Day 3547: Is that REALLY Machiavelli on the Wall? Millennium Elephant meets the Deputy Prime Minister

Friday (again)



The first thing you see on entering Captain Clegg's Cabinet Office is a picture on the far wall of one of those ascetic thin-looking medieval chaps and you think… isn't that Machiavelli?

Well, no, the FIRST thing you see is, of course, the ebullient form of Captain Clegg himself, bouncing around, welcoming you in, looking rather trim as though RUNNING the COUNTRY thoroughly agrees with him.

Well, no, the REALLY FIRST thing*, before you even GET to his office, you have to go through some of those glass TUBES off the "Grid" from my SECOND-favourite SPY series, Pooks (aka MI:5 for the Americalandians). And, given that Pooks is some of the most silliest fiction ever, it's moderately ALARMING that it turns out to be real!

(*…I'll come in again)

I'd show you, but they wouldn't let us take photos. They wouldn't EVEN let us take a photo of the "Security Alert Status" brass plaque on the wall (currently set to "highlights" – i.e. above "combover", but bellow "mullet").

Anyway, once we all got in, and after they'd carried out a controlled explosion on Auntie Linda, and once Captain Clegg had welcomed us into his office, there was a nervous declaration that the art on the walls was still that of the previous occupant, Lord Mandelbrot, the former first Fractal of Darkness.

Which would explain Machiavelli.

Captain Clegg hastened to add that he has commissioned some of his OWN choice of art to replace Lord Mandelbrot's tastes.

(He didn't specify whether he would also be replacing Lord Mandelbrot's PIRANHA POOL with optional trick bridge.)


Anyway, speaking of dubious Italianate social realists who favour stability over moral virtue has absolutely nothing to do with our first question which was about the POPE.

Sitting down with the Deputy Supreme Pumpkin of Great Britain – and some rather nice cookies – I said to him, as an "aggressive secularist" with two gay daddies, was there anything he thought he ought to say to Papa Joe?

Captain Clegg said that for a short audience he wasn't going to open Pandora's Box and a few minutes were not really enough time to enter a theological debate.

Which is pretty much all you could expect him to say; I mean it would be charming if he'd said "I considered performing a citizen's arrest and dragging the elderly former member of the Hitler Youth off to a trial before Richard Dawkins and Peter Tatchell but decided it would have been bad form", but it wasn't really LIKELY was it?

More interestingly, he did go on to develop his own personal position, saying that although he's not a man of faith that doesn't mean he wants to play the arch-atheist all the time (oh, go on, it's FUN!). In fact, he said he felt that if must be fantastic to have faith and wonders whether the lack of it is a shortcoming in himself.

To me, "faith" is CERTAINTY without EVIDENCE and for that reason alone is very, very dangerous. I'd rather have one good solid DOUBT than a bucket-load of faith.


We moved on to more serious questioning, and it quickly became obvious where the concerns of the Party lay.

Throughout the Liberal Democrat conference that followed on from our interview, there were these two almost-contradictory narratives running: the one from the Coalition leadership emphasising that the Coalition is strong, and functioning well, operating together and with no major differences; the other from the membership crying out that they WANT to be distinctive and different, they want to be reassured that they are not just winning their share of achievements, but also that we are not being subsumed by the Conservatory Party, devoured by Mr Balloon.

And so we came up with questions looking for distinctiveness, not division, from Daddy Alex wondering why the Conservatories reform proposals seems more favourably treated than ours; from Auntie Linda, asking "how did we get here?" and "where are our values really reflected?"; or from Ms Charlotte Henry wanting to know how the budget would have been different without input from the Liberal Democrats.

The budget is actually the obvious place to go to to look for a checklist of Liberal Democrat "wins", and Captain Clegg had his ready: without Liberal Democrats in government, we wouldn't have got the increase in capital gains tax; we wouldn't have got the increase in personal allowance; we wouldn't have got triple lock on pensions, increasing by the best of earnings, inflation or 2% a year.

Some of those things portrayed as "Conservatory wins", things like simplifying the business tax rates, were things we always campaigned on too.

He also promised that we will see introduction of new green taxes and we'll see further steps towards our promise of no tax to pay on your first ten thousand pounds of income. To people who say that the budget "watered down" that Lib Dem pledge he reminded them that we never said it was to be achieved overnight.

In what was to be really the leadership's major theme for Liverpool, Captain Clegg told us we should "hold our nerve" and not allow the language of the "old politics" to derail all that we've achieved so far, that it was very early days and while the need to tackle the deficit overshadows everything we should look at those achievements, not least the budget, as a downpayment on fairness to come. He also promised us, in a teaser trailer for Mr Huhney-Monster's announcements, big green developments over the Autumn.


Before all that, Daddy Alex had asked about electoral reform and the Coalition agreement: the Conservatories had wanted to equalise the electorates and cut the number of seats in the House of Commons and they got it; the Liberal Democrats had wanted Single Transferable Vote and only got AV and only then after a referendum. Weren't we short-changed?

There were two things the Captain pointed out in reply: one to the Conservatories; one to Hard Labour.

The first on was that the cut in numbers was not as big as Tories wanted, and was only to bring the House into line with EXISTING legislation, the 1986 Act, so actually this is not a Tory thing.

The second thing was that constituencies of equal size come from the Chartists and is not just a founding principle of Labour movement but already a legal requirement – technically all the current bill does is elevate one of several criteria to lead criterion. And there's a 10% leeway so the Commission can work with existing ward boundaries.

Furthermore, he insisted, it's a huge exaggeration to say the re-boundary-ing will benefit Conservatories over Hard Labour, except in Wales where people are hugely overrepresented. But rectifying that overrepresentation, now that there is a Welsh Assembly, is in keeping with the spirit and practice of devolution.

On AV, he admitted to the compromise. Idealism and pragmatism bump up against each other, he said. But no other party was willing to go further than AV. With no cross-party support, further reform was not going to get off the starting block.

Auntie Helen reminded him of the question he'd fielded at Prime Monster's Questionable Time: asked if amending the current bill would be the end of the Coalition, he'd said that the AV deal wasn't the be-all and end-all of the agreement.

Imagine what would have happened if I'd said the opposite, replied Captain Clegg. At the moment they're only trying to amend the bill; if I said it would pull the plug, those Conservatory backbenchers on the wingnut fringe would be CERTAIN to make SURE the bill was amended and that the Coalition fell.

He reiterated that there is a COMMITMENT in the Coalition Agreement to see that the referendum bill is passed.


Is the Coalition working, interjected Daddy Richard.

Much, much better than anyone could have imagined, replied Capitan Clegg. It's much more about what both sides can bring and working out solutions jointly. There's no need for a narrative of winners and losers.

Not like Tony and Gordon, muttered Daddy darkly, and that may have raised a smile.

The press, says Captain Clegg, are still looking at the government through the prism of the old politics and can't cope with the new dynamic. If we can show, through the Coalition that there IS an alternative to the old yah-boo politics, THAT is the PRIZE.

On a more personal note, Daddy Richard wondered about the volleys of abuse – "traitor", "sell out" and the rest – that have been launched at the Liberal Democrats and mostly at him personally. That's got to hurt, Daddy asked.

Brickbats from other politicians don't bother him, he said; it's only when it comes from people in his Sheffield constituency, when people in his surgeries are like that that it gets to him.

But not politicians. Referring to Hard Labour's leadership contest, he remarked that clearly if you want to curry favour with Labour you get nasty about Nick Clegg.


Then Nick Thornberry asked a rather interesting question. Reminding the Captain of his often-used example of the life-chances of a bright child from a poor part of Sheffield being eclipsed by a less able one from a more affluent part of town, one Nick asked the other: will the Nick Clegg of ten years in future be able to say I fixed the social mobility problem?

The other Nick's reply: yes.

Credit where it's due, he admitted that there are some good trends based on Hard Labour decisions of a decade ago.

But for him, obviously, education is key, and the pupil premium and more autonomy in schools should have a big effect.

He also wants to address how the health system works, suggesting a "health premium" like the pupil premium, and radical decentralization, and drawing a link between child mortality and ill housing.

He added that his biggest regret of the first months of the Coalition is that he didn't do enough personally to say that Health White paper is a really good liberal piece of legislation.

And then there are the proposed welfare reforms, not all in this Parliament, that he hopes will do something over time to shift incentives from dependency to work.

Expressing genuine frustration with the games that the press play, he referred to his writing what he believed to be a considered and thoughtful piece for the Times only for it to go misrepresented as an attack on the poor.

What he wants is to use the the welfare and tax reforms to challenge the culture of dependency fostered by the Labour government and all Mr Frown's tax credits.

The approach of previous government was almost a statistical game, drawing a line in the air to say you are "poor" if you are below it and then spending millions on nudging a few people from just under the line to just over the line and calling this success.

For Captain Clegg a truly fairer society has to go hand in hand with radical devolution, really setting people FREE.

Finally, there was the question that the Captain asked of himself, inspired perhaps by our probing for differences with the Conservatories, perhaps by his own narrative of unity:

What do the Liberal Democrats get out of the Coalition?

His answer:

Everything.


And then our hour was up and it was time to go: us to race off to Liverpool for conference; him to a meeting with the Home Secretary! So we gathered up our stuff and left him there under the watchful eye of (possibly) that notorious Florentine political advisor.

Machiavelli once wrote that REFORM is the most dangerous endeavour a Prince can embark upon. Those who benefited from the old regime will resist with all their might; those who might benefit from the changes will be only half-hearted for they have no benefit yet, and worse you will inevitably disappoint some of your supporters.

Yet he ALSO wrote that a Prince who gains power by fortune or inheritance or in the gift of powerful figures rises easily to power but has a hard time maintaining it, while a Prince who comes to power by SMASHING the existing order rises with difficulty but rules with ease once he has power.

I wonder what he, sitting there on the wall, would make of Captain Clegg.
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Day 3547: The Elephant in the Cabinet Room

Frinday:

At last! Now I really AM in Government!

Uh oh, here comes the BOSS, better look BUSY!

Now THIS is how to run the country!

ACTUALLY, we're here for a BLOGGER'S INTERVIEW, along with awesome Auntie Helen, fearsome (just kidding) Auntie Linda and Best New Blogger nonimees Ms Charlotte and Mr Nick (no, another one!):

Liberal Democrats mean open Government

More, as they say, on this story later...
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Day 3184: A Personal Commitment but no Apologies from the Leader – Nick Clegg meets Millennium Elephant… and some other people

Saturday:


It's GREAT being back on the Blogger of the Year shortlist! I get to talk to Captain Clegg and no one says it's a FIX because Daddy does the muffins!

Back in the Game

So, straight down to business: TUITION FEES – the Liberal Democrats are COMMITTED to abolishing student fees; Captain Clegg is PERSONALLY COMMITTED to abolishing student fees. But, it would be illogical, maybe even dishonest, to say we need a FRESH START for Britain and everything must be reconsidered, and then NOT reconsider the HOW and WHEN of being able to abolish 'em.

So TIMING is what is up for debate, and we will do it according to our PRINCIPLES, and the ones laid out in Fresh Start are:

• A sustainable green economy to build jobs for the future
• Support for young people so the life chances of a generation are not blighted
• And, and this one's not about the money, a reinvention of politics

Because of Hard Labour's financial catastrophe EVERYTHING has changed, so no apologies for making a DRAMA out of the CRISIS, no apologies for using headline-making phrases like "Savage Cuts": Mr Frown has got us into a MESS where only DRAMATIC action will save us.

Wicked Uncle Costigan asked whether we need to be QUITE so dramatic: hasn't the country managed quite prosperously with quite high levels of debt in the past?

There were two reasons why we can't carry on like that any more, explained Captain Clegg: firstly, it's the KIND of deficit we are running, and secondly, it's the kind of financial WORLD we are now living in.

The Hard Labour Government are running a STRUCTURAL deficit. That means that they are not just borrowing to get them over a STICKY PATCH, debt that will be repaid later, but they are ROUTINELY borrowing, running up debts in the good years let alone the bad ones. We've not seen an imbalance of this order since the country was paying for World War Part Two! That is just not sustainable, and sooner or later the World's financial institutions, the loan sharks that the Chancellor Sooty is now in hock to, will just pull the rug from under us: pulling cash out of the country, causing spiralling interest rates and making the pound crash which in turn means more expensive imports and energy driving up inflation.

And this is where we come to the second thing, because in a World where the seats of high finance are highly interconnected by swift electronic connections, it takes just a push of a button to pass judgement on the UK economy and LITERALLY just a push of a button to remove huge wodges of capital from the UK. In the aftermath of the Credit Crunch Crash, the World financial markets are a much more UNFORGIVING place, and we – implicitly, though Captain Clegg didn't need to mention it – outside the Eurozone do not have the protections of being a "reserve currency" any more.

We are at the EARLIEST and therefore most UNCOMFORTABLE stage of the debate over cuts, and it's the time when we – all politicians, all the rest of us – have to make decisions that are bold, savage if you must, as to where and how we will put things back on an even keel.

The Liberal Democrats are CONFRONTING these choices; the other two parties are ducking them

Captain Clegg also suggested the sorts of choices he would be looking at: capital projects, investing in new jobs now and new infrastructure for the future, these, Captain Clegg suggests, are the very LAST things that should be cut – obviously the BACKWARDS Labour Party has them FIRST on its list. Equally important is investment in young people to make sure that they HAVE a future.

As it happened, we were joined by two young people, guests from the vinspired volunteering project, Ms Asha Khan and Mr Nuno Rodrigues, here to get to experience the CRAZY WHIRL™ of Party Conference. They wanted to know why volunteering isn't more considered by interviewers for job or university. They were concerned that there is almost a STIGMA associated with volunteering, like "you couldn't get a proper job?"

Captain Clegg was interested to hear that they thought that way. He thought that there was much, much MORE volunteering going on, and expressed a worry that it was almost becoming almost a necessary "box to tick" in order to embellish a CV rather than in order to get the benefit of experiences and give something back.

It seemed to me that what we need is some way to RECOGNISE the achievements and experiences that you gain from volunteering in order to show employers or universities the added value you have gotten for yourself, and Ms Linda said that for our youth policy we are looking at some form of accreditation.

Something to watch for the future, then.

Mr Stephen of the Glenn tells us about the Linlithgow project to make the town CARBON NEUTRAL, supported by money from the Scottish Parliament. How can we keep getting across the message that, even with cuts, we can make the environment IMPORTANT, he wants to know.

For Captian Clegg it's about the NATURE of the recovery. Like the Old Chinese Proverb (he says) this IS an opportunity. All the chips have been tossed in the air by the financial collapse; we have the chance to set them in a new pattern before they resettle.

What about, interjects Ms Ali G, WEALTH TAXES? Could they be a part of our package for redistribution and rebalancing of the economy? Captain Clegg is tempted to go off piste for a moment, and there is a sharp intake of breath from his party minder, Special Agent Hanney. But then, the Captain thinks better of it. Maybe because he once spent three months on crutches having come a cropper while working as a ski instructor. Something to watch out for next week, though. Wink!

Instead, he talks about how the economy was UNBALANCED before: a small financial ELITE captured control of policy and the Hard Labour Government capitulated to their desires. It meant lending and borrowing were let run out of control, spiralling to a ridiculous bubble and INEVITABLY a monster crash.

To avoid that happening again, we need to find a Balance to the Force. Er, economy. It means reconfiguring it to grow SUSTAINABLY, and to DISPERSE ownership and control, the very ESSENCE of Liberal thinking. Take POWER generation, for example: Captain Clegg wants us to think more about the Denmark model where micro-generation and distributed power make everyone part of the solution rather than a few big, phallic symbols"prestige projects".


Meanwhile, on the subject of distributing powers, Mr Dr Pax, aka Count Packula, Prince of Markness, joining us for the first time (and about time too) asked about internet piracy, downloading, file-sharing – legal and illegal – and Lord Mandelbrot's plan to sever any file-sharers from the Wibbly Wobbly Web.

Well, how's he going to do that? asks Captain Clegg. Is he planning on personally going round snipping the wires?

Every attempt to control the uncontrollable has failed, he points out. And he says that he admires the technology, finds it beautiful BECAUSE it defies control.

But it's an important point, and many people live and breathe these things. It seems like no one is going to mention the Pirate Party, but that is clearly the underlying point here, and we should be making it clear that the Liberal Democrats ought to be the NATURAL HOME of the very people likely to vote Pirate. Arrr!

It's a key question of corporate power versus freedom of individual access.

You do have to strike a balance, because people have to earn a living – and it's all very well for bands that have already made it to put out material for free when they are already made: it's easy to be the great libertarian when you have loads of money in the bank, he suggests.

But Auntie Jennie talks about bands nowadays that use the net to BYPASS the record companies, and get their material "out there" for free, making a living from their live performances, and Captain Clegg nods approvingly.

I'm reminded of the question that has been asked before: how many OTHER jobs are there where you expect to get paid for the work you did twenty years ago, even if you don't turn up for work TODAY?

Of course, that OVERSIMPLIFIES matters: one of our vinspired guests , Mr Nuno, had already told us he was interested in film and he and Jennie agreed it's DIFFICULT to put on a live movie. Movies cost millions of dollars to make but it is worth it so long as they take tens of millions of dollars. (SOME movies cost TENS of millions of dollars to make and take HUNDREDS of millions of dollars… and SOME movies cost HUNDREDS of millions of dollars to make and take £4.35 and a LOT of egg on the producer's face, but that's not important right now.)

Dr Pax then pointed out that sometimes there are NO legal routes to view something, if video or movies are not commercially available anywhere. For example, entirely HYPOTHETICALLY, if you've missed a stage of the Tour de France (that is FRENCH for "Tour de France") or want to watch it again, you can ONLY go for illegal downloads. Or possibly illegal UPloads (it depends on who's going to catch the blame for sticking it on Hoot Tube).




Auntie Jennie asked if we were not, perhaps, a little slow in having a response to the MPs expenses scandal, but Captain Clegg wonders if this is true. He recalls having a conversation with the other Party leaders, Mr Frown and Mr Balloon, even before the main scandal in the Tell-lie-graph broke, where he said basically the biggest problem is the profiteering from the second house allowance and the only way to deal with it is to get MPs out of the housing game altogether. Of course, they weren't interested; if they HAD been, the scandal might have unfolded in a completely different way, with Parliament visibly cleaning itself up AHEAD of the revelations.

But, I suggest, perhaps the problem here is that we were ALREADY on board with the urgent need to reform politics. Mr Balloon gets to make headlines because he is a "man bites dog" – a CONSERVATORY saying we should cut back MPs perks is news; a Liberal Democrat saying it is so much business as usual.

It's no use wringing our fluffy feet about the MEEJA, though, as Captain Clegg muses when Ms Ali asks how we are to win the "air war". We've just got to get bigger, too big for them to ignore.

It's worth, he says, at the start of conference, reiterating a few FACTS:

• At the last election, one in four people voted for Liberal Democrats
• We now control ALL of the big cities outside of London
• We have a better GEOGRAPHICAL spread than EITHER the Conservatories OR Hard Labour
• And we are, and have been for a while now, leading in the "battle of ideas": we were right about borrowing being out of control; we were right about the need to mend our broken politics; we were right about the environment; and we were right about Iraq.

He laughs: DO the other parties have "control" over the meeja agenda? He doubts very much that Mr Frown wakes up every morning feeling like he is "in control".

At the moment, a lot of the meeja expect the Conservatories to win the next election. Goodness, by now even Hard Labour expect the Conservatories to win the next election. And so there's a lot of "sucking up" to Mr Balloon going on, giving him FAR too easy a ride. This week Captain Clegg, and Mr Vince and Mr Huhney-Monster, are all planning on turning up the heat on Mr Balloon, really making a start on EXPOSING him and the Conservatories as FAKES.

This is the new stage for his leadership: he's spent the first year, year-and-a-half making it completely crystal clear that we are on the side of CHANGE. There will be no more deals with Hard Labour, they are finished and everyone knows it. Hard Labour are so exhausted, their ideological bearings have gone, their political compass is busted, they are no longer in tune with the times and history is passing them by.

He's written a pamphlet about it – the Liberal Moment. Daddy and I read it during the night; it is jolly exciting!

Wicked Uncle Costigan had read it too; he seemed a little put out at having to peruse ninety pages the day before Conference started, and asked: "why now?"

Well in part it is because he wanted to get away from the hurly-burley of Westminster politics to sit back and really THINK about the changes that are coming and are necessary.

But it's also about getting your philosophical undercarriage SOLID. If you base your principles on solid thinking then you policies will be sound too and stand the test of an election campaign.

Can you put our philosophy over to the meeja, though? asked Wicked Uncle Costigan.

Of course not, said Captain Clegg, and laughed.

Someone ELSE who has read the Liberal moment is Ms Pollyanna Toytown of the Grauniad, and she seem MOST put out at the idea that her precious Labour Party might be falling by the wayside of history.

All this talk of the meeja had, obviously, sent Daddy Richard into one, crossly protesting that this week had seen another brilliant pamphlet, this one from Mr Dr Vince, spelling out directly billions of pounds of the kind of savings that will be necessary to straighten out the economy, but had it got any coverage? No, because all that day and the day before and the day after the meeja had been on and on over whether the Prime Monster would bring himself to use the word "cut".

So, to him, even being attacked by the Graunaid, by Ms Polly was BETTER; it showed we WERE there.

Cheekily, Mr Dr Pax asked: "so, what IS your opinion of Ms Pollyanna?"

"Well, she's very nice in person," said Captain Clegg, generously. But he went on to say that she is stuck with a "rather rigid view of what it means to be a progressive", that she hasn't (yet) accepted that there is a LIBERAL, individualist, freedom-based tradition of progressive politics in Great Britain as well as a statist, centrist one. She has her convictions, which is in some ways admirable, but surely it is time to see that the statist approach she is so attached to has led to MORE inequality, not less, to the trashing of Civil Liberties and international law, to the locking up of more young people than any other country in Europe and led the economy to the brink of disaster.

Hard Labour now represent the BETRAYAL of progressive politics.

Having read his pamphlet (like I said) what I saw as the problem now was that, even with its heart shot to pieces, Hard Labour still has two strengths: support of the Trades Unions, money basically, and tribalism, the tendency of too many people to vote Labour just because they are against the Conservatories.

To the first point, Captain Clegg was philosophical: it's just a fact of life you have to accept. Of course, some of what the TUC has to say is excellent; some of what they had to say this week was even Liberal Democrat policy!

But what he WOULD flatly reject as BAD for politics is any vested interest bankrolling a political Party. It happened with the BANKS and look what happened when THEY were able to control the regulation agenda, indeed still are. It totally hollows out people's trust in politicians.

What we must do is constantly bring it up to EMBARRASS the other Parties until they properly reopen the issue of funding and tackle the corrupting influence once and for all.

But on the second point, he asked "tribalism? Is that still true?" referring to the fall from 1957 when 98% of people voted for one or other of the Red/Blue Parties to 2009 when in the local elections barely 60% of people chose to vote Red/Blue.

In fairness, I recognise this THEME from "That Liberal Moment"; talking about how in the 1920s where the old Liberal Party lost ground to the then New Labour, they didn’t regain it but surrendered it entirely, and there's some evidence that the reverse is happening now, with many areas with NO Labour representation at all any more.

Labour's time is OVER; the debate must be between the Conservatories and the Liberal Democrats.

So this is the new phase for the Liberal Democrats. We've WON the case for CHANGE; NOW, it is time to make the case for the KIND of change that we want, whether it is to be the REAL change that Great Britain needs or the PHONEY, SYNTHETIC change of Mr Balloon, who is talking about the environment and then palling up with climate change deniers in the European Parliament; who claims to be progressive and then puts forward tax cuts for millionaires as his only policy; who promises to cut the budget deficit and merely starts by increasing the price of SALAD.

What Captain Clegg REALLY objects to is the Conservatories sense of ENTITLEMENT. We all know that they think it is their go, Buggins turn in the endless see-saw of Red/Blue status quo.

Power ought to be EARNED, he says, not just INHERITED.

We could carry on talking all day, but there is a cough from Special Agent Hanney.

Is he frowning at us, asks Auntie Jennie? You can't feel threatened by someone with a beard like that, says Captain Clegg.

So we do group photos and then I produce BIRTHDAY CAKE for Mr Stephen who is having a BIRTHDAY!

Happy Birthday Mr Stephen, and have a great Conference everyone.

PS:

Here's what other people had to say:

Mr Dr Pax

Auntie Jennie

Wicked Uncle Costigan

Mr Stephen of the Glenn

and keep an eye out for Ms Ali G



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Day 3033: Millennium Elephant discovers the Dark Secret inside the Office of Mr Chris Huhne MP

Tuesday:


It is the tub of chocolates that we left for his research staff. He is on a diet – do not tell him, anyone!

Slimming Team

Along with Mr Lord Bonkers and Auntie Helen and Special Agent George, I have been along to interview nearly-but-not-quite Liberal Leader Mr Chris Huhney-Monster in his office in Parliament.

Mr Chris was very generous with his time and we had a terrific and wide ranging interview, covering: the budget and being maybe only half-way into the recession; how the Conservatories are now neither Keynesians not Monetarists nor any other known form of economic theory-ists; electric cars and other toys-for-the-boys; and who is the best Doctor Woo (the Internet demands to know!).

More seriously, Mr Chris was APPALLED by the decision of Mayor of London Bojo the Clown to break his election promise and cancel the opening of three vital Rape Crisis Centres.

"Probably the most worrying aspect in the entire criminal justice system is the failure to prosecute and convict for rape."

JUST 16.9% of complaints lead to a prosecution, and the conviction rate is even worse at a MERE 6%, far lower than in other countries.

"This is an area of appalling violence against half the population," said Mr Chris. "And it is just completely unacceptable."


We talked extensively about policing, about the way that the G20 demonstrations were handled, why there HAS to be an independent judicial inquiry and what lessons need to be learned. How does a senior police officer's stated policy come to be at odds with practice on the ground? And do the Territorial Support Group share "DNA" with the Special Patrol Group disbanded in the 1980s?

We learned that it is NOT illegal to photograph a police officer… except when it is: possibly one at a railway station or an airport or a power station because the law, muddy and badly drafted, is about not assisting terrorist PLANNING.

And we talked more broadly about the need for MORE police but also BETTER police strategy, the need to police with CONSENT – and how travelling in pairs like Chinese diplomats might mean you talk to each other instead of members of the community.


We asked whether he had any regrets about the Geert Wilders business. He said that he had come to his decision honestly that the "Fitna" film DID incite violence and he stuck by that. But with hindsight, he thought that it might have been better to just ignore the man.

Though, in his defence, he added that by the time he was asked, the Home Secretary had already banned Mr Wilders from the country.

Speaking of the "Second Home" Secretary, I also asked about MPs expenses. A little while ago, Mr Clogg published his ideas on reforming the expenses system. Today a rather-less-consultative Mr Frown issued a Prime Monsterial dictat that MPs expenses WOULD be reformed. Spot the difference, I asked.

The difference, said Mr Chris, is that Mr Frown is setting up an attendance allowance with no need for receipts or bills to prove you've actually incurred an expense. It's basically free money. "It won't do at all."


And we also heaped PRAISE on Mr Chris's Freedom Bill and – by wireless digital laser satellite link-up – Award-winning Auntie Alix asked that Mr Chris update the site to incorporate all the good ideas that have been posted as comments. He said that that was definitely the plan, and that we want to develop the CONVERSATION through the website over the next year so we can use the Freedom Bill very much as our CALLING CARD in the General Election.


Anyway, then Lord Bonkers had to hurry off to the Sky Newswagon of EVIL to do an interview, and we hurried home in time to catch him use at least TWO of the things that Mr Chris had said to us. (And Auntie Helen do a walk-past behind the man who was pretending to be in another studio. Hehe!)

All in all, a terrific interview. Thank you, Mr Chris!

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Day 2990: How I bottled out of asking Mr Vince if he was going to slash higher education and the army

Monday:


As I said, I was LATE for my interview with President Ros because I was in the main hall listening to the speech of our Treasury Spokesperson, Mr Vince "the Power" Cable, and could not tear myself away.

I came away with the distinct impression that our SAINTED Shadow Chancellor was carefully and quietly laying the groundwork for announcing strategic cuts in government spending. Or more bluntly, warming up the sacrificial knife and letting some of the sacred cows know they have an appointment…

Specifically mentioned were higher education and the armed forces.

The suggestion that we cut the size of the army is quite BOLD. "Courageous", Sir Humphrey would say. It is certainly a stick that the Conservatories, with their jingoistic hats on, would use to beat us with.

It is certainly the case that we have been asking ridiculously too much of our armed forces. Hard Labour got us into one completely unnecessary war that has made the other possibly necessary war much, much harder to fight.

The difficult question here is one of RESPONSIBILITY. Mr Clogg has spoken of a world where intervention is possible. But who's going to do the intervening – for all that it should be under a blue flag with a UN mandate, SOMEONE has to provide the boots on the ground. And if Great Britain is going to do less, that means either we're asking someone else to do MORE (and see how difficult it is to do that even among friends in Europe), or LESS is going to be done. We – the civilised world – are already walking on by while Darfur and Zimbabwe go to hell in a handcart. How many other places will we let slide into anarchy or, worse, the grip of someone like the Taliban who we end up having to fight in the end anyway?

I'm not against us bringing home our troops, putting right the shocking state of their homes here in the UK and using our army to defend us rather than supporting the failed policies of a President who is now history.

But it's never as easy as JUST saying: "right we'll come home now".

Mind you, for a Liberal Party, particularly a big soft fluffy liberal party like ours, saying "less war" is going to be much, much less of a problem than saying "less education".

Even raising the QUESTION of whether sending 50% of all young people to university is a good idea could be seen as retrograde, anti-opportunity, even… CONSERVATIVE.

But let's just try and look at this PRAGMATICALLY for a moment. We USED to have a system where we offered a free university education of exceptional standard to a smaller number of people, ideally those who would benefit from it the most, though in practice this was mixed to a greater or lesser extent with those who could afford to buy their way in too. A university education BECAUSE it was rare offered you a step up into the best opportunities.

By vastly expanding the pool of graduates you also reduce the SCARCITY value of BEING a graduate – you transform the degree from a course of study for those who it will benefit into a pass/fail test that divides the nation into two: those who'll get the jobs and the rest. Because if a degree is no longer the passport to top earnings, it has become – even worse – a necessary hurdle to ANY earnings. Congratulations, you've just re-invented the 11+ as the 18+.

And then you've got to PAY for it all, for all those extra places studying, which needs more lecturers and accommodation and facilities, and you're talking two three times as much money, so where's it going to come from? Well, you end up mortgaging your children's future in order to have THEM pay for what you got for free. And for how much? Three thousand pounds? Five thousand? Ten thousand? So now only those who can AFFORD it will take the chance and that means the ones who's parents are already in the well off half and social mobility is killed stone dead. Well done, Hard Labour, good luck with pulling that ladder after you.

But… but, but, but. Who am I to say that it ISN'T an opportunity, and people ARE still clamouring to get in to university, even if it means taking up the offer of eternal debt in exchange for a graduate salary.

I THINK we would be better off with a RANGE of opportunities, founded on a good education to 18 but with different paths after. But that's merely what I think.


Anyway, we did an INTERVIEW with St Vince, and THAT is what I SHOULD have asked Mr Vince about when I had the chance. But I bottled it. Come on, this is Saint Vince and we are very much on the same side – I don’t want to be putting my big fluffy foot in it asking something awkward about fundamental policy changes.

So I asked him about the Euros and about the Post Office instead. These were clearly less stupid questions than last time we interviewed him and I asked if he wanted to carry on being Deputy Leader (answer: yes) even if they weren't the real questions I should have asked.

The point about the Euro is that the currency MAY get blown to pieces if PROTECTIONIST pressures get too great; however it MAY end up being stronger if it becomes a reserve currency – which isn't one you keep on the bench just in case but is actually one that people buy up to shore up their OWN reserves. I had hoped that St Vince would use his FAMOUS POWERS of PROGNOSTICATION but he was not to be drawn so easily.

Admitting that either of those things COULD happen, he did say that the single currency would come under a lot of pressure as the recession affected countries, especially Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain which are known to have weaker economies, compared to Germany. (Mind you, we're ALL weaker economies compared to Deutschland!) This was the first SERIOUS test of the new currency, he pointed out, and the first time in a decade that the Eurozone has faced a recession. Fortunately, he felt that it was UNLIKELY to break the currency.

On the other fluffy foot, he also thought that a very serious currency crisis like this revealed to people just how VULNERABLE we have let ourselves become by staying outside.

On a more positive note, after the crisis has passed he thinks that that will be a good time to reassess our entry into monetary union. Obviously, he restated all the usual caveats about "at a rate that is sustainable" and "not without a referendum". But he clearly felt that a good part of the case FOR the Euro would have been made if it weathers the banking apocalypse (and another good part will be made if it weathers it BETTER than the New Pound, the noble traditional currency of Great Britain since, er, 1971).

Post Offices are topical, thanks to Lord Mandelbrot, and also of great interest to any local community where their Post Office is threatened with closure. And also Daddy had written some really good questions about them earlier.


So I asked whether the bottom of a huge stock market crash wasn't a STUPID time to be considering a privatisation, and shouldn't we be trying to get some more competition into the business rather than just an under the counter deal with one private firm?

Mr Vince agreed that now was, as he put it, perhaps not the best time to get best value for the shares.

Though he slightly evaded the rest of the question, not actually dodged more of a weave past: he said that as liberals we supported the idea of liberalisation in the postal industry, but that it shouldn't be reduced to "cherry picking" the best bits and leaving the universal delivery to the state. But he moved quickly on to critiquing Lord Mandelbrot's proposals, saying that we have laid out a number of key tests for the legislation when it appears – will private companies have to contribute to the universal service obligation; will postal workers participate in a John Lewis-like workers partnership; will the Royal Mail be kept as a public body; will the private investment be used to support the Post Office network. He reckoned that actually Lord M will fail one or more or all of these tests and that we will be opposing the legislation. Still, it is good to keep an open mind first.

He also suggested that competition is difficult because the sorting and distribution is a natural monopoly, though for myself I am not sure that that is true, or at least not any more true than it is for the supply of telephone services because the wires form a natural monopoly. Unless I'm wrong, wasn't British Telecom one of the more SUCCESSFUL privatisations introducing competition into the whole telecom industry?

Anyway, those were my questions.

Far more interesting was the conversation we got into about BLOGGING, and why Mr Vince doesn't do it – mainly time – which also linked up with Auntie Alix's questions about targeting, and the advice he had for Jo Crispy-Strips about how to get elected. (Which was: keep on slogging, you'll soon learn that a few good speeches aren't remotely enough and you'll need a lot of hard work and a lot of good canvassing information and most importantly a team). AND then Lady Mark went on to talk about how Mr Vince had been doing a lot of visits to local parties and "not just the glamorous ones". (The trick is to ASK, folks!)

Lovely Jenny asked a much more interesting question about bees; the Lady Mark asked for investment advice; fragrant Mary asked about the unfairness of the local government grant to "leafy suburbs"; the Tin Man asked for a Heart; Daddy Richard asked for a Brain and you were there and you were there and oh! It was such a strange dream…


For better accounts than mine, look to our other star panellists:

Award Winning Auntie Alix

Deeply diverse Ms Jo Crispy-Strips

Trembling Fangirl Jennie

The Honourable Lady Mark (parts one and two)

Fragrant Ms Mary Reidmyday

And Scarier Mr Andy Hinton (parts one, two and impressively three)


Star Prize, though, goes to Auntie Helen for the World’s longest 12 second video.

Cable Guys (and Gals)

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Day 2988: If your local party is a bit rubbish… who you gonna call? – Millennium Elephant meets President Ros Scott

Saturday (again):


All right, so I arrived LATE for this interview. It's a LONG way up that spiral ramp to the auditorium in the Harrogate Centre and my fluffy legs are only LITTLE, so it takes AGES to get all the way back!

Anyway, the Fragrant Ms Mary Reidmyday and Mr Costigan Quist have already given you the low down on what happened when they along with lovely Jenny and Auntie Helen and (yes, yes EVENTUALLY) my fluffy self got together for an interview with Ms Baroness Ros Scott, who looked resplendent in the newly minted Presidential diamante conference-badge lanyard. (Apparently Mr Hugs has yet to hand over the Presidential Tiara.)

The Committee for the Return of the Presidential Tiara

So, I am talking instead about one thing that came up, but that seems to have been a growing notion that spread over the course of the conference from our meeting with Governor Dean and into our conversation with St Vince of Cable too – in a word: targeting.

In slightly more words: because we have limited resources we have to chose most carefully where to put them, therefore we lend our support to places where we have the best chance of winning, whether at local or parliamentary or even European level. It's a strategy known as Rennardism and Lord Rennard, the Party's Chief Executioner Executive has been renamed after it. Er, I think. It has had, as Mr Vince pointed out, enormous success, resulting in the best Liberal representation in Parliament in a Century.

On the other fluffy foot, Governor Dean's whole strategy, the Fifty State Strategy, is about reaching out to BEYOND the places where you can win. The reasons are TWOFOLD.

Firstly, your support does NOT end at the boundaries of your winnable constituencies. Targeting, though, abandons those voters, leaves them out in the cold almost. A Fifty-State Strategy lets them feel a part of the victory, and more than that it lets them know that they are not alone out there. By empowering small networks in places where you are not strong, you provide not just comfort to your own supporters but visibility among supporters of other parties and of none. The more people who at least KNOW someone who will say "I'm a Liberal Democrat! I'll have a Babycham!" the more CREDIBILITY you have when you claim to be a NATIONAL PARTY.

Secondly, for new members, at the moment, it's a LOTTERY. If you are lucky, you find a local party that is a strong and coherent group, where you can make friends, have fun, a good old chin-wag and learn about liberal democracy and feel supported. If, however, your scratch-card comes up blank, then you find little more than a stack of Focuses and a begging letter signed by Lord R.

Mr Vince said himself that the BEST thing about the Liberal Democrats is the REALLY EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE.

BUT… you need to FIND those people. Getting elected is DIFFICULT and HARD WORK. Governor Dean told us that the PERSONAL CONNECTION was the most important factor in winning an election. But you need to be making that connection to several thousand homes just to be a councillor. That needs a TEAM effort.

So the VITAL question that seemed to be coming through from the conference was this: Are we, as Liberal Democrats, losing vital support because the people who WANT to find us, can't?

And what do we do about it?

President Ros certainly seemed AWARE of the question, and had SOME answers – she talked about developing a policy network that could involve people more directly in formulation of policy; while at the same time saying that Cowley St couldn't (and SHOULDN'T do it all) and that regional parties had to take some responsibilities.

We want to use our resources SMARTER. Obviously we want MORE resources too – Mr Costigan asked Ms Ros about that, and she said that we need to ask. We need to act more like a CAUSE or CAMPAIGN rather than a political party. We need to ask for money FOR something, not just "the Party". And we need to be less EMBARRASSED about asking. But basically we need to ask.

But President Ros also thought that we should be using our resources BETTER – we have a smaller membership than the other two parties, but often a better educated and more motivated one: the skills are out there if we can find them. (Another "find the people".) And there is a good deal of unnecessary duplication of effort that we should try, where possible, to trim.

But that's not the answer to the question, is it. It's the BEGINNING of an answer, it's at least a recognition that there IS a question to answer, but it's not getting us all the way there.

How do we, without compromising the investment in target seats, reach out to our own "Fifty State Solution"?

If only there were some NETWORK or connection that we could make… hang on…

If you are READING this then you and I are connected via the Wibbly Wobbly Web. You are an Internet Person, and probably a bit of a Liberal One too. And therefore QUITE SMART.

But the Internet alone can't do it. At the Lib Dem Voice fringe event, Ms Karen from the Obamamaniacs (or Barry O for America Campaign as it was formally called) talked about the success of the Internet in the Presidential Election, but also said how they never wanted it to be too good – they didn't want the voter to think "well, I've really enjoyed the website and now I've 'done' Barry O for President". They wanted the voter to get up from behind the screen and go out and DO something. Vote, mainly, but delivering would be nice too.

So think. How do we capitalise on the connection that we already have? How do we build on it to make a Liberal Network that CAN reach those liberals out there, and how do we get them MOVING?

How do we find them, the ones Mr Vince called the REALLY EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE.










Don't just sit there! Get on with it!!!

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Day 2988: For the Purposes of this Interview, I shall be a Donkey - Millennium "Donkey" Meets Howard Dean

Saturday:


You cannot have helped but notice that the Democrats of America have recently won a significant victory. The Internet plaid a big, big role in this victory, with Barry O drawing in 13 million supporters and over five-hundred million dollars through his website.

So we were very privileged to ask the advice of the man who very much led the way with his own campaign grass-roots campaign in 2003 and as chair of the Democratic National Committee: Mr Governor Howard Dean.

Howard Dean, pictured here with Lib Dem Bloggers and a "Donkey". Yes, I'm a Donkey.

I was joined for the interview by Ms Helen and Ms Alix, along with Daddies Alex and Richard.

To warm up, I welcomed Mr Howard to the Liberal Conference and asked what the word "Liberal" meant to him.

Ms Helen asked about the Internet and campaigning. Describing the Internet as "the most democracy oriented invention since Gutenberg", Mr Howard was quite modest, and when he talked about how the Internet has changed people's engagement with politics in America, he said that it was the people writing the blogs and the websites that had done the changing – he and President Obama were just the ones who were quick to recognise that change and to adapt to it.

He spoke of the Internet as the tool that is EMPOWERING a new generation: "Where we had a million people march on Washington, you can send a million e-mails to congress (and crash their mail-server!)" he said. At the same time it opens up new ways to COMMUNITY politics, forming new links between local people and groups.

But more than that, the Net is also the best possible way to reach out to people in authoritarian regimes, in places like China or Iran, and bring them a fresh take on democracy.

Should we be talking to activists or to undecided voters, Ms Helen wanted to know.

"Neither," said Mr Howard, "You need to be CREATING activists."

Many more young people are travelling and serving their country in diverse ways today but what they don't do is connect that to POLITICS. Politics MATTERS, said Mr Howard, and not just to old Fuddy-duddies. It is the role of bloggers – that's ME and YOU! – to get our generation engaged and involved in politics.



Daddy Alex asked his "how are you different in one line" question. In an interesting reply-that-wasn't-entirely-a-reply, Mr Howard put forward the idea that the message relates more to the CAMPAIGN rather than the PARTY: for instance "change" was their message this time, and very successfully.

But far more important than MESSAGE was making a CONNECTION to the voters. It's important to go knocking on doors, but it's even more important to go back again and again. An activist knocking on a hundred doors in a weekend is only so good unless they are going to go back the weekend after and the weekend after that and knock on all those doors AGAIN.

That is how you build up the relationship. It doesn't have to be the candidate in person, so long as it is the same face popping up so that the voters can see a relationship, and see how that leads to RESULTS.



Ms Alix talked to Mr Howard about the Fifty-State Strategy. To her, that seemed the exact opposite of the way Liberal Democrat targeting seems to work.

Mr Howard agreed that too much targeting could be a MISTAKE. You risk writing off whole sections of the nation or, as he put it in the most CRUCIAL remark:

"You cannot be a national party if you don't campaign everywhere in the nation. You'll never get someone's vote if you don't ask."

It doesn't mean devoting EQUAL resources, but it does mean devoting SOME resources to places where you are not (yet!) going to win. For what might be a relatively small investment you can have regional co-ordinators to link up activists and give people a "go to" place to find Liberal Democrats.

Speaking from the American perspective, he said how important it was that through President Obama's campaign people had become able to stand up and say "actually, I'm a Democrat" throughout all of America. We Liberal Democrats need to achieve the same thing here, so that peole can stand up and say "I'm a Liberal Democrat" and their friends will think, well actually it's okay to be a Liberal, and maybe the Liberals AREN'T all bad/irrelevant/gone the way of the dodo.


It was a real pleasure to meet the man who could have been the man who could have been the President. And he gave us a lot to think about.

And now we must dash away to hear him speak in the main hall!

PS:

We DID try to tempt him into telling us what he thought about the OTHER political parties in Great Britain. But he was very DIPLOMATIC.


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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!

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!

Day 2759: Liberal Youths: Millennium Elephant (8*) talks to Ali Wood (15) and George Duffett (12). And of course Ms Jo Swinson (28)

Monday:


First: Big thank yous to Ms Helen Duffet for organising this Interview.

You see, you don't need to be an Elephant of INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION to organise one; any ordinary MULTI-TALENTED SUPERSTAR of the Liberal Democrat firmament can do it!

Ms Helen and I were joined by Mr Alasdair, Ms Linda, Mr George, a large box of doughnuts and my Daddy Richard to interview the Liberal Democrats' (and indeed the House of Commons'!) youngest MP, Ms Jo Winsome. Ms Jo represents Dunbartonshire East and is Shadow Minister for Abroad. She is also a key figure in the gender balance taskforce.

Liberal Future

Mr George seemed to be trying to attract my attention by shaking his head and pointing at Alasdair, so I asked him to go first.

Does age matter?

It does and it doesn't. The way it was used to treat Sir Mr the Merciless and indeed the way it is sometimes used against Senator Oven-Chip is WRONG.

And Ms Jo has been on the receiving end of remarks in the House of Commons that people would not get away with if they had been about her race or gender. Well, maybe her gender…

"Surely you don't remember the poll tax," one Conservatory Heckler had called out when she had referred to debate. HE got taken to task by fellow members. And besides, she may only have been ten but it was a big thing and had a big impact on all the people she knew so yes actually she DID remember the poll tax.

Similarly, when making a speech she talked about the fifty THOUSAND young people in Scotland who get a lower minimum wage just because of their age, a Scottish Office Minister (a MINISTER!) interjected with: "Are you one of them?"

On the other fluffy foot, diversity is a GOOD thing, and it is RIGHT that the House of Commons should reflect the opinions of people of all ages: young people like Ms Jo, still facing repayments of their student loans (she's JUST paid hers off, with great relief!); people starting families trying to get on the housing ladder; people with children in schools; people whose children are going to university; people approaching retirement.

(So basically, from MODERN Liberal Democrats to PALAEOLITHIC Conservatories to Labour DINOSAURS.)

It gives a range of perspectives, fresh and traditional, and allows people who are concerned by an issue and for those who are dispassionate to have a say in the debate.


Mr Alasdair's question then followed on the same theme: how do we engage young people in politics, particularly people aged fifteen to eighteen who, unlike older younger-people, don't have student organisations.

Ms Jo thought that there were two questions involved here: getting young people more involved in politics GENERALLY and then getting them into the Liberal Democrats.

On the general engagement front, Ms Jo acknowledged that the CITIZENSHIP classes introduced by the Labour would be a good place to start, though she also thought that they could be a lot BETTER.

She also wanted to see the Party's elected officials – from councillors to MPs, MSPs and MEPs too – spending more time getting into schools to address young people and answer their questions, not necessarily from a partisan point of view, but just to encourage them to ask questions and to know that their voices and opinions ARE being listened to.

Young people have CONCERNS – will the buses run on time… or at all… what will I get paid for my weekend job… will I EVER see my SATS results – and yet they often don't realise that this IS politics and they can do something about it.

In the Liberal Democrats, Ms Jo agreed that most local Liberal parties might not have enough young people to be viable just for them. But she wanted to emphasise that there ARE roles for people of any age – Lord Rennard, apparently, was treasurer of his local party aged 14… but then he IS a genius! And just because you cannot stand for election until you are eighteen, that does not mean that you cannot get APPROVED as a candidate. People who are sixteen or seventeen NOW will certainly be eligible to stand when Mr Frown has to call an election in two years time.


Moving round the table, Ms Linda then asked about DIVERSITY representation, and how we seem to be a bit rubbish at it. The Conservatories, she was upset to recall, have even been pretty BLATANT about how they are CYNICALLY recruiting just enough Lady Conservatories and Black or Brown Conservatories to meet their targets and then they don't need to allow in any more. We've just GOT to be better than that!

Ms Jo admitted that we have not done very well in providing the same encouragement and practical support to minority ethnic candidates that we have put in place for gender balance.

We ARE managing to get more ladies placed, and in fact we are doing BETTER in target seats: overall, about 29% of Lib Dem candidates chosen so far are ladies; but that rises to 40% in more winnable targets. And remembering that the "good" seats tend to pick earlier, that should remain a good sign.

The main difference, Ms Jo thought, was that the Party has appointed a gender balance OFFICER, who is responsible for going out there, being PRO-ACTIVE and pretty much getting things done. Rather than appointing a BME officer, the Party chose to employ a BME ADVISOR – Ms Jo emphasised that the advisor is very GOOD at advising, but it is a different role.

As a result, although we have the "Diversity Fund" money available, that depends on ALREADY BEING SELECTED and so, so far, only one person has qualified.

What we need is more assistance for good candidates to GET to the selection stage through training and support.

It was also raised that the Party's existing membership profile tends to mean that there are certain attitudes that prevail, for good or bad. Though EVERYONE was shocked to hear from Linda that one of her friends at a meeting supposedly to encourage minority candidates was told that he "had a chip on his shoulder". Ms Jo recommended that anyone saying such a thing was in need of a swift "quiet word", and that an apology to Linda's friend wouldn't go amiss either!

Ms Helen's question was linked to this, as she asked what were the BARRIERS to getting elected.

The main ones, thought Ms Jo, are CARING RESPONSIBILITIES – whether for elderly parents or for young children – which still, these days, tend to fall more on women than on men.

It is probably NOT a coincidence, she thought, that of the Liberal Democrats' elected women MPs, five have children who are over sixteen and the other four have no children at all.

(Though she pointed out candidates Ms Sarah Carr and Ms Sarah Kelsey who show that it doesn't HAVE to be a RULE.)

The wage gap also has its effect, and there are other costs, like clothes for example where a lady candidate cannot get away with just two suits.

There are times when NOT looking like a stereotypical MP is a positive advantage. Though Ms Jo did admit that when going up for selection she would adopt "the uniform" of suit and limited jewellery. It is about meeting people's expectations, and having the right image, looking the part, so that they are comfortable with you representing them. Mind you, she also mentioned how Mr Jeremy Browne has said that he had the REVERSE problem: he has no problem looking like he fits in in the House of Commons, it was looking like he was part of the community he wanted to represent that taxed him.

And of course, running for Parliament is expensive and time-consuming for either gender. In a development seat you can manage to put in the work around your commitments to having a job, but in seats where you might actually win, most candidates have to at least go part-time and many take a sabbatical or give up work altogether.

There USED to be support from the Nancy Seear Fund… but sadly that has FOLDED because it was better at giving out money than at raising it.

And childcare is difficult to address unless you have really rather a LOT of money to throw at the problem.

The REAL thing that the Party can provide is CONFIDENCE. That is something that we can do something about. It's about getting over the CULTURAL barrier.

Ms Jo remarked on one of the questions on one of the candidates' questionnaires: do you feel confident addressing large groups of people.

It doesn't MATTER whether you FEEL confident – you just have to DO IT.

There IS some sexism… but it seems to work BOTH WAYS: while there are some people reluctant to support a lady candidate, there are equally those who would prefer a lady regardless.

In fact, being YOUNG is more of a barrier.

Ms Jo remembers being challenged on the grounds of "what if you want to start a family, then". Of course, they wouldn't get away with that at hustings, but in the privacy of their own homes… and you can't protect people from EVERY question that might get thrown at them. They will certainly encounter them in the real campaign too. What we can do is give candidates advice and confidence to DEAL with difficult questions and bias.

And things got EASIER after the Brent East by-election, where lovely Sarah Teather showed everyone that being young and female was no barrier to winning.


Then it was MY turn. I decided to ask for a Scottish perspective on the Scottish by-election this week. I suggested that in spite of Mr Frown, the Labour would probably still manage to win.

Ms Jo obviously didn't want to get too ahead of herself, but thought that that was the most likely outcome (subject to being proved wrong by the time my diary is published), but the Labour's majority would be much reduced and that the Scottish Nasty Party would claim a moral victory anyway. She's been out there campaigning and been followed about by the SNP poster van, which is equipped with loudspeakers that blare continuous panpipe music. People will be DELIGHTED when it's all over just to SHUT THEM UP!

But she didn't want us to get too excited about the positive responses she'd been getting, because we have mostly been targeting the areas that strongly support the Liberal Democrats anyway. The main aim for us (and the Conservatories) is not to get squeezed too much.

Turnout, though, only 40% at the General Election, will probably be even lower because it is the Glasgow Fair and everyone is away on holiday. And that could make things completely unpredictable.

Nevertheless, Ms Jo thought that the Labour's Ms Margaret Curran was a good candidate and in many ways – in spite of the Labour having to try four times to arrive at the answer – the OBVIOUS candidate because her constituency is being abolished.

She also said that she had been strong-armed into was very much looking forward to joining the commentators for the all-night by-election coverage on the telly. We wished her GREAT JOY of that!


For our second turn round the table, we turned to FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Mr George passed, so we moved on to Mr Alasdair again, whose question was about the Government's attitude towards the United States: should they not have acted sooner to condemn Guantánamo Bay and the practice of TORTURE?

Ms Jo's answers was OF COURSE! Of course they should have acted sooner; it took them an AGE even to acknowledge that Guantánamo should be closed and they couldn't even say that it was WRONG – some kind of "aberration" was Lord Blairimort's weasel-worded way round it.

For the Liberal Democrats it's been a policy going back certainly as far as Mr Charles that we in Great Britain should be a CANDID FRIEND to Americaland. If we are to have a SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP then we should be able to make USE of that to tell them when we think they are going wrong.

Torture is so obviously wrong, and not just because it is clearly morally wrong, but also for the entirely practical reason that it is totally counter-productive. People will and do say ANYTHING just to make it stop. So the information you get might well be FICTION rather than useful intelligence.

(I shall resist pointing out that that "being fiction" didn't stop Lord Blarimort's use of "intelligence".)

Nor should we allow the Government to get away with "outsourcing" torture to less fastidious regimes through the contemptible practice of "rendition".

The Liberal Democrats were pooh-poohed as a nuisance when Sir Mr the Merciless raised the question of whether the Labour Government was permitting this ILLEGAL ACTIVITY to pass through British airspace on the SLY.

And what happened? The Foreign Office had to issue an APOLOGY for misleading everyone when it turned out that allowing the Americans to "render" people though our airspace was exactly what they had been doing! The European Union report on the practice was VERY CRITICAL!


Possibly prompted by this mention of the Union, Ms Linda asked: what should be our message on Europe?

Ms Jo's answer was interesting and I think wise. While restating that we should be loudly Pro-European, she said that she thought it was time that the Union stopped TINKERING with the details of how many seats at the Brussels drinks cabinet each country gets and starts addressing some REAL issues.

There comes a time when you just have to learn to live with what you've got and make the situation you are in work. All the talk about qualified majority voting or numbers of commissioners or changing how decisions should be agreed does nothing but turn everyone off.

We need to point out the real and urgent things that Europe should be addressing:

• Energy security, particularly with regards to importing fuels from Russia

• Diplomacy with Iran, where Europe is leading the way to reaching a compromise over their atomic ambitions

• The fight against international terrorism, and how to improve security WITHOUT compromising civil liberties

• And above all climate change, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels that cause CO2 emissions.

On our own, we don't have the voice to address these issues, but together in Europe we do and that is what we need to be telling people.

Jumping ahead a bit, Iran was the subject of Mr Alasdair's next (and last) question. With Israel not far away, and with Israel having a policy of pre-emptively bombing and invading their neighbours and with Israel allegedly have "the BOMB"… could we understand the Iranians' defensive perspective.

Ms Jo pondered aloud about a policy of "we can have it and you can't" – clearly some hypocrisy there, she thought.

The Iranians, she told us, want to go nuclear as a matter of national pride; they see themselves as a nation of "authority" and that they deserve the recognition – and weaponry – that goes with their status.

But that doesn't mean that letting them have one would be A GOOD IDEA.

This is where that European Diplomacy comes in and may in fact WORK. Because the Iranians want a relationship with the West, with America in particular in fact – ironically unbelievable as it may sound – a relationship that they haven't HAD for decades, ever since the hostage crisis of 1979.

And let's face it, the alternatives – an American Invasion? an implicit American backing of an Israeli attack, with much the same consequences? – these are just UNTHINKABLE.

So diplomacy has GOT to work.

And there are alternatives to letting them have the atomic technology they desire. One possibility would be allowing them to develop the peaceful exploitation of atomic energy, but having the uranium enrichment done somewhere else. Another might be the German "nuclear option" option, where they have the KNOWLEDGE but decide that they have no need to make use of it.

It's worth remembering that although outspoken President Armageddonjab is always making threatening speeches and swearing fiery oaths, he's not the ULTIMATE authority in Iran. That position goes to the supreme leader and there are several other authorities in the country who have very different and less populist (i.e. rabble-rousing) agendas.

Iran can and should play a part in the region and the world and it's important that we continue to make the effort to rebuild that relationship.


I asked what if anything we could do about Mr Mugabe and – particularly with Mr Frown's habit of breaking everything he touches – whether we (meaning Great Britain) shouldn't just shut up about Zimbabwe.

Ms Jo admitted that there was a case for waiting to see what happens (and indeed within minutes we had received news by text from Daddy Alex of the historic handshake between Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai).

But the Liberal Democrats can do BETTER than that, and Ms Jo told us that she and Mr Ed were to meet with representatives of the Movement for Democratic Change on Tuesday this week and one of their key questions would be what is it that we can say and do that will be helpful.

But also, Ms Jo felt that we DO have a moral obligation to speak up, especially if the African states remain silent. (To be fair, she added, nations like Botswana and Tanzania DID speak out too, but we needed the South Africans to do their part if it were to make a difference. That may change after the South African elections when it looks like Mr Zuma will replace Mr Mbeki as President.)

There IS a chink of light at the end of this tunnel, Ms Jo assured us, difficult though it is to see at the moment. In the elections, the MDC won the largest number of seats and – even though many of those MPs have now fled in fear for their lives – that is still a basis for finding a way to cooperate. Given that Ms Mugabe ISN'T going to surrender his hold on power, finding a way to work together is the least worst solution.

And even if they do, the country is sadly still in a terrible mess.


I've skipped over a question from Ms Helen, but the last question asked was from Ms Linda about Palestine. With Mr Frown out in the Middle East saying his thing, has there been any movement on the motion at the last Autumn Conference?

On the specifics of that motion, Jo said, no there hasn't. But on the Israel/Palestine issue, Ms Jo has had meetings with both the Council for Arab-British Understanding and the Israeli Ambassador. Mr Ed is hoping to visit and lovely Sarah has been there already, speaking of the terrifying levels of poverty.

It isn't possible to separate the POLITICAL disputes from that issue of POVERTY. And although it wouldn't SOLVE the other disagreements, lifting the Palestinian people out of poverty would certainly take out some of the STING. And if people lives are WORTH living, then it makes it less likely that they will turn to violence as a solution.

There may be some cause for optimism from the negotiations between Mr Omelette (for all that he is mired in SLEAZE allegations) and Mr Abbas.

Obviously, Jerusalem is the most difficult sticking point… so don't start from there!

It's possible that there may be some positive developments about the Gaza blockade following recent events that have seen the exchange of prisoners for the return of soldiers' remains.


Finally I need to mention that question from Ms Helen: are we going to Make It Happen?

Ms Jo's answer: Yes!

Okay, there was a BIT more to it than that – she told us how she liked the LANGUAGE, that it was readable and, if you didn't want to read all of it, there were handy pull-out quotes; how it was NON-CONFRONTATIONAL, and certainly not as daunting as one of our policy papers.

Inflation and taxation: how the everyday costs of getting along are going up, and how the government's spending can make it just a bit harder for everyone – these are the key issues that people are talking and worrying about now that they are feeling the pinch.

And "Make It Happen" goes straight to the heart of these issues, and talks about them in language that people can understand. We know that times are tight and so the Government ought to be tightening ITS belt too; and if we can make things a little easier for those who are worst off, the lowest paid, then that should STRENGTHEN the economy in the downturn, and maybe avoid the WORSE costs of unemployment, repossessions and homelessness.

Mr Alasdair remarked that HE was impressed by Mr Clogg's idea that while the Conservatories still cling to the failed notion of tax cuts for the superrich helping the country by a process of "trickle-down", a Liberal tax policy should be based on trickle UP.

After all that I have to confess that I was quite exhausted! Ms Jo definitely wins the prize for giving us the FASTEST answers of any of our MPs to date! Writing it all down as we went, my flappy feet could barely keep up. So I helped myself to an EXTRA doughnut!

Once again, very many thanks to Ms Helen for doing the organising. Daddy Richard is TRYING to pin Mr Clogg down to a date in Sheffield, but it's trickier than you would think – for some reason he thinks he deserves a HOLIDAY! I shall let you know when there is news.

[*R: of course, he's actually 7]