he listed out the key areas where we are doing all the work in being ready to face recession.
Housing: we're the only party with a clear plan to allow local councils to borrow against assets, to buy up unsold properties to provide more social housing to vulnerable families
Fuel poverty: it something he's probably spoken out about more than any other subject since becoming leader; it was the first thing he talked about at my first Prime Monster's questions, it was the last thing he asked about before they broke up for summer recess, saying that the energy companies should recycle their multi-billion pound subsidy
Education and Health: the work that Mr Norman Lamb and Mr David Laws are doing about targeting resources much more effectively towards those people who need it most, the Pupil Premium targeting resources to the most hard-to-teach vulnerable children; the Patient Premium that he talked about in a speech earlier this week; changing the incentives for GPs so that doctors have an incentive to work in the most deprived areas.
And, crucially, tax and spend: we say loud and clear firstly that we ALREADY have the fairest, most redistributive tax policies of any Party in Britain, pound-for-pound twice as redistributive as our 2005 manifesto, closing huge loopholes worth billions of pounds that only the wealthy benefit from, handing that back to the vast majority of lower and middle-income taxpayers. But then now going further and saying that at a time in which millions of British families are having to tighten their belts, a bloated centralised government should have to tighten its belt too. The money that we can identify in that exercise – we're aiming at around twenty billion – obviously should first go on our spending priorities – care for the elderly, pupil premium, housing and so on – but if there's money to spare we're not simply going to give it to Mr Frown. We're going to say that people on low and middle incomes should have a claim on that money. It's their money.
To put it in very human terms: if you are a young couple, both working, on low incomes, you're worried about finding the money for school uniforms for the new year, worried about the cost of food, worried about whether you'll be able to take your family on holiday this year. I think if you're given a choice between having a bit of your own money back in these very difficult times to look after yourself and your family OR that money should just go back into the black hole of the Treasury… it's a no-brainer!
We've always, as a Liberal Party, got to be on the side of PEOPLE. The mood is really, really turning. We have always been trenchant critics of over-centralised, unaccountable, inefficient centralised government, and that is a VALUE that is very much in line with what a lot of people think as they head into a recession, as they see this extraordinary doubling of public expenditure over the last ten years under the Labour.
Now there is LOTS more to follow… but just for now I must rush off to interview Mr Lembit!
Back soon!
In what I HOPE will become a tradition, I have arranged for the nonimees for the Liberal Democrat Blogger of the Year (and, apparently, THAT PINK DOG) to join me for an interview with the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Mr Nick Clogg.
We have had incredibly super support from the Party Leader, last year from Sir Mr the Merciless and this year Mr Clogg, who has generously found fifty minutes in what is a PACKED week for him to talk to Top Lib Dem Bloggers. And that Pink Dog.
Who Let the (Pink) Dogs Out?
So I was joined by nonimees Ms Steph Ashley and Mr Neil Stockley and My Daddy Alex, along with Ms Helen as assistant to a certain crimson canine. Unfortunately Mr Jonathan Bonkers and Citizen Alix were unable to join us, but Ms Steph WAS able to ask a question that we hope Ms Alix would approve of.
Before that, though, we opened with me offering MR Clogg our FLUFFY CONGRATULATIONS, and asking: "are you very happy?"
He says yes! Of course it's not actually happened yet and he just hopes, like any prospective parent, that the pregnancy goes well.
It is, he says, very very exciting. Of course it's madness, he confesses, they are going to be just utterly exhausted, both working and with three young children. But it will be wonderful.
That is a situation lots of young families can sympathise with, which lead into my first question: now that the Labour have so OBVIOUSLY and PAINFULLY abrogated the role, how do WE convince people that we are the party to stick up for, well, everyone but let us say the common person?
"I think," Mr Clogg began, "we do that by first identifying what it is that is harming people, bothering people, holding people back, listen to those concerns, develop the policies that provide answers and then go out and campaigning on them.
"What I like to think is that by the end of this conference and certainly in my speech on Wednesday though I haven't finished writing it yet, is a sort of "gritty" feel and tone to this week.
"And I think that's right because a looming recession changes everything, it changes the political mood utterly and it makes the public – quite rightly – more demanding of politicians and more unforgiving of politicians who don't answer straight and don't provide clear solutions."
Liberal Democrats, says Mr Clogg, ARE the party with those straight answers and clear, practical solutions, and he listed out the key areas where we are doing all the work in being ready to face recession.
Housing: we're the only party with a clear plan to allow local councils to borrow against assets, to buy up unsold properties to provide more social housing to vulnerable families
Fuel poverty: it something he's probably spoken out about more than any other subject since becoming leader; it was the first thing he talked about at my first Prime Monster's questions, it was the last thing he asked about before they broke up for summer recess, saying that the energy companies should recycle their multi-billion pound subsidy
Education and Health: the work that Mr Norman Lamb and Mr David Laws are doing about targeting resources much more effectively towards those people who need it most, the Pupil Premium targeting resources to the most hard-to-teach vulnerable children; the Patient Premium that he talked about in a speech earlier this week; changing the incentives for GPs so that doctors have an incentive to work in the most deprived areas.
And, crucially, tax and spend: we say loud and clear firstly that we ALREADY have the fairest, most redistributive tax policies of any Party in Britain, pound-for-pound twice as redistributive as our 2005 manifesto, closing huge loopholes worth billions of pounds that only the wealthy benefit from, handing that back to the vast majority of lower and middle-income taxpayers. But then now going further and saying that at a time in which millions of British families are having to tighten their belts, a bloated centralised government should have to tighten its belt too. The money that we can identify in that exercise – we're aiming at around twenty billion – obviously should first go on our spending priorities – care for the elderly, pupil premium, housing and so on – but if there's money to spare we're not simply going to give it to Mr Frown. We're going to say that people on low and middle incomes should have a claim on that money. It's their money.
To put it in very human terms: if you are a young couple, both working, on low incomes, you're worried about finding the money for school uniforms for the new year, worried about the cost of food, worried about whether you'll be able to take your family on holiday this year. I think if you're given a choice between having a bit of your own money back in these very difficult times to look after yourself and your family OR that money should just go back into the black hole of the Treasury… it's a no-brainer!
We've always, as a Liberal Party, got to be on the side of PEOPLE. The mood is really, really turning. We have always been trenchant critics of over-centralised, unaccountable, inefficient centralised government, and that is a VALUE that is very much in line with what a lot of people think as they head into a recession, as they see this extraordinary doubling of public expenditure over the last ten years under the Labour.
Now there is LOTS more to follow… but just for now I must rush off to interview Mr Lembit!
Back soon!
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Day 2790: When the Wind Blows
Thursday:
I am DELIGHTED to hear Mr Clogg's latest plans for ENERGY INDEPENDENCE.
He was off to visit a wind farm to see how it can be done and he pledged an Apollo Project for renewable energy: kind of appropriate to mention the Sun God when Solar Power has got to be up there in the mix!
Regular readers will know that it is the sort of thing I blather on about ALL THE TIME. That is because I think that apart from being jolly sensible in itself, it is a good way to sell the benefits of GREEN ENERGY to those people who are sceptical about the environment but can see the ECONOMIC advantage in not getting clobbered by the energy companies. Basically, Conservatories.
Listening to Mr Clogg on the The Today Programme show, I thought that he was very good EXCEPT for the one question that he ducked, which was about cars.
Now, fair enough, he was on there to talk about plans for generating electrical energy from renewable sources, and it really was a case of the interviewer either totally missing the point or DELIBERATELY missing the point, but actually you CAN answer this one as well.
The first and most obvious thing to say is "One step at a time, Sarah. First we want to deal with securing our domestic power generation in a way that is sustainable and independent."
But you can go further than that. When SERIOUS car companies like MERCEDES are saying that they will phase out producing petrol cars by as soon as 2015 then you CAN say: "but the next step is to look at moving to clean fuel for cars, with technology making advances in areas like hydrogen fuel cells and electric vehicles."
Now, I know that using electric power for cars means we will need a lot MORE electricity than just what we use at the moment. But the thing is we have GOT the capacity – great big open spaces called "The North Sea" and "The Atlantic Ocean" – that is perfect for wind power and wave power.
Green IS going to be the technology for the next generation (assuming that civilisation doesn't accidentally end because the oil runs out too soon or because Prince Vlad and the Monkey-in-Chief get into a "Whose Missiles are Bigger" contest!), and the Germans are already forging ahead.
We need to get into the game if we're to have a bright future.
I am DELIGHTED to hear Mr Clogg's latest plans for ENERGY INDEPENDENCE.
He was off to visit a wind farm to see how it can be done and he pledged an Apollo Project for renewable energy: kind of appropriate to mention the Sun God when Solar Power has got to be up there in the mix!
Regular readers will know that it is the sort of thing I blather on about ALL THE TIME. That is because I think that apart from being jolly sensible in itself, it is a good way to sell the benefits of GREEN ENERGY to those people who are sceptical about the environment but can see the ECONOMIC advantage in not getting clobbered by the energy companies. Basically, Conservatories.
Listening to Mr Clogg on the The Today Programme show, I thought that he was very good EXCEPT for the one question that he ducked, which was about cars.
Now, fair enough, he was on there to talk about plans for generating electrical energy from renewable sources, and it really was a case of the interviewer either totally missing the point or DELIBERATELY missing the point, but actually you CAN answer this one as well.
The first and most obvious thing to say is "One step at a time, Sarah. First we want to deal with securing our domestic power generation in a way that is sustainable and independent."
But you can go further than that. When SERIOUS car companies like MERCEDES are saying that they will phase out producing petrol cars by as soon as 2015 then you CAN say: "but the next step is to look at moving to clean fuel for cars, with technology making advances in areas like hydrogen fuel cells and electric vehicles."
Now, I know that using electric power for cars means we will need a lot MORE electricity than just what we use at the moment. But the thing is we have GOT the capacity – great big open spaces called "The North Sea" and "The Atlantic Ocean" – that is perfect for wind power and wave power.
Green IS going to be the technology for the next generation (assuming that civilisation doesn't accidentally end because the oil runs out too soon or because Prince Vlad and the Monkey-in-Chief get into a "Whose Missiles are Bigger" contest!), and the Germans are already forging ahead.
We need to get into the game if we're to have a bright future.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Day 2731: The Chihuahua That Roared
Monday:
And by "Chihuahua" I mean our esteemed leader, who is happy to be associated with the little dog that doesn't let its size stop it standing up for what it believes in.
Mr Clogg has made a KEYNOTE SPEECH to Chattering House about Liberal Democrat foreign policy and the need to get internationalism back on track after the disaster of the Monkey-in-Chief's administration.
The main area of the speech is, of course, about ZIMBABWE, but Mr Clogg does start out by mentioning EUROPE and THAT Treaty.
And you know what – it looks like I may have CONVINCED him that the consent of the people is more important than the process.
He says:
It stems from a growing sense of POWERLESSNESS, brought on by national governments that take decisions in their own interests but rarely in the interests of the people, and from the growth of globalisation, leaving us all as tiny grains of sand in the BIG cogs of the MACHINE.
What Mr Clogg wants is to turn the Union around and make it part of our ANSWER to globalisation, rather than seeming like another SYMPTOM of it!
It is a total misunderstanding of Liberalism to think that it is JUST about the freedom of the INDIVIDUAL to do whatever the heck you want. That is LIBERTARIANISM – and there is a reasonable question to ask whether there is a new Libertarian Party trying to squeeze its way out of the Old Conservatories. Mr Davis David might be a symptom of that.
But TRUE Liberalism is about empowering the individual AND the community AND the county AND the country AND the world… it is about creating networks that support each other, and finding solutions at the appropriate level. A European Union that works PROPERLY, works FOR the people than is imposed ON them, would be just another level in the network, the appropriate level for addressing regulation of the globalised corporations, or for tackling the urgent issue of pollution and approaching climate-geddon.
It is only by working TOGETHER that we can tackle international crises.
Mr Clogg refers to Mr Gladstone who was the first to say:
Mr Clogg then looks at how, following on from Mr Gladstone, there gradually evolved a fragile and tentative framework of international laws and bodies, based on the idea that we could intervene on HUMANITARIAN grounds and not just for national self-interest.
True, we have a serious self-interest in Afghanistan too: we don't want to see it return to a Taliban theocracy pumping out terrorists and opiate as fast as poppies grow. But more importantly that that, the only way the world is going to get better is if we work to make it get better.
Wars these days, whether it is the brutal election-stealing behaviour of Mr Mugabe's forces in Zimbabwe or the perpetual civil wars in Somalia or the ongoing genocide in the Sudan, they are no longer between nations but between peoples. And you know, this is often driven by the shortages of resources that are brought on by the very changes in climate that can ONLY be tackled on a GLOBAL level.
Now Mr Clogg admits that we cannot know what the strategic situation will be ten years from now. But equally, he says, worrying about the war we don't know about is not a good reason to lose the war we DO know about, the one that's going on right now!
So, he says, it's time Great Britain had a Defence Review, time to stop spending billions on Cold War defences, and way past time to start spending on the equipment our soldiers need for peacekeeping.
But he wants to go much further than that.
Thanks to Lord Blairimort and the Monkey-in-Chief, Britain and Americaland have sacrificed a whole lot of their MORAL AUTHORITY for a great deal of nothing. So it's been left up to the Canadians to carry on the work of developing responsible international law.
Mr Clogg points to their work on "Responsibility to Protect" or the clunkily labelled "R2P". (Which sounds like it should be a droid from Star Wars!)
This principle would fit with the idea that somehow the NATO war in Bosnia to save the Bosnians from the Serbs was somehow GOOD while the Monkey-in-Chief's Middle Eastern Adventure was self-evidently BAD.
Mr Clogg laid out how it should work:
We were, at least in part, ABLE to invade Iraq because we could start from bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. In part because of Iraq, we can't do that in Southern Africa. (Plus there's that whole business of stealing their continent for a century or so.) So even if we wanted to put an army on the ground in Zimbabwe, we wouldn't have anywhere for them to STAND.
Having mentioned Zimbabwe, Mr Clogg also went on to reiterate what he said on the Politics Show, that while we can't intervene militarily, we should still do all we can to defeat Mr Mugabe's evil reign of terror. In particular, we should be cutting off the regime's access to foreign cash (even though we know it will also hurt the ordinary Zimbabwean). We should put pressure on South Africa to come off the fence. If the South Africans cut off the electricity supply then Mr Mugabe will be dramatically weakened.
But, Mr Clogg would go even further than obvious cases of violence and oppression like Zimbabwe. He said that he thought that the INaction of the Burmese Junta after the cyclone earlier this year was ALSO cause for a "R2P" intervention.
Personally, I think we would need to be VERY VERY careful before we start to consider THAT sort of intervention. But really that is what Mr Clogg is proposing: VERY VERY careful consideration, so that we can set up the bodies that COULD intervene and the terms that would govern HOW they could intervene.
In conclusion, then, he said how strongly he believes in Britain's role as a force both for PEACE and for JUSTICE in the world. Of course we should continue to defend our own national interest robustly; but we should also seek to lead the debate on how to develop Responsibility to Protect and the United Nations, and how to do the best for the whole world.
And do you know what, I think maybe HE has persuaded ME too!
And by "Chihuahua" I mean our esteemed leader, who is happy to be associated with the little dog that doesn't let its size stop it standing up for what it believes in.
Mr Clogg has made a KEYNOTE SPEECH to Chattering House about Liberal Democrat foreign policy and the need to get internationalism back on track after the disaster of the Monkey-in-Chief's administration.
The main area of the speech is, of course, about ZIMBABWE, but Mr Clogg does start out by mentioning EUROPE and THAT Treaty.
And you know what – it looks like I may have CONVINCED him that the consent of the people is more important than the process.
He says:
"Of course I am disappointed that Lisbon was rejected by the Irish people…"Me too, Mr Clogg, me too
"But if you ask me what is more important at this stage: a strong sense of support and legitimacy for Europe, or the minor reforms of the Lisbon Treaty, I have to come down in favour of the former."This is JUST what I was saying the other day! Particularly when he goes on to say:
"It is now clear that for the EU to have meaning, legitimacy and resonance with its voters, it will have to win respect through its actions, through its relevance to daily lives."Mr Clogg goes on to point out that the problem is NOT about Europe versus the people OF Europe, it is much wider (and WORSE) than that. It is a problem of DISCONNECTION between the people and ALL politicians. Far from being an endorsement of the anti-EU froth-o-phobes, it is a REJECTION of the ruling classes, whoever they are and whatever they say.
It stems from a growing sense of POWERLESSNESS, brought on by national governments that take decisions in their own interests but rarely in the interests of the people, and from the growth of globalisation, leaving us all as tiny grains of sand in the BIG cogs of the MACHINE.
What Mr Clogg wants is to turn the Union around and make it part of our ANSWER to globalisation, rather than seeming like another SYMPTOM of it!
It is a total misunderstanding of Liberalism to think that it is JUST about the freedom of the INDIVIDUAL to do whatever the heck you want. That is LIBERTARIANISM – and there is a reasonable question to ask whether there is a new Libertarian Party trying to squeeze its way out of the Old Conservatories. Mr Davis David might be a symptom of that.
But TRUE Liberalism is about empowering the individual AND the community AND the county AND the country AND the world… it is about creating networks that support each other, and finding solutions at the appropriate level. A European Union that works PROPERLY, works FOR the people than is imposed ON them, would be just another level in the network, the appropriate level for addressing regulation of the globalised corporations, or for tackling the urgent issue of pollution and approaching climate-geddon.
It is only by working TOGETHER that we can tackle international crises.
Mr Clogg refers to Mr Gladstone who was the first to say:
"the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows, are as sacred as our own."A hundred and thirty years later, that is why we are in Afghanistan AGAIN.
Mr Clogg then looks at how, following on from Mr Gladstone, there gradually evolved a fragile and tentative framework of international laws and bodies, based on the idea that we could intervene on HUMANITARIAN grounds and not just for national self-interest.
True, we have a serious self-interest in Afghanistan too: we don't want to see it return to a Taliban theocracy pumping out terrorists and opiate as fast as poppies grow. But more importantly that that, the only way the world is going to get better is if we work to make it get better.
Wars these days, whether it is the brutal election-stealing behaviour of Mr Mugabe's forces in Zimbabwe or the perpetual civil wars in Somalia or the ongoing genocide in the Sudan, they are no longer between nations but between peoples. And you know, this is often driven by the shortages of resources that are brought on by the very changes in climate that can ONLY be tackled on a GLOBAL level.
Now Mr Clogg admits that we cannot know what the strategic situation will be ten years from now. But equally, he says, worrying about the war we don't know about is not a good reason to lose the war we DO know about, the one that's going on right now!
So, he says, it's time Great Britain had a Defence Review, time to stop spending billions on Cold War defences, and way past time to start spending on the equipment our soldiers need for peacekeeping.
But he wants to go much further than that.
Thanks to Lord Blairimort and the Monkey-in-Chief, Britain and Americaland have sacrificed a whole lot of their MORAL AUTHORITY for a great deal of nothing. So it's been left up to the Canadians to carry on the work of developing responsible international law.
Mr Clogg points to their work on "Responsibility to Protect" or the clunkily labelled "R2P". (Which sounds like it should be a droid from Star Wars!)
This principle would fit with the idea that somehow the NATO war in Bosnia to save the Bosnians from the Serbs was somehow GOOD while the Monkey-in-Chief's Middle Eastern Adventure was self-evidently BAD.
Mr Clogg laid out how it should work:
First, any intervention should be based on just cause.This last one is why – in spite of the MORAL case for doing so – we could not consider a military intervention in Zimbabwe. There is simply no local support.
Second, it must have the right intention, rather than serving hidden ends.
Third, intervention should always be a last resort.
Fourth, it must be sanctioned by legitimate authority.
Fifth, a response must be of proportional means to the breach.
Sixth – and this must not be forgotten – any intervention must have a reasonable chance of success.
We were, at least in part, ABLE to invade Iraq because we could start from bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. In part because of Iraq, we can't do that in Southern Africa. (Plus there's that whole business of stealing their continent for a century or so.) So even if we wanted to put an army on the ground in Zimbabwe, we wouldn't have anywhere for them to STAND.
Having mentioned Zimbabwe, Mr Clogg also went on to reiterate what he said on the Politics Show, that while we can't intervene militarily, we should still do all we can to defeat Mr Mugabe's evil reign of terror. In particular, we should be cutting off the regime's access to foreign cash (even though we know it will also hurt the ordinary Zimbabwean). We should put pressure on South Africa to come off the fence. If the South Africans cut off the electricity supply then Mr Mugabe will be dramatically weakened.
But, Mr Clogg would go even further than obvious cases of violence and oppression like Zimbabwe. He said that he thought that the INaction of the Burmese Junta after the cyclone earlier this year was ALSO cause for a "R2P" intervention.
Personally, I think we would need to be VERY VERY careful before we start to consider THAT sort of intervention. But really that is what Mr Clogg is proposing: VERY VERY careful consideration, so that we can set up the bodies that COULD intervene and the terms that would govern HOW they could intervene.
In conclusion, then, he said how strongly he believes in Britain's role as a force both for PEACE and for JUSTICE in the world. Of course we should continue to defend our own national interest robustly; but we should also seek to lead the debate on how to develop Responsibility to Protect and the United Nations, and how to do the best for the whole world.
And do you know what, I think maybe HE has persuaded ME too!
Friday, May 23, 2008
Day 2697: The New Tax-Cutting Party
Tuesday:
As the IFS (Institute for Funny Statistics) takes Chancellor Sooty to task for his one-year fix that will leave people worse off again next year…
And Mr Balloon – once more choosing the ANCIENT BRITON approach to policies: going naked but for his blue war paint(!) – tackles the Prime Monster on the same subject…
…it's GOOD to know that at least the LIBERAL DEMOCRATS have got some IDEAS for making the TAX a bit fairer and bit simpler and – dare we say it – a bit less!
Mr Clogg has made a speech explaining HOW and WHY.
Now, personally, I think that our SHORT TERM objective has got to be bringing BORROWING under control. At the moment Sooty is the Mr Micawber of Finance Ministers…
With his tax-cut-con-cover-up-bribe Sooty is now borrowing to cover the gap between his current spending and his current income. This is the route to DEBTORS PRISON.
So, as I say, the most important thing is to close that gap.
Obviously there are only TWO ways to do it: tax more or spend less.
What I am really pleased to see is that Mr Clogg recognises that we have reached, or at least are near to, the TOP END of the amount of tax that the people of Britain are willing to let the Government take.
Mr Frown – like you could forget that HE was the Chancellor… and STILL IS! – has done this through SLY and UNDERHAND methods: mainly by drawing more and more people into the 40% Higher Rate tax bracket by not putting up the tax bands as much as the increase in salaries; and by squeezing the central Government grant to your local council so that they have to put up the Council Tax, hitting the lowest paid disproportionate harder.
Of course, I say "near to" the top end because although Mr Frown seems HAPPY to have DOUBLED the tax take, squeezing THREE-HUNDRED BILLION pounds more out of ordinary working folks, he does seem quite happy to let super-rich individuals and big business get away with TWENTY-FIVE BILLION pounds of tax avoidance through (entirely legal) loopholes and non-dom status.
(Think about THAT when the headlines are screaming "Record Benefit Fraud"
over the news that the government has lost a whole ZERO-POINT-ONE-FOUR billion in benefits.)
Mr Frown's making the tax system more COMPLICATED has positively ENCOURAGED these people to get their highly-paid tax accountants (or more strictly speaking highly-paid partners in accountancy firms who then employ relatively averagely paid drones to do all the work) to find them all the cracks and crannies that the "great one" has accidentally (or accidentally-on-purpose) left for them to hide their money in.
By making taxes SIMPLER we also make them FAIRER, by having the rich companies and individuals pay their share – not pay MORE than their share, not SQUEEZE them till they SQUEAK, but at least stop the LUNACY that means they pay a lower tax rate than their CLEANING LADIES!
Using that money to take the lowest earners out of tax ALTOGETHER would be the way to spare them from Mr Frown's doubling of the 10p tax band that DOESN'T mean running the Government Credit card so far into the red that it MELTS!
This would be both REDISTRIBUTIVE – readers from the Labour might want to refer to their history notes to find what that means – AND fiscally neutral, not putting the tax burden up any higher than it already is.
Of course, if we CAN'T put taxes UP any more then LOGICALLY this means that we have got to think very hard about what SPENDING we would be willing to CUT.
And that is what Mr Clogg is going to do: he already has a target of twenty billion pounds of spending that he wants to redirect to be spent BETTER, but now he wants to go even further and start to find ways to reduce the tax burden.
Personally I think that spending money on body armour rather than aircraft carriers might be a good start, but there is also the way that Mr Frown's loves his BYZANTINE Tax Credits so much that he splashes them around with gay abandon on anyone fitting the right social profile – in work… married… with children… first name Gordon… etc. By targeting the benefit on the people it's SUPPOSED to benefit – i.e. the least well off – then you can be considerably less WASTEFUL.
Oh and there's the exciting way that with all of their special advisors, the Labour are now basically running TWO Civil Services in parallel. Probably room for some savings there.
What is most important about all this, though, is that Mr Clogg has seen where the Liberal Democrats principles have put us in a place away from the other two Parties.
While Mr "Loopholes" Frown and Mr "tax cuts for dead millionaires" Balloon pursue the DUBIOUS HONOUR of sucking up to the rich while borrowing to meet their spending commitments, only the LIBERAL DEMOCRATS are offering to CONTROL spending, CUT TAXES and STICK UP for the low paid, the hard working, the ordinary people of Britain.
As the IFS (Institute for Funny Statistics) takes Chancellor Sooty to task for his one-year fix that will leave people worse off again next year…
And Mr Balloon – once more choosing the ANCIENT BRITON approach to policies: going naked but for his blue war paint(!) – tackles the Prime Monster on the same subject…
…it's GOOD to know that at least the LIBERAL DEMOCRATS have got some IDEAS for making the TAX a bit fairer and bit simpler and – dare we say it – a bit less!
Mr Clogg has made a speech explaining HOW and WHY.
Now, personally, I think that our SHORT TERM objective has got to be bringing BORROWING under control. At the moment Sooty is the Mr Micawber of Finance Ministers…
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six: result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six: result misery."To which Sooty might add: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure: two aircraft carriers, two international wars, two tax cuts for the middle classes, 2% for the police: result election catastrophe!"
With his tax-cut-con-cover-up-bribe Sooty is now borrowing to cover the gap between his current spending and his current income. This is the route to DEBTORS PRISON.
So, as I say, the most important thing is to close that gap.
Obviously there are only TWO ways to do it: tax more or spend less.
What I am really pleased to see is that Mr Clogg recognises that we have reached, or at least are near to, the TOP END of the amount of tax that the people of Britain are willing to let the Government take.
Mr Frown – like you could forget that HE was the Chancellor… and STILL IS! – has done this through SLY and UNDERHAND methods: mainly by drawing more and more people into the 40% Higher Rate tax bracket by not putting up the tax bands as much as the increase in salaries; and by squeezing the central Government grant to your local council so that they have to put up the Council Tax, hitting the lowest paid disproportionate harder.
Of course, I say "near to" the top end because although Mr Frown seems HAPPY to have DOUBLED the tax take, squeezing THREE-HUNDRED BILLION pounds more out of ordinary working folks, he does seem quite happy to let super-rich individuals and big business get away with TWENTY-FIVE BILLION pounds of tax avoidance through (entirely legal) loopholes and non-dom status.
(Think about THAT when the headlines are screaming "Record Benefit Fraud"
over the news that the government has lost a whole ZERO-POINT-ONE-FOUR billion in benefits.)
Mr Frown's making the tax system more COMPLICATED has positively ENCOURAGED these people to get their highly-paid tax accountants (or more strictly speaking highly-paid partners in accountancy firms who then employ relatively averagely paid drones to do all the work) to find them all the cracks and crannies that the "great one" has accidentally (or accidentally-on-purpose) left for them to hide their money in.
By making taxes SIMPLER we also make them FAIRER, by having the rich companies and individuals pay their share – not pay MORE than their share, not SQUEEZE them till they SQUEAK, but at least stop the LUNACY that means they pay a lower tax rate than their CLEANING LADIES!
Using that money to take the lowest earners out of tax ALTOGETHER would be the way to spare them from Mr Frown's doubling of the 10p tax band that DOESN'T mean running the Government Credit card so far into the red that it MELTS!
This would be both REDISTRIBUTIVE – readers from the Labour might want to refer to their history notes to find what that means – AND fiscally neutral, not putting the tax burden up any higher than it already is.
Of course, if we CAN'T put taxes UP any more then LOGICALLY this means that we have got to think very hard about what SPENDING we would be willing to CUT.
And that is what Mr Clogg is going to do: he already has a target of twenty billion pounds of spending that he wants to redirect to be spent BETTER, but now he wants to go even further and start to find ways to reduce the tax burden.
Personally I think that spending money on body armour rather than aircraft carriers might be a good start, but there is also the way that Mr Frown's loves his BYZANTINE Tax Credits so much that he splashes them around with gay abandon on anyone fitting the right social profile – in work… married… with children… first name Gordon… etc. By targeting the benefit on the people it's SUPPOSED to benefit – i.e. the least well off – then you can be considerably less WASTEFUL.
Oh and there's the exciting way that with all of their special advisors, the Labour are now basically running TWO Civil Services in parallel. Probably room for some savings there.
What is most important about all this, though, is that Mr Clogg has seen where the Liberal Democrats principles have put us in a place away from the other two Parties.
While Mr "Loopholes" Frown and Mr "tax cuts for dead millionaires" Balloon pursue the DUBIOUS HONOUR of sucking up to the rich while borrowing to meet their spending commitments, only the LIBERAL DEMOCRATS are offering to CONTROL spending, CUT TAXES and STICK UP for the low paid, the hard working, the ordinary people of Britain.
PS:
Yes, I do KNOW that Dr Who says: "logic, my dear Zoë, merely allows you to be wrong with authority." The problem is that in that instance Zoë was right and Dr Who was wrong. So there may be some IRONY involved in using the quote to criticise people who use LOGIC.Monday, May 12, 2008
Day 2684: A Hundred (and-forty-one) Days of Mr Clogg
Wednesday:
Time makes tragedies for all of us. I had MEANT to ask Mr Clogg if he would like to say a few nice words about Ms Ray Michie and Mr Lord Holme.
AND we should've congratulated him for taking control of Sheffield Council.
I am afraid I didn't; I asked a piece of fluff about Mr Boris instead. I'm sorry!
I like to open with a nice easy question and close with something a bit funny and oddball. This is because I am a FLUFFY TOY. Well mainly. But also to set the ball rolling in a friendly fashion.
Lib Dem Bloggers feel the heat; Mr Clogg keeps his cool
I will come to Mr Clogg's answers in a minute, but as it was, the QUESTIONS did seem to flow rather well from one into another, sparking a jolly good debate.
I asked about Mr Boris, and whether he should keep his promise to resign his MPs seat in Henley, wanting to give Mr Clogg the opportunity to say of course he should.
"Of course he should," said Mr Clogg. So that was a good start!
This led, of course, into discussion of BY-ELECTIONS, particularly Henley – we will be ready – and of course Crewe and Nantwich, where Mr Balloon has decided to make the 10p tax debacle the centrepiece of his campaign.
From this followed Citizen Alix's question about campaigning on the 10p tax and why she hadn't seen more Liberal Democrats pushing the fact that we have got a shiny tax policy to entirely deal with this very case: we would NOT bring back the 10p rate because we already HAVE a plan to make the tax system fairer for people on low and middle incomes (and pay for it by closing loopholes, switching to green taxes, and redistributing wealth in that way).
What, I think, Mr Clogg had to SHY AWAY from was saying that we have had to CHANGE our policy. We did USED to have a policy of raising allowances so as to make the 10p band into a NOp band – and I suspect that this is the policy that Ms Alix is remembering; it is certainly what I have been thinking about as a solution to the 10p tax dilemma. Unfortunately there have been DEVELOPMENTS since we had that policy: specifically first Mr Frown went and DOUBLED the 10p tax band, making it TWICE as EXPENSIVE to abolish it again, and second he also snaffled some of our ideas for raising the tax to pay for it and spent all the money.
Mr Vince had to make a DIFFICULT CHOICE between raising allowances OR cutting the basic rate by 4p as part of a package with Abolishing the Council Tax and making the Green Tax switch. But at least we HAVE a policy. Unlike Mr Balloon.
Mr Laurence then wanted to know if we couldn't UNMASK the real Conservatories who hide behind the façade of Mr Balloon. Mr Balloon is quite NICE he said… (are you MAD, Mr Laurence!!!) but the real Conservatories are still scary and NUTS. Ms Jo Chrispy-Strips then broadened the policy debate out to a more general question (as she had asked of Mr Danny) about our NARRATIVE, and whether just the word "Liberal" is enough to convey all that we mean. And it was logical to follow that with Ms Helen's question (with props!) about why the media only see things through their special RED/BLUE goggles, and how we can get INTO or PAST the mainstream media.
After this, Mr Paul Burblings asked… well FIRST he asked if Mr Clogg had seen his "Headcases" puppet – Mr Clogg hadn't – and THEN Mr Paul asked whether there was any advantage in pressing Mr Frown for PR at Westminster, and at the end Ms Jo quickly asked why it was that, for a party so in favour of FAIR VOTES, we seem to be a bit RUBBISH at fighting PR elections.
In between, Mr Gavin When-will-i-be-famous-man had asked if there was one piece of legislation Mr Clogg could repeal, what would it be – Mr Clogg chose I.D.iot cards (which got a little cheer) and that was followed up (after a question about redistribution from Ms Linda) by Mr Laurence again, challenging Mr Clogg over his saying that he'd break the law rather than give up his information to the Government for an I.D.iot card.
And then the hour beat us, so Mr Clogg was sparred having to answer Daddy Alex's VERY GOOD write-in question on CANNABIS. (I mean it was ABOUT cannabis, not that it was written ON cannabis… it was writing on an e-mail… I'll shut up).
"The Labour want to lock up more people for possession of Cannabis, and for longer, in our prisons that are already so full that violent offenders are said to be being moved to open prisons. Will the Liberal Democrats vote to keep Cannabis classification in line with the evidence-based independent scientific advice?"
But in return WE were spared Mr Clogg getting to go on for AGES about the Dohar round of the world trade talks and whether they're about to collapse and then the new President in America (who will almost certainly be MORE protectionist than the Monkey-in-Chief) will have half a year GETTING elected and then another year getting their trade secretary approved by congress and it'll put the mockers on it entirely…
But my LAST question was… had he read the interviews that we did with Mr Danny when Mr Clogg had stood us up last time. HE hadn't. Boo… no, sorry, never mind, Mr Clogg is a busy man and had more important things to do. Probably.
(I bet Mr Danny read them!)
Anyway, that's what WE had to say, but really you're not interested in US, you want to know what Mr Clogg said!
Well, OBVIOUSLY Mr Boris should get on and resign as an MP. In fact it's a little bit OUTRAGEOUS – and will annoy quite a lot of people – that he and the Conservatories seem to think that how long he can have a dual mandate is somehow in their GIFT.
Actually, that isn't the MOST bizarre thing: that is the "reverse dynastic" suggestion that Mr Boris might be succeeded by his DAD! As if it wasn't bad enough, the Labour throwing Ms Gwyneth Dunwoody's DAUGHTER at the by-election in Crewe and Nantwich in the hope of getting a SYMPATHY VOTE out.
But we WILL be ready. In fact, Mr Clogg himself knows the area well, having been brought up just outside the constituency and been there on "thousands of shopping trips with his mum". And he knows that there will be many people receptive to a Liberal message there. The demographics – said Mr Clogg – are very interesting… as indeed they are in Crewe and Nantwich. It would be ridiculous to make predictions at this early stage, but he would say that if we campaign hard then there's everything to play for… and we have pulled off more SPECTACULAR things in the past.
(So if you've not been to Crewe yet, get yourself ready for a trip to Henley!)
Mr Balloon has said that an announcement will be "soon" by which he means not yet). Very much with no insider knowledge at all, Mr Clogg suspected that there may be a "tug-o-war" going on between central office and the local party, and that's what's holding them up. Plus of course, they want to throw their kitchen sink at Crewe.
He did think that Mr Balloon had put himself in a very vulnerable position – in fact he called it "farcical" – racing up to Crewe and saying that he would take on the Government on the 10p tax and then admitting that he had absolutely no solution.
Mr Clogg felt that we really should push the fact that, agree with us or not, we have at least GOT a thought-through plan – to abolish the Council Tax, the most regressive tax in Western Europe, Mr Clogg called it, and to lower Basic Rate tax by 4p. It's a plan that is aimed at creating greater social justice.
He felt that they really went to town on this in Sheffield (he didn't need to say look at the results), although they were greatly helped by one of the local MPs being the Ms Anglepoise Smith who said she would resign on principle and then lost her spine in the course of a thirty-second transatlantic telephone call. But, he said, if people like Ms Alix don’t feel that we put that case across strongly enough in the local elections, then we have a chance to really push it hard now!
And particularly since the Conservatories literally have no answer.
Mr Clogg repeated the line he had used in Prime Monster's Questions – to Daddy Richard's approval – "Mr Frown has no PRINCIPLES; Mr Balloon has no POLICIES!"
And he wants to keep reiterating this idea that if Mr Frown is a man who had principles once, then they seem to have gone AWOL; while Mr Balloon, most extraordinarily, seems to think that he can go on the ATTACK on an area where he has no policy AT ALL!
This brought on Mr Laurence's moment of madness admission that he quite likes Mr Balloon; it's the rest of the Conservatories that HE can't stand.
Mr Clogg admitted he did not share Mr Laurence's feelings.
"You mean you don't like him?"
"I don't think 'like' comes into it. Do I believe that he's the kind of politician who can deliver the change that I believe passionately that this country is crying out for? No I don't."
Citizen Alix has extensively quoted Mr Clogg's FORENSIC dissection of Mr Balloon's character.
But I don't see why I shouldn't do it again!
On foreign policy he's in the wrong decade – the Nineteen FIFTIES, to be precise; on Civil Liberties he's Janus-faced – talking of opposing I.D.iot cards but also wanting to bin the Human Rights Act; on the Environment he's insincere; on Social Justice he's downright hypocritical; "…at the end of the day, I'm not impressed."
Where Mr Clogg DID agree with Mr Laurence was that if Mr Balloon is FLAWED parts of his party are still LOOP-THE-LOOP, something he feels will come out in the wash… when things go bad (as they did LAST summer) or worse when they go really well.
In fact the wins in the local may be too much too soon, as they may convince a party that is currently so "hungry for power" as to docilely support the Balloonster, that it doesn't REALLY need to change.
One thing that Mr Clogg WOULD admit to Mr Balloon having was the "presentation". This gave Ms Jo her opening to ask about "narrative".
"Our narrative," said Mr Clogg, "is to make the country more Liberal." He did later admit that he was tailoring his answer to us as a group OF Liberals, and that obviously it's important to develop the right VOCABULARY. But to us, Mr Clogg's manifesto was quite CLEAR:
"It's a LOT to do with power: power is over-concentrated; it is unaccountable; it is abused; it is secretive; it is hoarded; it is centralised – and not just in politics but in the private sector too. The redistribution, the dispersal, the accountability of power, the empowerment of people and families and communities is ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL to making Britain more Liberal than it is at the moment.
"And I also think that a Liberal Britain is not possible without the empowerment that comes from social mobility… it is a GROTESQUELY ILLIBERAL thing if children's life chances are determined by the circumstances of their birth."
What Ms Jo wanted to know was: does "Liberalism" as an idea have the purchase to get people to buy into a story?
As a word – to people outside of our little Liberal interview bubble – it doesn't, so what is important is to be about DEFINING CHANGE, and on our own terms. The next general election WILL be about change in a way that one hasn't been since Lord Blairimort arrived and the Conservatories DEPARTED in 1997. Because of the economy, mainly, and the feeling that the tax burden has risen without delivering the promised results, and the passage of time, the profound sense of a Government increasingly governing without purpose or direction.
Our greatest challenge as a Party, says Mr Clogg, is to set a LEAD in defining what change is necessary and why only we can deliver it.
Mr Balloon is capturing the market for the LANGUAGE of change without any of the SUBSTANCE of it. We now have crucial months ahead in which to expose the hollowness of his position and advocate our agenda as being authentic in answering people's needs.
This was where Ms Helen drew out her SPECIAL GLASSES. At first Mr Clogg thought that they were 3-D spectacles, but then he realised that the red on the left and blue on the right meant that they were MEDIA GOGGLES. As Ms Helen put it: they give you a distorted view of the world and the newspapers give a free pair away every day.
Just see how the coverage of the London Mayoral contest descended into Mr Ken versus Mr Boris, for example.
We HAVE our message, we KNOW what we stand for, but how do we get that past the media, into the media?
"Well your question asks two TOTALLY different things," says Mr Clogg, "'Past' the media or 'into' the media. And 'past' the media is a more interesting question."
He went on to explain: we CAN devote a great deal of time and human resources in getting an extra centimetre or two of coverage from a paper like the Daily Hate Mail, but we need to be unsentimental and hard-headed about the fact that, when the national media are as blinkered as Ms Helen suggested, it's almost certainly a waste of effort.
Instead, Mr Clogg has redirected the press team to devote much more time to LOCAL media, why he spends a lot of his time going around the country, holding town-hall meetings, very specifically targeting local media "footprints".
And with all modesty he suggests that if you look at the results – particularly outside the orbit of theLondon Evil Standard M25 – then you can see that we must be doing SOMETHING right.
Basically, Mr Clogg has the same idea as the Liberals did in the late Sixties and early Seventies: 'people aren't printing our stuff; we have to tell them direct.' But, after four decades of community politics, the Party is BIG and IMPORTANT enough at a local level (4,700 councillors rather than about 300) that at least the local papers take us more seriously. So Mr Clogg's got a 'They may not have listened at the time I was born, but maybe let's give them another try' strategy.
So we must continue to use local media, NEW media (ooh, ooh, that's BLOGGERS!) and old-fashioned campaigning (FOCUS!) to bypass the outdated national papers.
Yes, outdated: Mr Clogg told us of a RANT that he had at the editorial team of a national paper. Holding up their copy, he said: "the way you cover politics is literally incomprehensible to my constituents."
In Sheffield, you see, there IS a "ding-dong two-party battle" going on; it's between the Labour and the LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.
What the papers have FAILED to pick up on is the way that politics is becoming MORE local, not less, how what happens in one city doesn't reflect what happens in another, or in a rural area or in the suburbs. The assumption that globalisation would make everything the SAME is QUITE WRONG; in fact it's made people demand MORE of their local politician.
It means the political map is more fragmented than ever and makes a nonsense of the "national swing" graphics that the BBC show on election night: Jeremy Vine might as well scribble things on his tummy for all the meaning it has.
"Don't say that!" cries Daddy Richard, "or he'll do it next time!"
But it all means that the days of the nation reading the same news from the same papers are numbered. Mr Clogg sees a future where we are all taking a more "magpie" approach to our news, reading a couple of websites, downloading news clipping to out Blackberries and Apples; the might of the Murdoch media is waning and they know it, which is why they are investing "squillions" in new media themselves.
But there's no point in complaining. The national media will only talk more about us the more we grow bigger and the more we matter.
Sheffield is the fifth largest city in the country. And it's controlled by Liberal Democrats. We now control Sheffield and Liverpool and Burnley and Newcastle and Hull and the list goes on. If these were cities in the South East the media would absolutely be talking about us. They don't because they don’t live there.
But it's only a mater of time.
Moving on to Mr Paul's question about trying to wangle PR out of Mr Frown, Mr Clogs answer was a simple and direct "no".
"I am not going to start try to persuade the Labour Party, because they are weak, to deliver something they should have delivered ten years ago. There's very little merit in playing footsie with either of the other parties on any level."
He also thinks that Mr Frown is now SO weak that anything that if the Labour TRIED to do anything about voting reform, it would look like an act of desperation and actually DAMAGE the cause of a fairer voting system.
Mr Gavin's question about repealing just ONE piece of legislation proved more of a poser… because there are so MANY to choose from! As I mentioned above, Mr Clogg settled on the I.D.iot cards
"…because of the TOTEMIC value: it says a LOT about the balance between the state and the individual."
Next up was Ms Linda's question based on a conference that apparently both she and Mr Clogg had been at just the week before. What Mr Clogg had missed, said Ms Linda, was Ms Lisa Harker, co-director of the IPPR, taking us to task about the redistribution of wealth.
Well, as someone very much part of the New Labour Project, she WOULD say that wouldn't she, said Mr Clogg. But precisely one of the CRISES for the Labour is that while there HAS been a certain amount of redistribution, particularly to tackle child poverty and pensioner poverty, it HASN'T had the galvanising effect on social mobility and equality.
(We should't actually be SURPRISED about that. This is a Government that likes to keep doing FOR people the things it thinks they deserve, rather than making it easier for people to decide to do the things that they need for themselves.)
We Liberal Democrats have a very strong story to tell on redistribution, not just our tax policy, outlined previously, but also an emerging education policy, to be fleshed out as we approach the General Election, that will redistribute resources to the most needy children. At the moment, if you are not a working family you don't get the support for structured education. That needs to be paid for, and it can be done by removing ABOVE-average earning families from the tax credit system.
But greater redistribution on its own won't lead to the "sunny uplands of a Scandinavian Utopia".
It's much more COMPLICATED: to do with how "social capital" is distributed, to do with family patterns, employment patterns, urban design, to do with housing – the Scandinavian handling of housing stock is UNRECOGNISABLE to us here, and we, as a country, have a mountain to climb to sort out our housing needs.
Brilliant! To be more equal, we need to build mountains so we'll be more like Scandinavia! I have got that right, haven't I?
But as Liberal Democrats, continues Mr Clogg, we shouldn't beat ourselves up for not doing EVEN more: we have policies to make the tax system fairer, to improve opportunity through education, to begin to tackle the housing crisis. We're actually PRETTY GOOD.
Mr Clogg, though, also wanted to address something that he thought was underlying Ms Linda's question: the idea, prevalent in the Labour, that it's somehow "okay" to go after those on middle incomes to give more to tackle poverty. If you want to redistribute effectively, to create greater social mobility and greater social justice, says Mr Clogg, you've got to carry the Middle Classes along with you. You've got to get them to BUY IN to the system in which they think they have a stake and where they can see a collective benefit; you can't just summarily say Middle Classes: "Bog off" or the whole system collapses. There is already, in London, massive middle-class flight at the transition into secondary education, and massive flight into private health care. If that were to be the future for the country as a whole, we'd be in real trouble as it FRACTURES the social fabric of the country.
And speaking of "social fractures", Mr Laurence wasn't keen on Mr Clogg's implication that he'd defy the law if I.D.iot cards were made compulsory.
Mr Clogg was clear that he felt that if the Government's I.D.iot card scheme was to work, and objective observers agree, they would have to COMPEL us to give up personal and private information, and that that would be a step TOO FAR.
But we already give up information, to the tax man, for example, said Mr Laurence.
Well, we agree to give up SOME information, but it is proportional and it is for a purpose.
But why break the law? Isn't THAT step too far?
Mr Clogg said that it's not as neat a moral universe as that.
We have got to be STEADFAST and if necessary DIRECT in the actions that we take to get the right balance between the powers of the state and the privacy and the rights of the individual. And that's in the PROUD traditions of our Party.
It would unalterably change the relationship between the State and the individual to give the State the power to extract information from the private citizen when there is no need to do it. THAT is the difference from giving up information to the Criminal Justice system or the Tax Office.
Now Mr Laurence isn't the only person to have said to Mr Clogg that he shouldn't be saying this, but he felt that for him this would be an encroachment on his freedom as an individual that he would find it impossible to abide by. And he doesn't feel he is alone in that.
(He's RIGHT – me and my Daddies are with you, Mr Clogg!)
In fact, he suspects that this is why the Government are now resorting to SALAMI TACTICS to try and get the I.D.iot cards through by STEALTH.
With the clock almost beating us, Mr Clogg said he could answer us one more question and Ms Jo dived in to ask how can WE be so RUBBISH at PR elections?
Well, he said, first he's setting up a review internally to look precisely at this question, but – and he acknowledged that that was a "politician's answer" when he didn't have an answer himself – but second he asked a question of his own back: noting that the elections that ARE done by PR, notably the London Assembly and the European Elections are ones with which the public is not familiar, so he asked: should the question be is it difficult to contest elections, particularly as the third party, when you're contesting elections for bodies that people don't know about or, frankly, don’t care about?
He campaigned a lot in London and the vast majority of people who he met had no idea that there even WAS an assembly; when he was first elected in 1999 to the European Parliament he was driving home and he had to stop when he was struck by a thought: he'd been elected by just, what was it, 4% of his new constituents; it was very depressing – what sort of mandate was that?
His hunch is that if you have a fair votes system for a body that people care about passionately THEN it will be possible for us to get stuck in there.
And with that – and a hurried apology to Mr Danny for not having read the interview we did with him – he had to be WHISKED AWAY and no time even for our usual group photo, just leaving me to try to hand out the remaining STICKY BUNS!
But finally finally, before he could get away, I pinned him down and got him to promise that next time we will definitely be in SHEFFIELD, so that more people who are not Londoners will find it easier to come along and have a go. Watch out for more news in Lib Dem Voice when we have arranged a date!
Time makes tragedies for all of us. I had MEANT to ask Mr Clogg if he would like to say a few nice words about Ms Ray Michie and Mr Lord Holme.
AND we should've congratulated him for taking control of Sheffield Council.
I am afraid I didn't; I asked a piece of fluff about Mr Boris instead. I'm sorry!
I like to open with a nice easy question and close with something a bit funny and oddball. This is because I am a FLUFFY TOY. Well mainly. But also to set the ball rolling in a friendly fashion.
Lib Dem Bloggers feel the heat; Mr Clogg keeps his cool
Photo credit: Mr Laurence
I will come to Mr Clogg's answers in a minute, but as it was, the QUESTIONS did seem to flow rather well from one into another, sparking a jolly good debate.
I asked about Mr Boris, and whether he should keep his promise to resign his MPs seat in Henley, wanting to give Mr Clogg the opportunity to say of course he should.
"Of course he should," said Mr Clogg. So that was a good start!
This led, of course, into discussion of BY-ELECTIONS, particularly Henley – we will be ready – and of course Crewe and Nantwich, where Mr Balloon has decided to make the 10p tax debacle the centrepiece of his campaign.
From this followed Citizen Alix's question about campaigning on the 10p tax and why she hadn't seen more Liberal Democrats pushing the fact that we have got a shiny tax policy to entirely deal with this very case: we would NOT bring back the 10p rate because we already HAVE a plan to make the tax system fairer for people on low and middle incomes (and pay for it by closing loopholes, switching to green taxes, and redistributing wealth in that way).
What, I think, Mr Clogg had to SHY AWAY from was saying that we have had to CHANGE our policy. We did USED to have a policy of raising allowances so as to make the 10p band into a NOp band – and I suspect that this is the policy that Ms Alix is remembering; it is certainly what I have been thinking about as a solution to the 10p tax dilemma. Unfortunately there have been DEVELOPMENTS since we had that policy: specifically first Mr Frown went and DOUBLED the 10p tax band, making it TWICE as EXPENSIVE to abolish it again, and second he also snaffled some of our ideas for raising the tax to pay for it and spent all the money.
Mr Vince had to make a DIFFICULT CHOICE between raising allowances OR cutting the basic rate by 4p as part of a package with Abolishing the Council Tax and making the Green Tax switch. But at least we HAVE a policy. Unlike Mr Balloon.
Mr Laurence then wanted to know if we couldn't UNMASK the real Conservatories who hide behind the façade of Mr Balloon. Mr Balloon is quite NICE he said… (are you MAD, Mr Laurence!!!) but the real Conservatories are still scary and NUTS. Ms Jo Chrispy-Strips then broadened the policy debate out to a more general question (as she had asked of Mr Danny) about our NARRATIVE, and whether just the word "Liberal" is enough to convey all that we mean. And it was logical to follow that with Ms Helen's question (with props!) about why the media only see things through their special RED/BLUE goggles, and how we can get INTO or PAST the mainstream media.
After this, Mr Paul Burblings asked… well FIRST he asked if Mr Clogg had seen his "Headcases" puppet – Mr Clogg hadn't – and THEN Mr Paul asked whether there was any advantage in pressing Mr Frown for PR at Westminster, and at the end Ms Jo quickly asked why it was that, for a party so in favour of FAIR VOTES, we seem to be a bit RUBBISH at fighting PR elections.
In between, Mr Gavin When-will-i-be-famous-man had asked if there was one piece of legislation Mr Clogg could repeal, what would it be – Mr Clogg chose I.D.iot cards (which got a little cheer) and that was followed up (after a question about redistribution from Ms Linda) by Mr Laurence again, challenging Mr Clogg over his saying that he'd break the law rather than give up his information to the Government for an I.D.iot card.
And then the hour beat us, so Mr Clogg was sparred having to answer Daddy Alex's VERY GOOD write-in question on CANNABIS. (I mean it was ABOUT cannabis, not that it was written ON cannabis… it was writing on an e-mail… I'll shut up).
"The Labour want to lock up more people for possession of Cannabis, and for longer, in our prisons that are already so full that violent offenders are said to be being moved to open prisons. Will the Liberal Democrats vote to keep Cannabis classification in line with the evidence-based independent scientific advice?"
But in return WE were spared Mr Clogg getting to go on for AGES about the Dohar round of the world trade talks and whether they're about to collapse and then the new President in America (who will almost certainly be MORE protectionist than the Monkey-in-Chief) will have half a year GETTING elected and then another year getting their trade secretary approved by congress and it'll put the mockers on it entirely…
But my LAST question was… had he read the interviews that we did with Mr Danny when Mr Clogg had stood us up last time. HE hadn't. Boo… no, sorry, never mind, Mr Clogg is a busy man and had more important things to do. Probably.
(I bet Mr Danny read them!)
Anyway, that's what WE had to say, but really you're not interested in US, you want to know what Mr Clogg said!
Well, OBVIOUSLY Mr Boris should get on and resign as an MP. In fact it's a little bit OUTRAGEOUS – and will annoy quite a lot of people – that he and the Conservatories seem to think that how long he can have a dual mandate is somehow in their GIFT.
Actually, that isn't the MOST bizarre thing: that is the "reverse dynastic" suggestion that Mr Boris might be succeeded by his DAD! As if it wasn't bad enough, the Labour throwing Ms Gwyneth Dunwoody's DAUGHTER at the by-election in Crewe and Nantwich in the hope of getting a SYMPATHY VOTE out.
But we WILL be ready. In fact, Mr Clogg himself knows the area well, having been brought up just outside the constituency and been there on "thousands of shopping trips with his mum". And he knows that there will be many people receptive to a Liberal message there. The demographics – said Mr Clogg – are very interesting… as indeed they are in Crewe and Nantwich. It would be ridiculous to make predictions at this early stage, but he would say that if we campaign hard then there's everything to play for… and we have pulled off more SPECTACULAR things in the past.
(So if you've not been to Crewe yet, get yourself ready for a trip to Henley!)
Mr Balloon has said that an announcement will be "soon" by which he means not yet). Very much with no insider knowledge at all, Mr Clogg suspected that there may be a "tug-o-war" going on between central office and the local party, and that's what's holding them up. Plus of course, they want to throw their kitchen sink at Crewe.
He did think that Mr Balloon had put himself in a very vulnerable position – in fact he called it "farcical" – racing up to Crewe and saying that he would take on the Government on the 10p tax and then admitting that he had absolutely no solution.
Mr Clogg felt that we really should push the fact that, agree with us or not, we have at least GOT a thought-through plan – to abolish the Council Tax, the most regressive tax in Western Europe, Mr Clogg called it, and to lower Basic Rate tax by 4p. It's a plan that is aimed at creating greater social justice.
He felt that they really went to town on this in Sheffield (he didn't need to say look at the results), although they were greatly helped by one of the local MPs being the Ms Anglepoise Smith who said she would resign on principle and then lost her spine in the course of a thirty-second transatlantic telephone call. But, he said, if people like Ms Alix don’t feel that we put that case across strongly enough in the local elections, then we have a chance to really push it hard now!
And particularly since the Conservatories literally have no answer.
Mr Clogg repeated the line he had used in Prime Monster's Questions – to Daddy Richard's approval – "Mr Frown has no PRINCIPLES; Mr Balloon has no POLICIES!"
And he wants to keep reiterating this idea that if Mr Frown is a man who had principles once, then they seem to have gone AWOL; while Mr Balloon, most extraordinarily, seems to think that he can go on the ATTACK on an area where he has no policy AT ALL!
This brought on Mr Laurence's moment of madness admission that he quite likes Mr Balloon; it's the rest of the Conservatories that HE can't stand.
Mr Clogg admitted he did not share Mr Laurence's feelings.
"You mean you don't like him?"
"I don't think 'like' comes into it. Do I believe that he's the kind of politician who can deliver the change that I believe passionately that this country is crying out for? No I don't."
Citizen Alix has extensively quoted Mr Clogg's FORENSIC dissection of Mr Balloon's character.
But I don't see why I shouldn't do it again!
On foreign policy he's in the wrong decade – the Nineteen FIFTIES, to be precise; on Civil Liberties he's Janus-faced – talking of opposing I.D.iot cards but also wanting to bin the Human Rights Act; on the Environment he's insincere; on Social Justice he's downright hypocritical; "…at the end of the day, I'm not impressed."
Where Mr Clogg DID agree with Mr Laurence was that if Mr Balloon is FLAWED parts of his party are still LOOP-THE-LOOP, something he feels will come out in the wash… when things go bad (as they did LAST summer) or worse when they go really well.
In fact the wins in the local may be too much too soon, as they may convince a party that is currently so "hungry for power" as to docilely support the Balloonster, that it doesn't REALLY need to change.
One thing that Mr Clogg WOULD admit to Mr Balloon having was the "presentation". This gave Ms Jo her opening to ask about "narrative".
"Our narrative," said Mr Clogg, "is to make the country more Liberal." He did later admit that he was tailoring his answer to us as a group OF Liberals, and that obviously it's important to develop the right VOCABULARY. But to us, Mr Clogg's manifesto was quite CLEAR:
"It's a LOT to do with power: power is over-concentrated; it is unaccountable; it is abused; it is secretive; it is hoarded; it is centralised – and not just in politics but in the private sector too. The redistribution, the dispersal, the accountability of power, the empowerment of people and families and communities is ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL to making Britain more Liberal than it is at the moment.
"And I also think that a Liberal Britain is not possible without the empowerment that comes from social mobility… it is a GROTESQUELY ILLIBERAL thing if children's life chances are determined by the circumstances of their birth."
What Ms Jo wanted to know was: does "Liberalism" as an idea have the purchase to get people to buy into a story?
As a word – to people outside of our little Liberal interview bubble – it doesn't, so what is important is to be about DEFINING CHANGE, and on our own terms. The next general election WILL be about change in a way that one hasn't been since Lord Blairimort arrived and the Conservatories DEPARTED in 1997. Because of the economy, mainly, and the feeling that the tax burden has risen without delivering the promised results, and the passage of time, the profound sense of a Government increasingly governing without purpose or direction.
Our greatest challenge as a Party, says Mr Clogg, is to set a LEAD in defining what change is necessary and why only we can deliver it.
Mr Balloon is capturing the market for the LANGUAGE of change without any of the SUBSTANCE of it. We now have crucial months ahead in which to expose the hollowness of his position and advocate our agenda as being authentic in answering people's needs.
This was where Ms Helen drew out her SPECIAL GLASSES. At first Mr Clogg thought that they were 3-D spectacles, but then he realised that the red on the left and blue on the right meant that they were MEDIA GOGGLES. As Ms Helen put it: they give you a distorted view of the world and the newspapers give a free pair away every day.
Just see how the coverage of the London Mayoral contest descended into Mr Ken versus Mr Boris, for example.
We HAVE our message, we KNOW what we stand for, but how do we get that past the media, into the media?
"Well your question asks two TOTALLY different things," says Mr Clogg, "'Past' the media or 'into' the media. And 'past' the media is a more interesting question."
He went on to explain: we CAN devote a great deal of time and human resources in getting an extra centimetre or two of coverage from a paper like the Daily Hate Mail, but we need to be unsentimental and hard-headed about the fact that, when the national media are as blinkered as Ms Helen suggested, it's almost certainly a waste of effort.
Instead, Mr Clogg has redirected the press team to devote much more time to LOCAL media, why he spends a lot of his time going around the country, holding town-hall meetings, very specifically targeting local media "footprints".
And with all modesty he suggests that if you look at the results – particularly outside the orbit of the
Basically, Mr Clogg has the same idea as the Liberals did in the late Sixties and early Seventies: 'people aren't printing our stuff; we have to tell them direct.' But, after four decades of community politics, the Party is BIG and IMPORTANT enough at a local level (4,700 councillors rather than about 300) that at least the local papers take us more seriously. So Mr Clogg's got a 'They may not have listened at the time I was born, but maybe let's give them another try' strategy.
So we must continue to use local media, NEW media (ooh, ooh, that's BLOGGERS!) and old-fashioned campaigning (FOCUS!) to bypass the outdated national papers.
Yes, outdated: Mr Clogg told us of a RANT that he had at the editorial team of a national paper. Holding up their copy, he said: "the way you cover politics is literally incomprehensible to my constituents."
In Sheffield, you see, there IS a "ding-dong two-party battle" going on; it's between the Labour and the LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.
What the papers have FAILED to pick up on is the way that politics is becoming MORE local, not less, how what happens in one city doesn't reflect what happens in another, or in a rural area or in the suburbs. The assumption that globalisation would make everything the SAME is QUITE WRONG; in fact it's made people demand MORE of their local politician.
It means the political map is more fragmented than ever and makes a nonsense of the "national swing" graphics that the BBC show on election night: Jeremy Vine might as well scribble things on his tummy for all the meaning it has.
"Don't say that!" cries Daddy Richard, "or he'll do it next time!"
But it all means that the days of the nation reading the same news from the same papers are numbered. Mr Clogg sees a future where we are all taking a more "magpie" approach to our news, reading a couple of websites, downloading news clipping to out Blackberries and Apples; the might of the Murdoch media is waning and they know it, which is why they are investing "squillions" in new media themselves.
But there's no point in complaining. The national media will only talk more about us the more we grow bigger and the more we matter.
Sheffield is the fifth largest city in the country. And it's controlled by Liberal Democrats. We now control Sheffield and Liverpool and Burnley and Newcastle and Hull and the list goes on. If these were cities in the South East the media would absolutely be talking about us. They don't because they don’t live there.
But it's only a mater of time.
Moving on to Mr Paul's question about trying to wangle PR out of Mr Frown, Mr Clogs answer was a simple and direct "no".
"I am not going to start try to persuade the Labour Party, because they are weak, to deliver something they should have delivered ten years ago. There's very little merit in playing footsie with either of the other parties on any level."
He also thinks that Mr Frown is now SO weak that anything that if the Labour TRIED to do anything about voting reform, it would look like an act of desperation and actually DAMAGE the cause of a fairer voting system.
Mr Gavin's question about repealing just ONE piece of legislation proved more of a poser… because there are so MANY to choose from! As I mentioned above, Mr Clogg settled on the I.D.iot cards
"…because of the TOTEMIC value: it says a LOT about the balance between the state and the individual."
Next up was Ms Linda's question based on a conference that apparently both she and Mr Clogg had been at just the week before. What Mr Clogg had missed, said Ms Linda, was Ms Lisa Harker, co-director of the IPPR, taking us to task about the redistribution of wealth.
Well, as someone very much part of the New Labour Project, she WOULD say that wouldn't she, said Mr Clogg. But precisely one of the CRISES for the Labour is that while there HAS been a certain amount of redistribution, particularly to tackle child poverty and pensioner poverty, it HASN'T had the galvanising effect on social mobility and equality.
(We should't actually be SURPRISED about that. This is a Government that likes to keep doing FOR people the things it thinks they deserve, rather than making it easier for people to decide to do the things that they need for themselves.)
We Liberal Democrats have a very strong story to tell on redistribution, not just our tax policy, outlined previously, but also an emerging education policy, to be fleshed out as we approach the General Election, that will redistribute resources to the most needy children. At the moment, if you are not a working family you don't get the support for structured education. That needs to be paid for, and it can be done by removing ABOVE-average earning families from the tax credit system.
But greater redistribution on its own won't lead to the "sunny uplands of a Scandinavian Utopia".
It's much more COMPLICATED: to do with how "social capital" is distributed, to do with family patterns, employment patterns, urban design, to do with housing – the Scandinavian handling of housing stock is UNRECOGNISABLE to us here, and we, as a country, have a mountain to climb to sort out our housing needs.
Brilliant! To be more equal, we need to build mountains so we'll be more like Scandinavia! I have got that right, haven't I?
But as Liberal Democrats, continues Mr Clogg, we shouldn't beat ourselves up for not doing EVEN more: we have policies to make the tax system fairer, to improve opportunity through education, to begin to tackle the housing crisis. We're actually PRETTY GOOD.
Mr Clogg, though, also wanted to address something that he thought was underlying Ms Linda's question: the idea, prevalent in the Labour, that it's somehow "okay" to go after those on middle incomes to give more to tackle poverty. If you want to redistribute effectively, to create greater social mobility and greater social justice, says Mr Clogg, you've got to carry the Middle Classes along with you. You've got to get them to BUY IN to the system in which they think they have a stake and where they can see a collective benefit; you can't just summarily say Middle Classes: "Bog off" or the whole system collapses. There is already, in London, massive middle-class flight at the transition into secondary education, and massive flight into private health care. If that were to be the future for the country as a whole, we'd be in real trouble as it FRACTURES the social fabric of the country.
And speaking of "social fractures", Mr Laurence wasn't keen on Mr Clogg's implication that he'd defy the law if I.D.iot cards were made compulsory.
Mr Clogg was clear that he felt that if the Government's I.D.iot card scheme was to work, and objective observers agree, they would have to COMPEL us to give up personal and private information, and that that would be a step TOO FAR.
But we already give up information, to the tax man, for example, said Mr Laurence.
Well, we agree to give up SOME information, but it is proportional and it is for a purpose.
But why break the law? Isn't THAT step too far?
Mr Clogg said that it's not as neat a moral universe as that.
We have got to be STEADFAST and if necessary DIRECT in the actions that we take to get the right balance between the powers of the state and the privacy and the rights of the individual. And that's in the PROUD traditions of our Party.
It would unalterably change the relationship between the State and the individual to give the State the power to extract information from the private citizen when there is no need to do it. THAT is the difference from giving up information to the Criminal Justice system or the Tax Office.
Now Mr Laurence isn't the only person to have said to Mr Clogg that he shouldn't be saying this, but he felt that for him this would be an encroachment on his freedom as an individual that he would find it impossible to abide by. And he doesn't feel he is alone in that.
(He's RIGHT – me and my Daddies are with you, Mr Clogg!)
In fact, he suspects that this is why the Government are now resorting to SALAMI TACTICS to try and get the I.D.iot cards through by STEALTH.
With the clock almost beating us, Mr Clogg said he could answer us one more question and Ms Jo dived in to ask how can WE be so RUBBISH at PR elections?
Well, he said, first he's setting up a review internally to look precisely at this question, but – and he acknowledged that that was a "politician's answer" when he didn't have an answer himself – but second he asked a question of his own back: noting that the elections that ARE done by PR, notably the London Assembly and the European Elections are ones with which the public is not familiar, so he asked: should the question be is it difficult to contest elections, particularly as the third party, when you're contesting elections for bodies that people don't know about or, frankly, don’t care about?
He campaigned a lot in London and the vast majority of people who he met had no idea that there even WAS an assembly; when he was first elected in 1999 to the European Parliament he was driving home and he had to stop when he was struck by a thought: he'd been elected by just, what was it, 4% of his new constituents; it was very depressing – what sort of mandate was that?
His hunch is that if you have a fair votes system for a body that people care about passionately THEN it will be possible for us to get stuck in there.
And with that – and a hurried apology to Mr Danny for not having read the interview we did with him – he had to be WHISKED AWAY and no time even for our usual group photo, just leaving me to try to hand out the remaining STICKY BUNS!
But finally finally, before he could get away, I pinned him down and got him to promise that next time we will definitely be in SHEFFIELD, so that more people who are not Londoners will find it easier to come along and have a go. Watch out for more news in Lib Dem Voice when we have arranged a date!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Day 2670: “If we had had Liberal Policies…”
Wednesday:
Faced with Mr Clogg at Prime Monster’s Questionable Time (and thank you to Mr Alisdair for reminding me to watch!) Mr Frown replied with the accusation that “the Liberal Party’s” policies would result in lower employment and higher poverty.
That would be Liberal Policies like, oh, Independence for the Bank of England, which Mr Frown campaigned against before implementing it; Nationalising the Northern Rock to protect investors, which Mr Frown argued against before implementing it; reducing basic rate income tax, which Mr Frown spoke against before implementing it; or switching to green taxation, which Mr Frown just plain stole.
“If we had had Liberal Policies…” Prime Monster, you DO!
If it weren’t for the Liberal Policies, we’d be in a much WORSE hole! If only he’d listened to our policies on reducing debt and making the tax system fair.
Faced with Mr Clogg at Prime Monster’s Questionable Time (and thank you to Mr Alisdair for reminding me to watch!) Mr Frown replied with the accusation that “the Liberal Party’s” policies would result in lower employment and higher poverty.
That would be Liberal Policies like, oh, Independence for the Bank of England, which Mr Frown campaigned against before implementing it; Nationalising the Northern Rock to protect investors, which Mr Frown argued against before implementing it; reducing basic rate income tax, which Mr Frown spoke against before implementing it; or switching to green taxation, which Mr Frown just plain stole.
“If we had had Liberal Policies…” Prime Monster, you DO!
If it weren’t for the Liberal Policies, we’d be in a much WORSE hole! If only he’d listened to our policies on reducing debt and making the tax system fair.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Day 2649: Candid Cleggster
Wednesday:
Whatever happened to politicians being HONEST? When did we end up with the choice of MENDACITY or NAIVETY?
This week, Mr Clogg has admitted to having had CUDDLES with more ladies than one or two (or none).
So, let me just check something: Mr Balloon infamous for breaking the law (traffic laws, drugs laws, those property laws that say the Bullingdon Club shouldn't smash up people's restaurants… it's clear that Mr B STILL thinks the law only applies to "common" people) or Mr Clogg admitting to consensual cuddles… and WHO is being condemned as "unfit" to make our laws?
Seriously, it must be a slow news week, withprudes, sorry, pundits from as far apart across the spectrum as NuLabour apologist Mr Steve Richards and NeoCon Hypocritical Harpy Ms Appalling Platell both harping on about this as though it was somehow SHOCKING.
Lovely Sarah Teather made a good job of sticking up for Mr Clogg's honour on Questionable Time. It was an all-women panel, with Lovely Sarah joined by Ms Claire Snort, Ms Theresa May-NOT!, "Douglas" aka Ms Wendy Alexander and Rod Liddle dressed as a woman from Monty Python's Life of Brian.
As Sarah pointed out to "Douglas" that it was a bit rich to criticise a leader talking about his personal life after Lord "five times a night" Blairimort gave a "full and frank" interview to the Scum on the eve of the last General Election. And it's no good Ms May-NOT! getting on her high horse about Mr Clogg's interview in GQ when it was to that AUGUST ORGAN that Ms May-NOT!'s then leader Mr Vague bragged of his fourteen-pints a night sessions. Binge does not come into it.
Actually, Ms May-NOT! was more interested in linking Mr Clogg's confessional to the issue of how Liberal Democrat peers will vote on EUROPE… Paging Dr Freud! Paging Dr Freud! As lovely Sarah put it, talk about OBSESSIVE!
As for Mr Clogg, the sort of people who are going to get their knickers in a bunch about this are only going to be voting Conservatory anyway – in fact, the question is much MORE dangerous for Mr Balloon because now someone is likely to ask HIM and is he going to be evasive or own up to a number that will horrify his core vote (i.e. any number greater than NONE!); meanwhile, I do not think that Liberal people are going to MIND about Mr Clogg's new reputation as a LADIES MAN and indeed he may go UP in the estimation of few.
So, I think that thing that we need to be asking is this: is fewer than thirty lady friends really ENOUGH for a Liberal Leader or do we need to get Captain Paddy back in for a spot of TRAINING?
What?
Whatever happened to politicians being HONEST? When did we end up with the choice of MENDACITY or NAIVETY?
This week, Mr Clogg has admitted to having had CUDDLES with more ladies than one or two (or none).
So, let me just check something: Mr Balloon infamous for breaking the law (traffic laws, drugs laws, those property laws that say the Bullingdon Club shouldn't smash up people's restaurants… it's clear that Mr B STILL thinks the law only applies to "common" people) or Mr Clogg admitting to consensual cuddles… and WHO is being condemned as "unfit" to make our laws?
Seriously, it must be a slow news week, with
Lovely Sarah Teather made a good job of sticking up for Mr Clogg's honour on Questionable Time. It was an all-women panel, with Lovely Sarah joined by Ms Claire Snort, Ms Theresa May-NOT!, "Douglas" aka Ms Wendy Alexander and Rod Liddle dressed as a woman from Monty Python's Life of Brian.
As Sarah pointed out to "Douglas" that it was a bit rich to criticise a leader talking about his personal life after Lord "five times a night" Blairimort gave a "full and frank" interview to the Scum on the eve of the last General Election. And it's no good Ms May-NOT! getting on her high horse about Mr Clogg's interview in GQ when it was to that AUGUST ORGAN that Ms May-NOT!'s then leader Mr Vague bragged of his fourteen-pints a night sessions. Binge does not come into it.
Actually, Ms May-NOT! was more interested in linking Mr Clogg's confessional to the issue of how Liberal Democrat peers will vote on EUROPE… Paging Dr Freud! Paging Dr Freud! As lovely Sarah put it, talk about OBSESSIVE!
As for Mr Clogg, the sort of people who are going to get their knickers in a bunch about this are only going to be voting Conservatory anyway – in fact, the question is much MORE dangerous for Mr Balloon because now someone is likely to ask HIM and is he going to be evasive or own up to a number that will horrify his core vote (i.e. any number greater than NONE!); meanwhile, I do not think that Liberal people are going to MIND about Mr Clogg's new reputation as a LADIES MAN and indeed he may go UP in the estimation of few.
So, I think that thing that we need to be asking is this: is fewer than thirty lady friends really ENOUGH for a Liberal Leader or do we need to get Captain Paddy back in for a spot of TRAINING?
What?
PS:
Apparently this story is very RUDE and you might think that I am supposed to be too YOUNG to know anything about it, but I am EIGHT [R: seven] and Liberal Democrats think that that is old enough to start to know about mummies and daddies and relationships.Thursday, March 06, 2008
Day 2619: Aren't we supposed to be the UNITED Party on Europe?
Wednesday:
Well, THAT'S embarrassing!
Liberal Democrats believe in the European Union, it can be good if we fix its faults; we know that we can win the case for Europe if we get the chance; and what's more the public back our position for a proper referendum 2:1.
The Labour's position is cowardly; the Conservatory position is deceitful. Only WE trust the people.
So, how have we come to this?
I suspect that it can only be because it is because it is so much easier to get into a TIZZY about minute details than over major areas of policy.
I was convinced that we were RIGHT in calling for a PROPER referendum on all of the European treaties that add up to 95% of the European Constitution, rather than just a "let's block the icing on the cake" referendum that the Conservatories support.
And I realised, when Mr Ed explained, that there are entirely GOOD and NUANCED reasons for NOT demanding a referendum on a treaty that is just – like Nice and Amsterdam – amending the main thrust.
But the problem with our policy was that it was at least one-part LOW POLITICS mixed with two parts HONEST PRINCIPLE.
And when it comes to low politics, the other parties are just better at it than us!
And NUANCE gets trampled into the dust under the media press scrum.
"Referendum Good" was all the message that the press were willing to listen to.
We were SCUPPERED by not being willing to follow though the simple press logic: if we WANT a referendum, wouldn't a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty do as second best?
We should have said YES, obviously that would do, BUT we want to go further and open up a proper debate.
The cowardice of the Labour comes because they know any referendum is a chance to give them a KICKING without any risk of the Conservatories getting in. Mr Frown is increasingly TIMID of sticking his head out of the bunker ever since it all went Balloon-shaped for him last Autumn.
The deceit of the Conservatory Party is that their supporters want the referendum that WE want to give them, but the Conservatories do not DARE support setting that ball going, because then THEY would have to admit that they don't want out of Europe either. Except for the fifty to sixty percent of them that do. Oh dear, bye bye Mr Balloon.
So Labour and Conservatories joined forces to twist the Speaker's arm behind the scenes and use their voting muscle in the House to block our motion.
But we really SHOULD have seen that one coming and prepared a proper FALL BACK position.
Instead, Mr Clogg and the Party have ended up getting HOIST by Sir Mr the Merciless' petard.
Yes, Sir Mr the Merciless. He didn't REALLY want to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because it is COMPLICATED to explain; it seems "SAFE" to reject because it won't chuck us out of Europe; and above all it seems like a bit of a CHEAT!
(That is because after the European Constitution fell through – thanks to the French and Dutch saying "Non" and "Niet" – the governments of Europe cobbled the Lisbon Treaty together to amend all the existing treaties so that added up they would do pretty much the same thing.)
Basically for the Europhobes a referendum on this treaty is almost the PERFECT "give Europe/the government a good KICKING" vote. Europe really couldn't win!
On the other fluffy foot, we had PROMISED to give people a vote on the Constitution, and we really believed that they should get one. And what is more, lots and lots of people really wanted a vote too.
Only this week, the "I want a referendum" campaign group conducted what was basically a big OPINION POLL and found, to nobody's surprise, that people would LIKE a referendum.
Even if anyone HAD been surprised by that, even they would not be taken aback to discover that the government has rejected the referendum call.
Not that their "big opinion poll" was more than a big STUNT anyway. As most people know, for a properly representative poll you do not get much more ACCURACY for any increase in size above a few thousand people. So polling a hundred thousand people in ten constituencies using an electoral register that leaves a lot of people out (and remember, the people who choose to vote at all will be biased in favour of wanting the referendum because people who don't want to go and vote, er, won’t go and vote to say 'we don't want to go and vote') this ISN'T going to produce any better a result than any ordinary opinion poll… except that it LOOKS good for the papers.
But even though it was a stunt, the polls DO show that people want to have their voices heard about Europe.
(We KNOW this; we've been trying to get those voices HEARD!)
So, cunning Mr Sir M came up with this scheme: turn the thing on its head and make it about a vote that Europe really couldn't LOSE.
This SHOULD have let us oppose both the other Parties with some dignity. And it did sort of work – we could LEGITIMATELY criticise the Labour for betraying their promise of a referendum, and the Conservatories for not offering a REAL choice.
So, what lessons do we learn?
One: don't go to the wall to enforce a position of indecision – you look daft.
Two: if people disagree with your position, let them – forgive the people who've resigned and give them their jobs back.
Three: admit that sometimes we need our STATESMANSHIP to bow to a bit of POLITICS.
Four: never, ever, ever let the Conservatories LOOK like they are the ones being more principled.
Well, THAT'S embarrassing!
Liberal Democrats believe in the European Union, it can be good if we fix its faults; we know that we can win the case for Europe if we get the chance; and what's more the public back our position for a proper referendum 2:1.
The Labour's position is cowardly; the Conservatory position is deceitful. Only WE trust the people.
So, how have we come to this?
I suspect that it can only be because it is because it is so much easier to get into a TIZZY about minute details than over major areas of policy.
I was convinced that we were RIGHT in calling for a PROPER referendum on all of the European treaties that add up to 95% of the European Constitution, rather than just a "let's block the icing on the cake" referendum that the Conservatories support.
And I realised, when Mr Ed explained, that there are entirely GOOD and NUANCED reasons for NOT demanding a referendum on a treaty that is just – like Nice and Amsterdam – amending the main thrust.
But the problem with our policy was that it was at least one-part LOW POLITICS mixed with two parts HONEST PRINCIPLE.
And when it comes to low politics, the other parties are just better at it than us!
And NUANCE gets trampled into the dust under the media press scrum.
"Referendum Good" was all the message that the press were willing to listen to.
We were SCUPPERED by not being willing to follow though the simple press logic: if we WANT a referendum, wouldn't a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty do as second best?
We should have said YES, obviously that would do, BUT we want to go further and open up a proper debate.
The cowardice of the Labour comes because they know any referendum is a chance to give them a KICKING without any risk of the Conservatories getting in. Mr Frown is increasingly TIMID of sticking his head out of the bunker ever since it all went Balloon-shaped for him last Autumn.
The deceit of the Conservatory Party is that their supporters want the referendum that WE want to give them, but the Conservatories do not DARE support setting that ball going, because then THEY would have to admit that they don't want out of Europe either. Except for the fifty to sixty percent of them that do. Oh dear, bye bye Mr Balloon.
So Labour and Conservatories joined forces to twist the Speaker's arm behind the scenes and use their voting muscle in the House to block our motion.
But we really SHOULD have seen that one coming and prepared a proper FALL BACK position.
Instead, Mr Clogg and the Party have ended up getting HOIST by Sir Mr the Merciless' petard.
Yes, Sir Mr the Merciless. He didn't REALLY want to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because it is COMPLICATED to explain; it seems "SAFE" to reject because it won't chuck us out of Europe; and above all it seems like a bit of a CHEAT!
(That is because after the European Constitution fell through – thanks to the French and Dutch saying "Non" and "Niet" – the governments of Europe cobbled the Lisbon Treaty together to amend all the existing treaties so that added up they would do pretty much the same thing.)
Basically for the Europhobes a referendum on this treaty is almost the PERFECT "give Europe/the government a good KICKING" vote. Europe really couldn't win!
On the other fluffy foot, we had PROMISED to give people a vote on the Constitution, and we really believed that they should get one. And what is more, lots and lots of people really wanted a vote too.
Only this week, the "I want a referendum" campaign group conducted what was basically a big OPINION POLL and found, to nobody's surprise, that people would LIKE a referendum.
Even if anyone HAD been surprised by that, even they would not be taken aback to discover that the government has rejected the referendum call.
Not that their "big opinion poll" was more than a big STUNT anyway. As most people know, for a properly representative poll you do not get much more ACCURACY for any increase in size above a few thousand people. So polling a hundred thousand people in ten constituencies using an electoral register that leaves a lot of people out (and remember, the people who choose to vote at all will be biased in favour of wanting the referendum because people who don't want to go and vote, er, won’t go and vote to say 'we don't want to go and vote') this ISN'T going to produce any better a result than any ordinary opinion poll… except that it LOOKS good for the papers.
But even though it was a stunt, the polls DO show that people want to have their voices heard about Europe.
(We KNOW this; we've been trying to get those voices HEARD!)
So, cunning Mr Sir M came up with this scheme: turn the thing on its head and make it about a vote that Europe really couldn't LOSE.
This SHOULD have let us oppose both the other Parties with some dignity. And it did sort of work – we could LEGITIMATELY criticise the Labour for betraying their promise of a referendum, and the Conservatories for not offering a REAL choice.
So, what lessons do we learn?
One: don't go to the wall to enforce a position of indecision – you look daft.
Two: if people disagree with your position, let them – forgive the people who've resigned and give them their jobs back.
Three: admit that sometimes we need our STATESMANSHIP to bow to a bit of POLITICS.
Four: never, ever, ever let the Conservatories LOOK like they are the ones being more principled.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Day 2611: Sometimes if it flies on a broomstick and cackles then it IS a witch!
Sunday:
Apparently it is all about CLASS.
If you're criticising Mr Speaker of the House Martin, Speaker of the Commons, then you are a BAD person indulging in SNOBBERY.
But if you're defending him, then it is PERFECTLY OKAY to dismiss his critics as "stuck-up upper-class hooray-henrys".
It is no wonder people get confused about the intricacies of our CLASS SYSTEM!
There are only TWO questions that are important, and Mr Speaker's BACKGROUND is IRRELEVANT to either – it is neither proof of fault NOR any excuse, and people should address the QUESTIONS and stop making SNIDE INNUENDOS to avoid them.
One: is he any good at his job?
Two: is he on the fiddle?
There is quite a bit of evidence that the answer to the first question is "No". He is biased and bullying and has even managed to "forget" that Mr Clogg gets a go at Prime Monster's Questionable Time. He has never put aside his tribal affinity for the Labour, even though it is part of the oath he swore when he got the job.
Traditionally, Mr Speaker is picked from the OPPOSITION benches so that he will not favour the government. Typical of the Labour to throw out tradition where a grab for more power is concerned, Mr House-Martin (formerly of the Labour) followed on from Ms Betty (formerly of the Labour) even though Lord Blairimort had a huge majority. If there is a cause for RESENTMENT it is there, in treading on the toes of the House of Commons not in whatever job it was he used to do before becoming a white-collar desk-worker.
But what is most LUDICROUS is that NO ONE is allowed to even raise the question.
Mr Phoney Tony Benn is always fond of saying of people in power: "who gave you that power and how can I get rid of you?" Not that he says it about his MATES like Mr House-Martin.
But Mr Speaker IS a powerful position – if you want to have any chance of making a point in debate you have got to get on his good side. He has huge powers of patronage because of that, and he can make a real difference to the passage of legislation if he chooses to. And as we saw only this week, he can THWART legitimate amendments just by blocking an amendment, and can do so without having to give any reason. Or he can choose to accept the motion on the Iraq war that nearly got Lord Blairimort defeated. But just because we agree that it was GOOD that he did the latter doesn't mean that he should have such arbitrary powers nor that he shouldn't be accountable.
The answer to the second question is something that DEMANDS to be looked into.
Making use of air-miles picked up on the job is something that a lot of businesspeople see as perks of the job, or even a legitimate recompense for HAVING to do all that travelling.
But funding your wife's taxi trips out of the public purse… that is starting to look decidedly IFFY.
Everyone accepts that Mr Martin has followed the LETTER of the rules… but that doesn't mean that everyone is totally happy with those rules in the first place. And particularly that the person looking into whether those rules are satisfactory is… Mr Martin himself.
I WONDER what he will decide about claiming for taxis?
Two of the last three Mr or Mrs Speakers were from "humble backgrounds": a "Tiller Girl" and the son of a Welsh miner. And the other was a tailor whom, despite being a Conservatory, the Conservatory grandees all sneered at because he was only "trade".
It is usual that Mr Speaker serves two terms. That is what the last three did. But Mr House Martin has already done those.
Personally, I think that it might be a bit better if the Speaker served only ONE term. You should pick a new one each Parliament and at the end of that Parliament he or she goes directly to the House of Lords Club for trebles all round. That should stop anyone… er… outstaying their welcome.
Meanwhile, Mr Clogg has come out in support… oh very fluffy dear.
It didn't get him off the hook when he questioned the procedures when the Speaker threatened to ban him for even suggesting such a thing!
This ISN'T a "witch hunt"; this is a very traditional Liberal demand for a bit of openness to answering some legitimate questions.
No one should be above scrutiny. Saying that you (or your muckers in the Labour) are above the law… that is the REAL snobbery. It is the arrogance of power.
And Liberals don't put up with that sort of thing!
Apparently it is all about CLASS.
If you're criticising Mr Speaker of the House Martin, Speaker of the Commons, then you are a BAD person indulging in SNOBBERY.
But if you're defending him, then it is PERFECTLY OKAY to dismiss his critics as "stuck-up upper-class hooray-henrys".
It is no wonder people get confused about the intricacies of our CLASS SYSTEM!
There are only TWO questions that are important, and Mr Speaker's BACKGROUND is IRRELEVANT to either – it is neither proof of fault NOR any excuse, and people should address the QUESTIONS and stop making SNIDE INNUENDOS to avoid them.
One: is he any good at his job?
Two: is he on the fiddle?
There is quite a bit of evidence that the answer to the first question is "No". He is biased and bullying and has even managed to "forget" that Mr Clogg gets a go at Prime Monster's Questionable Time. He has never put aside his tribal affinity for the Labour, even though it is part of the oath he swore when he got the job.
Traditionally, Mr Speaker is picked from the OPPOSITION benches so that he will not favour the government. Typical of the Labour to throw out tradition where a grab for more power is concerned, Mr House-Martin (formerly of the Labour) followed on from Ms Betty (formerly of the Labour) even though Lord Blairimort had a huge majority. If there is a cause for RESENTMENT it is there, in treading on the toes of the House of Commons not in whatever job it was he used to do before becoming a white-collar desk-worker.
But what is most LUDICROUS is that NO ONE is allowed to even raise the question.
Mr Phoney Tony Benn is always fond of saying of people in power: "who gave you that power and how can I get rid of you?" Not that he says it about his MATES like Mr House-Martin.
But Mr Speaker IS a powerful position – if you want to have any chance of making a point in debate you have got to get on his good side. He has huge powers of patronage because of that, and he can make a real difference to the passage of legislation if he chooses to. And as we saw only this week, he can THWART legitimate amendments just by blocking an amendment, and can do so without having to give any reason. Or he can choose to accept the motion on the Iraq war that nearly got Lord Blairimort defeated. But just because we agree that it was GOOD that he did the latter doesn't mean that he should have such arbitrary powers nor that he shouldn't be accountable.
The answer to the second question is something that DEMANDS to be looked into.
Making use of air-miles picked up on the job is something that a lot of businesspeople see as perks of the job, or even a legitimate recompense for HAVING to do all that travelling.
But funding your wife's taxi trips out of the public purse… that is starting to look decidedly IFFY.
Everyone accepts that Mr Martin has followed the LETTER of the rules… but that doesn't mean that everyone is totally happy with those rules in the first place. And particularly that the person looking into whether those rules are satisfactory is… Mr Martin himself.
I WONDER what he will decide about claiming for taxis?
Two of the last three Mr or Mrs Speakers were from "humble backgrounds": a "Tiller Girl" and the son of a Welsh miner. And the other was a tailor whom, despite being a Conservatory, the Conservatory grandees all sneered at because he was only "trade".
It is usual that Mr Speaker serves two terms. That is what the last three did. But Mr House Martin has already done those.
Personally, I think that it might be a bit better if the Speaker served only ONE term. You should pick a new one each Parliament and at the end of that Parliament he or she goes directly to the House of Lords Club for trebles all round. That should stop anyone… er… outstaying their welcome.
Meanwhile, Mr Clogg has come out in support… oh very fluffy dear.
It didn't get him off the hook when he questioned the procedures when the Speaker threatened to ban him for even suggesting such a thing!
This ISN'T a "witch hunt"; this is a very traditional Liberal demand for a bit of openness to answering some legitimate questions.
No one should be above scrutiny. Saying that you (or your muckers in the Labour) are above the law… that is the REAL snobbery. It is the arrogance of power.
And Liberals don't put up with that sort of thing!
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