MKNE political information

Thatcher funeral games

2011-12-28T12:12:00.002Z

Why are we discussing the possibility of a State Funeral for Mrs Thatcher? Such things are not part of our historic treatment of the Heads of Government in the UK. And according to the political editor of the Daily Telegraph the innovation in this case risks insulting and belittling many patriotic citizens.

Peter Osborne wrote in his blog

Clem Attlee was deputy prime minister during the Second World War, and went on to lead the Labour government which founded the National Health Service and created the modern welfare state. He was mourned at a quiet funeral at Temple Church near Westminster. Harold Macmillan was put to rest at a small service near his Sussex home.

Such modesty does not suit our self-aggrandising modern politicians.

For my part I note that the idea of a State Funeral arose during the Premiership of Gordon Brown which was when the back-stage discussions started. I wonder if Brown had ulterior motives in this – making troubles for David Cameron for example.

Peter Osborne explains why the whole idea might backfire

On (December 20^th) David Farham, a former miner, had a letter published in his local newspaper, The Shields Gazette. He wrote:

“I am proud to say I was on strike for 12 months in the 1984-5 strike, when Thatcher used the full might of [the] state to defeat us. I would stand on a picket line now if it would prevent her having a state funeral. She had a near-pathological hatred of trade unions, and referred to us as the 'enemy within’, but what did we do that was so treacherous? We struck to prevent pit closures and protect jobs – with disastrous consequences. Look at the ghost towns of former pit villages which she left devastated."

Osborne says he takes the view that Thatcher was right to do what she did even with the consequences so dire. But

Mr Farham – who accurately states in his letter that there are “hundreds of thousands like me” – has every right to believe what he does. He is a British citizen just as much as the most ardent of Thatcher fans, with the proviso that, as a miner, he probably worked harder and risked more for his country than they did.

Yet the British Establishment is now planning to insult Mr Farham, and the many honest and patriotic people who agree with him, by making Lady Thatcher the first prime minister to be given a state funeral since Churchill. This cannot be right.

The whole of Osborne’s piece and the blog comments re well worth reading in full.

This raises a question in my mind.

If the national extravaganza goes ahead the consequences look likely to be embittering rather than unifying. However if Cameron blocks this he is likely to worsen the animosity towards him held by the Tory True Believers who already despise his leadership. So which bullet will he bite?

Is it up to the LibDems to defuse this Labour inspired booby trap? And perhaps inspire a return to more modest profiles for our National Leaders? The job certainly needs doing or the UK will shuffle into a completely unnecessary bout of class war shouting which will damage our current efforts to stabilise the economy. Too may people will invest in heat and invective rather than reflection and constructive arguments over possible choices now before us..

Boundless cheek

2011-12-16T18:54:00.003Z

As we tackle the process of objecting (or not) to the Boundary commission proposals, it's worth looking at what happens in states where the political classes can maddle unconstrained...

This is the proposal for a Congressional District in Pennsylvania. The new 7th district.

Ilsa Greig

2011-11-17T09:58:00.002Z

Back in 1970, seven people met to re-found North Buckinghamshire Liberals. The association had collapsed at the General Election of that year. One of this gallant band was Ilsa Greig, who has just died a few days short of her 89^th birthday.

Liberalism in the UK owes a huge debt to a handful of people who refused to be pushed aside and fought for liberal principles against all odds. Ilsa was an inspirer and motivator for many people over the decades – many will remember her networking at national conferences, bringing people together and encouraging their Liberal careers.

As a young woman in Austria she survived the horrors of the Nazi Anschluss. All her life she has stood up to bullies and told everyone the truth as she saw it. A wonderful and sometime unsettling colleague, who always made it clear there is no contradiction between loyalty to a cause and fortright honesty in debate.

Milton Keynes Liberal Democrats are now a vibrant and effective political force, competing for control of the City Council. Many key campaigners were nurtured and encouraged by Ilsa over the years.

Thank you for your life, Ilsa.

Her funeral will be on Tuesday 22 November 10 am in Crownhill Crematorium, Milton Keynes.

Student Finance Day to get the facts better known

2011-11-14T14:17:00.003Z

The Independent Taskforce on Student Finance is today (14 Nov 2011) holding a ‘Students Finance Day’ .

The taskforce says:

"This is a national day dedicated to explaining the 2012 changes to student finance in England. The main aim of the campaign is simple - to ensure people understand how the new student finance package works before they make a decision as to whether they can afford to go to university. The day is being organised by us alongside the National Association of Student Money Advisers (NASMA) and the Higher Education Liaison Officers Association (HELOA)."

This is building on the work of Martin Lewis and others to provide accurate guides for students and their families. In particular to knock on the idea that from 2012 students need to pay three times more during their study period than students registered in 2011 and before.

There is a website for the taskforce with links to several very useful resources.

One resource is a video prepared by Bournemouth University which is particularly effective.

Let us hope that 2012 cohort students get the message and can make their educational decisions based on facts.

A thought. From October 2012 there will be people at Universities on the old system and on the new, able to make direct comparisons between their respective financial situations. I wonder if this will influence opinions on which of these cohorts is the better off?

eleven eleven eleven and all those memories

2011-11-11T08:27:00.006Z

Roy Jenkins and I share one or two things. Welsh background, (eventual) membership of the same party, and a birthday on November 11. As a small child I remember being pleased that so many people paraded in the streets on my birthday but did wish they looked happier about it.

There tends to be exceptionally serious programmes on TV in this week also, so I have a habit of serious thinking and reading at this time rather than unalloyed celebration at the passage of years.

Todays memory of war is on a semi-palindrome date 11th Day of 11th Month of 11th Year numbered in the 2000 series Common Era.

Do we have self-licking ice-cream in Britain?

2011-11-08T15:00:00.003Z

Hats off to the Economist which features a piece by the author of a new book on the International Arms Trade.
Andrew Feinstein comments:

In 2010 84% of retiring generals in the Pentagon went into employment with the big defence contractors. Lawmakers seldom vote against any of these gargantuan projects. They get a lot of campaign contributions from the large defence contractors, and the contractors ensure that there are jobs on these contracts in every single congressional district, even if it’s just a couple of people sitting around a table surfing the internet.
This means that anyone who votes against these projects is accused by the lobby of voting against jobs in their own constituency.
A Pentagon whistleblower I interviewed, Chuck Spinney, describes the system as a self-licking ice cream.

Feinstein in the Economist’s online More Intelligent Life ‘Quick Study’ feature.

Odd questions that come to my mind. What is the situation in the UK? Do we have self-licking ice-cream relationships with former military and civil service personnel taking up roles with the arms industry after retirement? (1)

Should MPs with significant defence establishments in their constituencies be banned from sitting on defence committees?

And should LibDems be using our presence in government to prise out more information about all this so public debates are better informed? If this is not happening, why not?

Feinstein says:

This is a matter of political will. The imperatives of national security and commercial confidentiality legitimately conceal some aspects of these deals, but they’re also used to hide the malfeasance that takes place. There needs to be greater transparency, particularly around the use of middlemen.
Secondly, we need far stronger regulation of an industry that quite literally counts its costs in human lives and is highly under-regulated. There are negotiations in the UN at the moment for an international arms-trade treaty, but it will have to be tough with meaningful enforcement methods.
I would also suggest that no weapons manufacturer should be allowed to make any political contributions.

Feinstein was a South African MP who resigned in protest over failures to investigate a $5 billion arms deal and now heads Corruption Watch in London.

See Quick Study, a new series on The Economist's Prospero blog that offers a crash course in a particular subject, delivered by an expert in the field, with some suggestions for further reading and for more useful links.

(1) is a rhetorical question really…see Lewis Pages book 'Lions Donkeys and Dinosaurs' for some thoughts...

Feinstein, A (2011) “The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade”. Hamish Hamilton.

Plan Gamma and debates on the economy

2011-11-03T15:10:00.002Z

There has been a bout of fire-flecked muttering on possible ‘Plans B’ for the economy.

Now I do have misgivings about some of the coalition strategy – because I feel there is no magic solution and any strategy has strengths and weaknesses. It would be helpful to recognise the weaknesses and deal with them rather than ignore them. Still less just demonising and insulting those who try to point them out.

Do we need to look again at very basic economic ideas seemingly absent from public discussion?

For example, what happened to the Keynsian concept of the multiplier? I have seen no real discussion of this in our defences of the Coalition strategy. And does the Coalition economic strategy imply the resurrection of the version of Saye’s Law (so-called) that Keynes claimed to have refuted? In other words, is the idea alive again that there is a natural level of employment which will be achieved when the economy balances?

As an Old Keynsian (J.K. Galbraith flavour in my youth) I need to go back to some basic texts and think these through. Anyone else for the journey?

Murdoch and Brown in history

2011-10-25T09:58:00.005+01:00

Intersting sidelight on the Rupert Murdoch and News International saga, highlighting splits between Rupert Murdoch and his son James and a thought on why Tom Watson MP was unleased to harry News International.

According to the New York Times:

In September 2009, as a major Labour Party gathering was under way, The Sun, News Corporation’s mass market, populist tabloid, stunned the British political establishment by switching its allegiances to the Conservative Party after more than a decade of Labour support. The audacity of the move was reinforced by the fanfare with which it was announced. The Sun featured a blaring front-page headline “Labour’s lost it,” floodlit its printing plant in Conservative blue and pumped blue smoke from a smokestack at its complex in Wapping, on London’s east side.
Rupert, who was still quite close to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife, Sarah, had cautioned his son against supporting David Cameron ahead of an election more than six months away. The endorsement severed the longstanding friendship between the Browns and Rupert and his wife, Wendi, a development that one person with knowledge of the family dynamics said upset Rupert deeply. The reversal also made News International a willing political combatant, a status that seemed only to embolden its critics when the hacking crisis broke. Indeed, a major force in the revolt against News International has been Tom Watson, a member of Parliament and a loyal Brown ally.
New York Times 18 October 2011

Labour might be relieved now that they did not fight the 2010 election with the Sun and so on as cheerleaders... wonder how the coalition negotations would have gone with Murdoch media sniping for Labour?

Wangari Maathai

2011-09-27T16:57:00.003+01:00

Many people round the world are paying tribute to Wangari Maathai who died on September 25^th.

She was one of those people who just radiate life and energy around them.

I met her once at the breakfast we shared as delegates to a conference back in 1984

The memory of those few minutes of warm conversation will stay with me always. And not because she is the only Nobel Laureate I have personally met.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee said when awarding her the 2004 prize:

“Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment. Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa. She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women’s rights in particular. She thinks globally and acts locally.”

All we can say to her now is ‘thank you for your life’….

See the webpage of her Green Belt movement in Kenya and this National Geographic newspage for a roundup of tributes.

Failing the Krepsinis test

2011-09-01T14:37:00.003+01:00

It's not cricket at least. But quiet rejoicing over Lithuania's 80-69 victory over Britain at the European Basketball Chamionships.

However I will be hoping for good UK performances in the rest of the games in Group A especially if these help Lithuania head the qualifying group.

Krepsinis (basketball) is very much Lithuania's national sport and my mother was in the stadium when Lithuana won the European title way back in the 1930's having played traunt from school to queue for tickets. And once again the finals are actually in Lithuania so it is a bit of a 1966 'coming home' monent to borrow an England football reference...

The Possible Hague spanner in the financial works

2011-08-05T12:22:00.005+01:00

Cameron and Clegg being on holiday is no crime even if there is a financial dustup.
It is not like Roy Jenkins (then Chancellor) being on holiday in a deeply rural part of France the day when France devalued the Franc and the French phone system at that time being less efficient than shouting and more expensive. It took days for him to get properly in touch with the Treasury in London to co-ordinate the UK response.

There is an UK minister at hand and in charge in London – and I am concerned by who that is. William Hague is a long term Euro-hater and the current gyrations require sensitive comments from EU countries outside the Eurozone. The situation may even require some government slapping down of jeers of triumph from Tories who want the Euro actually wrecked. Can Hague do what is necessary?

One point that does need to be made – we would be in an European currency crisis even if all the old currencies were still in place.

The crisis would be taking a different form though. There would be huge gyrations in the foreign exchange markets as hot money flowed from one currency to the other as speculators tried to arbitrage small differentials in perceived values. Germany would be in a crisis as the value of the ‘Deutchmark’ rocketed. The Irish Punt would have sunk a long time ago, throwing Northern Ireland into financial turmoil because of the intricate cross-border economy. The Drachma would be damned, the Peseta melted into a puddle and the Franc fried. Sterling would probably be doing a yo-yo with funds flowing in and out unpredictably.

The existence of the Euro provides important stability for the UK economy even though we are not part of the Eurozone. Whoever sets the tone for UK responses to today’s financial dances needs to believe in that truth and make it very clear to everyone that we live in respect to that truth. Can Hague do it?

Press barons: the Roy Jenkins experience

2011-07-19T09:09:00.003+01:00

According to an amendment last week to the Ministerial code of Conduct, relations with senior media powers will be transparent in future:

The Government will be open about its links with the media. All meetings with newspaper and other media proprietors, editors and senior executives will be published quarterly regardless of the purpose of the meeting.

It was another world of press relations with Government when then-Chancellor Roy Jenkins faced the turmoil of the 1968 currency crisis..

As he said;

I went back to Number 11 to receive William Rees-Mogg, then editor of The Times, who had suggested the visit with a view to a helpful leader for the following morning. As we faced a hazardous opening of the London foreign exchange market at 10 am this could be of importance and value … I thought that Rees-Moggs visit should be kept secret (and) made elaborate arrangements for him to be let in through the garden gate …

This turned into farce. He arrived at the front door, passed through the waiting throng of journalists and television crews like Moses separating the waters of the Red Sea and was ushered into my downstairs waiting room which was full of Treasury and Bank of England officials. One of those poked his head round the door of my study and said ‘A gentleman who looks remarkably like Mr Rees-Mogg has just arrived’. William assured me that our attempt at secrecy was as unnecessary as it was unsuccessful. The press he said always preserved its own confidentiality. He was certainly right to the extent that not a word about his visit appeared in any newspaper.

(Roy Jenkins ‘a Life At The Centre’ p243)

For a list of all Nick Clegg’s meetings with senior media figures since taking office up to 15 July 2011 see the Deputy Prime Minister’s page on this subject.

Murdoch is worlds biggest welfare claimant

2011-07-13T10:12:00.003+01:00

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (which owns News International and thus The Times, The Sun and so on) makes thousands of millions of US dollars from United States taxpayers. How much in taxes has his companies managed to avoid paying in Britain?

On profits of $10.4 bn (ten thousand four hundred million dollars) over the last four years US corporate taxes of $3.6 bn (three thousand six hundred million US Dollars) should have been paid.

Instead the US Treasury paid Murdoch companies $4.6 bn in income tax refunds.

How is this done? According to David Cay Johnson, a columnist at Reuters News Agency, in a July 12^th column :

News Corp. has 152 subsidiaries in tax havens, including 62 in the British Virgin Islands and 33 in the Caymans. Among the hundred largest U.S. companies, only Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have more tax haven subsidiaries than News Corp., a 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office study found.

News Corp. had nearly $7 billion permanently invested offshore in 2009, money on which it does not have to pay taxes unless it brings the money back to the United States. Meanwhile, it can use that money as collateral for loans in the United States, where interest paid is a tax-deductible expense.

Johnson goes on to detail how this trick can be pulled off…

His concluding paragraphs:

Murdoch assiduously courts the powers-that-be for favorable laws and regulatory rulings. Contrast that with the rough and sometimes relentless attacks on politicians and government programs of his newspapers and his Fox News Channel.

Murdoch's news outlets can prove enormously helpful to politicians. His support boosted Hillary Clinton's 2000 campaign for the U.S. Senate from New York, helping her to beat Republican Rick Lazio. Murdoch even hosted a Clinton re-election campaign fundraiser in 2006, while restraining New York Post gossip mongers who looked on her husband as red meat in the White House.

Murdoch gets invited to weddings and celebrations of top American, British and Chinese officials. He flew Tony Blair halfway around the world to a company event in Australia when the future British prime minister was opposition leader.

Imagine how well Jesus might have done if he had put a corporate jet at Caesar's disposal. Or if he had a tabloid like the News of the World to put Caesar in fear of him.

So does News International extract monies from the UK by similar means? I hope someone can take up this question…

Lord Voldemort fights to protect death eaters

2011-07-13T09:02:00.005+01:00

The release of the final Harry Potter film happily coincides with the Great Battle Of Hogswarth which is the hacking scandal.

From the book here is part of Harry's final confrontation with you-know-who

(Harry) "I'd advise you to think about what you've done ... think and try for some remorse..."

(Murdoch, er I mean Voldy) "What is this?"

Of all the the things that Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. Harry saw his pupils contract to thin slits. saw the skin around his eyes whiten.

"Its your last chance" said Harry. It's all you've got left.... be a man ...try ... try for some remorse.."

In the real world remains to be seen whether a Parliamentary and outraged civilisation's 'Expelliarmus' will in the end defeat 'Avadra Kedavra'. Or what will happen if all those political sheep are freed from the Imperius curse.

Libya and wider matters

2011-03-22T08:21:00.004Z

Three points on Libya.

Germany abstained in the UN vote on the Libya intervention resolution and is apparently in hot dispute with France. We have not heard a lot in the UK about the German viewpoint. Perhaps we should. Maybe Clegg could ask them, in German to ensure clarity.

The BBC live update stream reported at 0544 on 22 March that:

The Financial Times reports on the tensions between the countries now ranged against Libya. It says French attempts to sidestep Nato at the start of the campaign have divided the coalition. Diplomats told the newspaper that the US and UK were angered by France's decision to launch the first attack without fully informing its allies. The paper says relations grew so tense that French and German ambassadors to Nato walked out of a meeting after criticism from the secretary general.

Secondly, I wonder what the Chinese Navy is making of this matter, and what it is learning. China has a warship in the Mediterranean, reminding us that Western Powers no longer have a monopoly of world-wide military outreach.

Thirdly and for the record: A fair summary of the possible objections to the Libya Intervention in this Blog posting on the Peace and Collaborative Development Network.

Libya - contradictions, foolish assumptions & flawed humanism

The author ( Ian Oberg) says his posting is:

……. a telegram-style short list of contradictions, foolish assumptions and flawed humanism. An equally short conclusion with prediction follows the list. I am presently working on a short piece on what could and should have been done instead of these terrible and counterproductive bombings.

Worth noting all sides on this one.

The radical innovation in the UN authorisation

2011-03-21T12:48:00.005Z

An interesting debate over on the Crooked Timber website on the wording of UN resolutions authorising armed interventions.
Basically, the protection of civilian lives is coming more and more to the fore and resolution 1973 (2011) apparently breaks new ground.

The key statement in resolution 1973 is this:

‘Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General’ are authorized ‘to take all necessary measures , . . . . . to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.’

The lead author in the discussion thread, Conor Foley , sums up his analysis:

This is the legal basis of the military action that allied forces are taking. The wording is significantly different to the standard clause that has been appearing in UN Resolutions since the 1999 mission to Sierra Leone…….

The aftermath of the Kosovo conflict saw a flurry of reports and commissions on the question of the legality of humanitarian interventions and the drawing up of a set of principles on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) which received semi-endorsement at the UN millennium summit. The invasion of Iraq effectively killed off R2P, but work around the protection of civilians has continued under UN auspices and protection strategies are being increasingly integrated into the planning of most UN missions. This debate has probably had far more influence on the Security Council’s recent decision than any ‘western plot to invade another country in the Middle East.

The intervention over Libya undoubtedly opens a new chapter on this debate and, at the time of writing, none of us have any idea what its eventual outcome will be. However, Resolution 1973 is in its own terms a significant milestone in the evolution of the UN and the debate about the legality of the use of force for humanitarian ends.

Many interesting comments in the thread...

So basically the grounds for intervention are in detail unprecedented. Will the armed coalition commanders have the sophistication to appreciate and apply this rigorously amidst the public hysteria over ‘hunting down mad dogs in the desert’ and the target creep temptation to hit targets from the air just because we can?

What happens if we run out of legitimate targets in Libya?

2011-03-21T11:53:00.004Z

This comment from the BBC ‘Breaking News live comment stream’ summarises some of my concerns on the Libya operations.

Wing Commander Andrew Brookes from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London tells the BBC World Service the air strikes on Libya have "degraded" the country's defence system "very much". He says: "The trouble is that Libya is not a target-rich environment for that sort of weapon. So you probably end up very shortly with them running out of those concrete, bunker-type facilties. So the rebels are getting protected, Gaddafi's defence infrastructure is being hit. But if, as some suspect, he doesn't say 'it's a fair cop, I'm off' and digs in, what will be the response? That's what we're waiting to see."

BBC 1039 Monday 21 March.

Yes we can cause dramatic breakages to Libyan facilities for a day or so more. But then there will be no targets we can legitimately hit within the international terms of reference of the operation.

Indeed we may already be scrapping the target barrel – hitting ‘Command centres’ is an attractive ego-trip option for people sitting in KU military communications headquarters but is probably of no great relevance for protecting civilians. (1)

In a few days we may be sitting round saying ‘OK what do we do now?’ Will thre be target creep just to make the air forces look busy? That happened in Serbia and Afghanistan and Iraq...

Note 1 Frontline British troops get quite annoyed when the Joint Chief of Staffs command centre at Northolt describes itself as being ‘in the front line’ of whatever uproar is in progress.

Ruminations on the Libya complexities

2011-03-19T22:30:00.003Z

One thing about today’s military business in Libya – at least the UK government does not include anyone who, in office, inflicted on us such a shameful farrago of lies during the march to war in Iraq in 2003.

We can perhaps hope that the intelligence advice now being given to the government has drawn on the lessons of that time. And the various intelligence services have the confidence to give our current government accurate and sober advice, not fitting the evidence to the political requirements of the moment.

But are we repeating some more general mistakes?

Too many people seem to think that deploying air power settles matters in the streets. They point to the example of the Kosovo operation and the military actions against Serbia. But it was not the bombing of various bits of Serbia that stopped the genocide of the Kosovars and compelled Milosevic to step down. It was the fact that Hungary joined NATO and made it plain that it would allow NATO tank forces to enter Serbia from Hungary and fight on the ground.

At the moment there are plenty of real military targets in Libya that can be hit from the air. Without going near civilian areas. These attacks can be justified as degrading air defence capabilities. But in a few days there will be no targets left.

In Serbia the NATO forces continued the bombing campaign for weeks, and ended up hitting all sorts of useless ‘targets’ such as bridges, ‘command centres’, power stations, and low-grade military installations simple because there was nothing else left to hit and air power was all they had.

And like in Serbia the real capability for oppression in Libya will be largely untouched by air operations – the capability of armed men to enter peoples houses on foot and shoot whoever they want.

I hope there is some understanding of the deep limitations on what we are undertaking.

I hope that civilians will actually be protected.

I hope we know how we are going to get out of this place.

It is possible that some ‘rebel areas’ can be protected because this is a war in a desert, and history buffs will remember how air attacks on hostile logistics chains were crucial to the north Africa campaigns of 1940-1943 That however means more than a no-fly zone it means active search and destroy of moving vehicles and killing people moving in the open.

That leaves Tripoli and the west under government control, and the Saddam regime survived for years under a no-fly regime. If they dig in, do we acquesc to partition, or what?

I hope that our Government (including those of our LibDem ministers in the decision loop) are not in the same situation as the commanders of the Spanish Armada in 1588 who admitted that the sailed in the confident expectations of a miracle.

In short something else than air power will be needed. We need to think very hard on this.

The Japanese nuclear dance and elsewhere

2011-03-16T09:05:00.004Z

The present uproar at Fukushima is not the first time a Japanese nuclear power station has suffered earthquake damage.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant was damaged by an earthquake on 6 July 2007 which at 6.6 on the Mw scale was at the time the second largest ever to impact a nuclear generating station. Of the seven KK reactors three at this date are apparently still not returned to operations, one came back on line in May 2009 and the others at various dates after that in 2010.

The quake was reported to have imposed stresses greater than the designed safety limits. Design safety “needed to be improved by a factor of five”.

The plant is owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company which also owns the Fukushima plant. Apparently TEPCO has a reputation for secrecy and covering up controversies.

The UK plans for new nuclear power stations here allows for no subsidy in construction costs, but according to Chris Huhne in October 2010 the UK government would have to pick up the bill for cleaning up any accidents. Wonder how attractive that sounds now. If the 2018 UK construction start deadlines are to be met the government has to legislate changes in UK planning law this spring to speed up reactor approval…That is, about now...

Open Democracy has a discussion on ‘Nuclear Follies’ which looks at the spread of nuclear power stations to countries like Libya. The French for example struck a deal with Libya in 2007 to supply new reactors, citing Col Ghadaffi’s ‘progress on the path of human rights’.

And what about the new nuclear facilities in Iran? Mostly discussed in terms of weapons grade materials but also in a severe earthquake zone…

Somehow I suspect that the core LibDem opposition to nuclear power expansion is on firmer political grounds that the Coalition policy of allowing new construction provided there is no taxpayer input…

Tunisia and all that

2011-01-15T09:56:00.000Z

Just a slight difference in emphasis between various news bulletins. Al-Jazeera is leading on the theme that the events in Tunisia are the first ever overthrow of an Arab regime by popular insurrection and how interested people in other Arab countries are in this example. Also that the Tunisian opposition is meeting with the interim President to discuss elections.

The BBC is big on British tourists ending their holidays.

No doubt coverage will even out shortly.

political hauntings in the tale?

2010-12-25T20:21:00.003Z

Have I just been unobservant in previous years, or has there really been a glut of 'Scrooge' stories this Christmas TV season? Over the last three days at least seven or so versions of The Redeeming Three Hauntings, have been screened, from the muppets right through to Dr Who.

Have the schedulers all chanced on the same thought, making a comment that with the economic squeeze in progress we are having a dickens of a time?

The crux of the fees business

2010-12-06T12:56:00.003Z

The proposed changes in the support for students paying fees look a lot better than the sytem they will replace. If the fees levels had been frozen the new system could be hailed as a triumph. It is not unreasonable for Vince and others to point this out. The immediate gerations of students may well be better of than under the plans proposed by (for example) the NUS.

But the underlying fee levels are being raised. And more important, the principle of future hikes seems to be conceded.

For me the crux of the fees rows is the clear intention of certain 'elite' universities to push for very much higher fees in the future. Tens of thouands more. if the taxayer is commited to meeting the extra cost for 'poorer'students' this is in effect putting a shotgun to the taxpayers crotch.

This is the point we need to hammer, and which is most relevant to the commitments we made at the last election. What lines can and should we draw against the elite tendency?

The drip drip drip on torture

2010-11-09T10:10:00.003Z

For those who don't know - this is how Waterboarding was (is?) carried out by the CIA. That is by the United States. On our behalf allegedly. There is an official manual for the process:

Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to "dam the runoff" and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee's mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second "applications" of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee's nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.

Waterboarding for Dummies - an article in SALON online magazine March 2010

I wonder if George Bush knows about these details.

Oh and the Guardian is uncovering allegations of an UK-run torture house to rival Abu Ghraib.

Unfortunately the constraints of office are compromising the LibDem response to this

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is resisting an inquiry, however. In a statement to the Commons on Monday, Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat armed forces minister, said the MoD should be allowed to investigate the matter itself, adding: "A costly public inquiry would be unable to investigate individual criminal behaviour or impose punishments. Any such inquiry would arguably therefore not be in the best interests of the individual complainants who have raised these allegations."

Not remotely good enough Nick.

Inquiry be damned. We may not be able to touch a former US President but surely we cannot escape the duty of prosecuting some former UK government ministers for war crimes.

Serious questions on the French Nuclear connection

2010-11-02T10:05:00.003Z

Does the proposed UK-France ‘defence’ deal breach the nuclear non-proliferation treaty? That is a question we need answered as soon as possible.

The deal also locks us into a 50 year nuclear commitment, on the face of it wrecking the window of opportunity for a nuclear rethink won by the deferment of the Trident renewal.

As I see it, it is not possible under the treaty for a country to buy warheads from a nuclear armed power even if is itself a nuclear armed state. All Nuclear states have to build their own warheads. Joint development procedures need to be very carefully corralled to prevent treaty breaches. We need explanations from the Government as to how this initiative is consistent with our treaty obligations.

The Daily Mail (yes really!) explained some of this way back in 2006 in its expose of the huge expenditures by the (then) Labour government on expanding facilities at AWRE Aldermaston. These expenditures have never properly been explained in any coherent budget.. As an example the Mail said that Costain Construction (contracted to construct new buildings at Aldermaston) told city analysts in 2006 that the contract was worth twelve thousand million pounds over the next 12 years. That’s £1 billion a year still outgoing just for new buildings, never mind the technical stuff. It is not on the defence budget I believe but is hidden elsewhere.

At the minimum, this Coalition should now publish proper accounts for the real costs of our Nuclear development activities. For the first time ever.

The Mail said:

As an extra twist, experts believe that Britain and the U.S. are both looking at new kinds of nuclear bombs, with smaller payloads, which could more easily be used as battlefield "tactical nukes", an option that both governments officially deny considering.

In America, the Bush administration has concluded that new bombs are required, and within the next few weeks Congress is due to decide between two possible designs for a Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).

Once America switches to a new system, Britain will be effectively obliged to do so as well, as our nuclear programme is almost entirely dependent on the U.S.

But because of international nuclear treaties, we can't simply buy the new bombs from the U.S. - we have to make our own.

For the record, a link to a posting outlining my disappointment that our party was suckered into highlighting the ‘Trident’ sideshow instead of dealing with the major issues. Especially the vast costs hidden away from scrutiny. With Ministers in a coalition we don't have any excuses any more.

New bubbles for old

2010-10-27T04:49:00.003+01:00

Robert Reich comments on the latest round of 'Stimulation' in the USA and sounds a warning.

He says:

The latest jobs bill coming out of Washington isn’t really a bill at all, it’s the Fed’s attempt to keep long-term interest rates low by pumping even more money into the economy (“quantitative easing” in Fed-speak).......

Problem is, it won’t work....

So where will the easy money go? Into another stock-market bubble.

It’s already started. Stocks are up even though the rest of the economy is still down because money is already so cheap. Bondholders (who can’t get much of any return from their loans) are shifting their portfolios into stocks. Companies are buying back more shares of their own stock. And Wall Street is making more bets in the stock market with money it can borrow at almost zero percent interest.

When our elected representatives can’t and won’t come up with a real jobs program, the Fed feels pressed to come up with a fake one that blows another financial bubble. And we know what happens when financial bubbles get too big.

Might be worth keeping an eye on any similar tendencies in UK markets?

This is on Reich's blog linked to Guernica online magazine

Our eternal apprenticeship

2010-07-25T19:06:00.001+01:00

An interesting take on Politicians in this quote. We must

… never expect success, because every victory is provisional, merely one step, never the final one. Politics is a never-ending apprenticeship, requiring one to adapt oneself to the fact that other people are different.

That is its reward, the discovery of the diversity of humanity.”

That quote is from ‘An Intimate History of Humanity’ by Theodore Zeldin. (page 134 in my edition) A book for summer reading for perplexed supporters of part of a coalition?

Ordering the courts not to interfere in a matter that is in the competence of the courts

2010-06-09T16:41:00.002+01:00

On the face of it this is a disgraceful action by the law officers of this coalition government tamely continuing a degrading New Labour procedure..

I trust that Liberal ministers will not be inhibited from reporting back what can be reported on this and that our backbenchers are not inhibited from telling the Liberal front bench in particular and the government in general front bench exactly what a crock of shit this approach is.

In fact I hope there is a massive row behind the scenes in government and that Immigration minster Damian Green is suitably chastised.

As the Guardian reports:

Government lawyers have warned high court judges that last-minute legal challenges should not be allowed to "disrupt or delay" a deportation flight to Baghdad due to leave Britain early tomorrow. (That is today, Wednesday 9th)
This is the first time the detailed operations of the "special arrangements" surrounding such deportation flights have become public. But the immigration minister, Damian Green, said they were standard procedure and had been used in 16 previous flights to northern Iraq.
He said: "In line with published policy, the UK Border Agency has written to the high court in advance of every charter flight since 2005 setting out why they are taking place and explaining why judicial reviews will not necessarily stop an individual being
returned or the flight continuing. This is not unusual and is accepted practice by the courts. It remains open for an individual to apply for a high court injunction preventing removal

And since this was actually the implementation of a policy put into place by Labour, don’t let them of the hook either. Labour should be trusted on NOTHING relating to their floundering after teh mess they helped cause in Iraq.

The one good thing is that previously secret (or at least vigorously obscured) government instructions for similar actions have now been made public.

Whats the thing with Cameron and the OU Library?

2010-06-08T16:24:00.003+01:00

Why does Dave Cameron do so many policy presentations in the Open University Library in Milton Keynes? He was at it again yesterday with the 'we are all doomed' spending costs speech.

It does make for a more interesting backdrop that the Imperial Pronouncements style of New Labour conferences hosted in imposing official buildings, but why pay good money for building hire, travel and security arrangements when the Government has a perfectly good venue already paid for and secured in the Palace of Westminter?

Is there a logic behind these presentation occasions that might be explained, to coalition partners for example?

Cameron has of course been to the OU Library before (as noted in this pre-coalition posting) as indeed, to the OU Campus to launch campaigns, has one Tony Blair mumble years ago, the only time I ever came face to face with him, ghastly pancake makeup and all.

Praise in the USA

2010-05-21T16:49:00.003+01:00

Over in the US SALON online service, Glenn Greenwald likes what the Coalition is doing to restore civil liberies in Britain.

"I don't want to idealize what's taking place in Britain: it still remains to be seen how serious these commitments are and how genuine of an investigation into the torture regime will be conducted. But clearly, what was once a fringe position there has now become the mainstream platform of their new Government: that it's imperative to ensure that their country is not "a place where our children grow up so used to their liberty being infringed that they accept it without question."

On the other hand it is a pessimistic survey of US developments...

Gotterdammerung of the Gentleman from Whitehall?

2010-05-21T14:39:00.003+01:00

So are we seeing a decisive shift towards a more bottom-up, evolutionary way of working out what we want to do in Britain?

It is instructive to look back on how our over-centralised state put down its roots in the late 1940’s and a great account of this is in David Kynaston’s remarkable book about ‘Austerity Britain’.

There is a notorious quotation – not an urban legend but a real quote - that ‘The Gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people do themselves’. This rather sums up an attitude Liberals instinctively reject. It comes from a book published in 1937 by Douglas Jay, a prominent Labour politician. Who added that economic freedom is ‘a secondary freedom often approaching a luxury’.(1)

But Liberals cannot be too smug on this history. The over-centralisation of the NHS right from its early days (ensuring that ‘a bedpan dropped in Tredegar Hospital would resound through the corridors of Whitehall’) was an unintended consequence of the plans drawn up by the Liberal Beveridge

Kynaston says:

There was also once again the whole question of the local and the national. The historian David Vincent has convincingly argued that
“Beveridge’s greatest achievement may have been not to convert the Tories to the welfare state, but Labour to state welfare",
given that historically Labour had tended to look to local authorities rather than the state for the relief of poverty’.
The practical consequences of the wholesale shift in attitudes to the state as a result of the war was ‘an extensive indifference to the dangers of a system in which every official … was controlled from Whitehall… a huge new bureaucracy answerable to its clients only through ministerial responsibility’.

Kynaston concludes that passage by saying

‘ A somewhat Kafkaesque trial – endured mainly by those least able to complain – was only just beginning.’ (2)

And he also notes an attitude that people could be manipulated without serious resistance:
Mass Observation (an early polling operation) produced a report finding that the overwhelming majority of ‘working people’ wanted houses or bungalows with some kind of small garden. The planners thought otherwise. Kynaston notes:

…as the People’ Homes report … wryly concluded about working-class people and such apparently firm preferences, ‘happily for the planners, they will make the best of a bad lot, or a good little’
(3)

Will the coalition enable the evolution of processes leading to something better than ‘a good little? One of our challenges perhaps.

I really recommend all Kynaston’s books on modern Britain published so far. He will take his series up to 1979 and the start of the Thatcher upheaval.

David Kynaston (2007) Austerity Britain 1945-51 Bloomsbury(1) Kynaston p136 (2) Kynaston pp 149-150 citing Vincent (1991) “Poor Citizens” (3) Kynaston p53 citing the Mass Observation report “Peoples’ Homes”

Long memories and the Llandudno club

2010-05-17T09:22:00.001+01:00

Probably my last ever Party Conference, so a quick 50 minutes trip on the train from MK to the NEC on Sunday. Not a voting delegate, but it did give me an experience to add to some historic memories.

How many others attending were also at the Liberal assemblies where David Steel moved the old Liberal Party towards wider co-operation? The first (was it at Llandudno –cant remember) was the late 1970’s Assembly where his proposals triggered a noisy placard-waving conference floor protest demonstration by the Young Liberals. I remember his recently defeated leadership rival John Pardoe sitting beside him on the platform giving firm and vocal support for the leader throughout.

And a later Assembly – definitely at Llandudno – where the SDP-Liberal alliance became possible, and so eventually the emergence of the Liberal Democrats. I remember the ‘biggest fringe meeting in the history of the party’ (was it 2000 people present?) and David Steel’s now notorious ‘go back to your constituencies and prepare for government’ leadership speech.

So for some of us older party activists the stresses and strains of current events are not all new.

There were at least two other members of the ‘Llandudno Club’ at the NEC, who both spoke at Sundays debate Tony Greaves of course And also Richard Moore, as upright, combative and passionate as ever. I suspect that Richard in particular has not necessarily been in full agreement with every stance the party has taken over the last thirty-odd years, and I certainly I have not myself always been in agreement with him. But he has contributed to our debates and development through his fortrightness and integrity. Whatever our particular positions we could do worse than take inspiration from this today.

Any other Llandudno Club veterans online with memories to share?

Anyone remember Giant Haystacks? What became of him?

I had thought of mocking old stereotypes by turning up at the NEC in beard, sandals and a badge saying ‘I had muesli for breakfast’ but the speed of the negotiations left me with no time to grow a beard so I put on shoes and socks and had bacon and eggs.

More on Sunday later perhaps.

Just to note that ‘possibly my last-ever conference’ is because I am finding large gatherings increasingly difficult to participate I as my hearing fails even more. Not a political withdrawal. The NEC echoes were particularly frustrating.

Preparing for cultural shock

2010-05-16T06:16:00.001+01:00

Those of us at Birmingham today will face a bit of a cultural shock.
Getting close to our MPs (at least the ministerial variety) will be rather harder than before. In crowded public places they will be moving with a more or less discrete police screen. Given that a lot of our strength as a party has come from good informal discussions at conferences and suchlike this has implications for the future. Even getting photographed with a senior figure for FOCUS usage will be a bit more of a hassle, I expect.

Cultural Shock in general is something we all need to watch for in the next few months.

The classic form strikes people who go to live and work (rather than just have a holiday) in another country. The first stage is a kind of elevated semi-euphoria, with a tendency to notice the positive aspects of the situation. This comes from the need to justify to oneself the benefits of having taken a really big decision. The next stage however is a substantial downer, with niggles petty or otherwise really hurting . And memories of life previously get the golden nostalgia treatment. Then, if things work out reasonably, a kind of balance emerges.

It will happen to us. Let’s be prepared for this and realise it would happen in some way even if we won an absolute majority on our own and were working through the consequences.

Watching the rhetoric from Nick

2010-05-15T12:48:00.003+01:00

Nick may just be carried away slightly in some of his recent statements.

I am thinking in particular of this:

"So, given that the people told us, explicitly, that they didn’t want just one party in charge, we had a duty to find a way for more than one party to govern effectively."

Perhaps we should take deep breath.

Our position on the current electoral system is that it grinds through a lottery to produce a result.

People have made a number of judgements in this last election and the lottery result has given us the position we have. We can't say the voters explicity chose it, surely.

We can go forwards to act within the result more assuredly than most other parties because we are committed to altering the sytem when we can so that peoples' explicit choices more nearly reflect the consequences of those choices.

It might be helpful if Nick had a think about this rhetorical florish...

Some extra reading for busy people

2010-05-15T12:37:00.003+01:00

Any of our new ministers in need of some extra bedtime reading (and indeed anyone involved in politics who wants to keep hold of their critical facilities) should have a look at the book 'Irrationality' by Stuart Sutherland.

Especially the chapters "In-Groups and out-Groups" and "Overconfidence". In fact read them before the special conference on Sunday.

Having a better understanding of how ordinary people like us have got into tangles and walked into disasters in predictable ways will help us sort out our inevitable mistakes over the next few years. There will be mistakes however good our beginning and intentions.

Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science has this review snippet:
"Superb! The thinking man's self help book; it left me infinitely wiser, but I know it won't change my behaviour one tiny bit."

The 55 percent Republic

2010-05-15T08:57:00.001+01:00

The establishment of fixed-term Parliaments is a very very serious constitutional amendment for the UK.
It is right that this be tested out as vigorously as possible before legislation is introduced.

It will remove some of the most serious political powers supposedly still vested in the Royal Prerogative and hand them over to the elected representatives of the people of the UK. In a real sense it is a step towards a kind of Republic (with a Monarch as ceremonial head even more divorced from politics than now)..

The so-called prerogatives are, under the present constitutional understandings, actually manipulated by the Prime Minister of the day.

The fixed term, and the new exceptional dissolution powers suggested for Parliament, take powers away from the Prime Minister and for the first time vests them in the House.

There are all sorts of ramifications to this apparently simple step of fixing the Parliamentary term..

It is possible that those proposing this step have not yet sorted out all the consequences. It would be helpful if some of the distinguished lawyers friendly to the new coalition could provide an analysis of the knock-on effects so that our debates can be conducted in a calmer manner.

The proposers of this change will benefit from hearing constructive criticism and may well feel that some variations are needed in the final legislation.

Just by the way and as an example I think five years is too long for a fixed term and would be happy to argue this..

Paying up

2010-05-14T14:13:00.002+01:00

Is it pressure of work? Or the usual policy? The special conference online booking form does not allow for debit card payments so I cant book online. On principle dont have a credit card.
If anyone with clout is reading this could they pass it on?

The psychology of how people feel after decisions

2010-05-14T08:55:00.004+01:00

Well a rather important decision has been made.
And studies of people who have made such decisions (or had it made for them) suggest we are going through a well-known psychological process.

If you have ever had to make choices in your personal life – say about who to marry (or with whom to initiate a parallel emotional arrangement) you may recognise this process. Likewise people who have agonised about what job opportunity to select. Possible members of a controlling Council group may have allied experiences.

When such a decision has been made there is a strong need to assert to oneself (and others) the rightness of the decision, and to downgrade the merits of the past alternatives. This is of great comfort in getting down to living with the results of the decision, but psychological studies suggest that the strength of these feelings is not necessarily proportionate to the merits of the case. It is something that happens more or less regardless.

It might be helpful to think of this at the time of the Special Assembly this weekend, the better to understand what is going on.

For my part I recall the aphorism coined by my old boss in the Open Business School that in life we need to exploit the strengths that come from our weaknesses and guard against the weaknesses that are part and parcel of or strengths.

We were faced with a certain pattern of strengths and weaknesses. This has changed to a different pattern. And we need to think about this soberly. This sobriety should include a recognition that we need to redouble our commitment to ourselves if we are really to bring extra life to the Liberal cause.

In a bad relationship (to return to analogy) each partner is so busy second-guessing the other that they forget to bring themselves to the action. They are reduced and constrained. One sign of a good relationship is that each feels able to assert their own identity and build on that even where disagreements arise.

I think that we need to look at the weaknesses and strengths of our situation to make sure that, over the lifetime of this National Agreement, Liberalism is asserted, developed and popularised. This will help our LibDem representatives in cabinet or associated positions in turn to assert themselves and guard against the development of closed-circle groupthink.

How we foster this constructive assertion is our business from now on.

Practical politics and by-elections

2010-05-12T10:20:00.004+01:00

Way back in March 1977 there was a by-election in progress in Birmingham Stetchford, the (then Labour) MP Roy Jenkins having resigned his seat to go to the European Commission.
Our predecessor Liberal Party was of course hammering the Labour government in its leaflets.

A week before polling day the minority Labour government did a support deal with the Liberal Party in Parliament that started the Lib-Lab pact and restored its working majority.. .

At a by-election press conference next day the Liberal candidate was asked if he was pleased with the deal.

“I have to be pleased don’t I” was his poker-faced response.

Which comment the local press interpreted as wry humour and found refreshingly honest.

I will reserve final judgement on yesterdays extraordinary events until I see the full report. However it is not too early to start thinking about how we are going to manage some practical politics over the next five years. Such as how do we fight by-elections?

It would have been helpful if there was an interim measure on the books saying at all Parliamentary by-elections in this fixed-term period should be conducted under the Alternative Vote, In short an arrangement for this Parliament only. The next General Election to be fought on a system to be separately decided during this Parliament (that is the interim AV arrangements would NOT apply to the next General Election).

Given the electoral system status quo, by-elections are going to be a horrible mess and gifts to the opposition campaigns.

We will start to see the difficulties in the upcoming special election in Yorkshire, delayed from the General Election because the UKIP candidate died.

Our Lib Dem candidate and team there need huge national attention and support immediately, not least to formulate a credible campaigning approach in these very nearly unprecedented circumstances. ‘I have to be pleased don’t I’ would not be a good enough response now.

Some local cheer in MK

2010-05-08T11:25:00.002+01:00

I am finding reports of local election successes from ‘elsewhere’ a good way of getting awake on this unsettling morning. So just in case this interest others…

In Milton Keynes we faced an election with the retiring council split 21 LD to 20 Tories, with 9 Labour and 1 independent. Elections are by thirds. A number of our senior councillors were stepping down having done very long service and wanting to move on. That included Euan and Irene Henderson, who each had huge personal votes in their respective Newport Pagnell wards. The Tories were looking to become the largest party and take the lead in the Cabinet.

The outcome?

We held all our defended seats which means we now have new and dynamic younger councillors in several core wards who can build up their own personal votes.

A very experienced former councillor is back on the council so we still have the benefit of lessons learnt in the past.

We gained THREE seats from the Conservatives ( all again with dynamic new candidates) which the Tories certainly were not expecting!

We did not take our target off Labour. It was a tall order against someone with a strong personal vote but our great campaign gives us a good platform for next year.

It was no surprise that the Tories did not take their much touted target seat off Labour as they failed to nominate a candidate! Short version of events. A Tory activist signed the Green Party nomination papers as well as the Tory ones. The Greens put in their papers several days before the close of nominations. The Tory agent (with 25 years experience) turned up with all her papers 90 minutes before nominations closed….

Current balance of council

LibDem 24
Con 17
Lab 9
Ind 1

I am particularly pleased at the result in my own patch of Walton Park ward where Subhan Shafiq ousted the Tory who slipped in back in the Cameron euphoria year of 2006.

Council still counts as NOC but we are already planning for a Big Gold moment in 2011…

Avoiding a festival of constipation and cold clotted porridge

2010-05-05T09:26:00.002+01:00

Just imagine this election campaign with only Brown and Cameron in the spotlight.
No life, no hope, no vision. The national mood would now be sour, depressed and despairing, with press excitement concentrated on whether various extreme factions would cause upsets.

Imagine the Parliament we are about to elect so constructed that Cameron and Brown manage to re-impose the pretence that they (or their successors) are the only legitimate political forces.

After the life of the campaign, once more political constipation.

After the real fresh foods of real and relevant issues breaking onto the menu, once more the cold porridge of the exhausted establishment.

The national mood will swiftly become sour and despairing.

As Prime Minister? Cameron? Well, on the surface he can seem very very deep, but deep deep down he is shallow.

Or Brown? (or more likely a emergency successor though). In alleged command of a zombie party of frustrated and frightened bullies.

Another thing. If we largely hold our seats and make the gains possible we may well be the only truly ‘National Party’ in the UK context. So the future of the United Kingdom as such may depend on our nerve and example.

To combat this we need as many LibDem MPs as possible from all parts of the country, backed by as big a LibDem vote as possible again from all parts of the country.

Damn tactical voting. Keep our politics alive and vote for Freedom with the Liberal Democrats. Everywhere.

Leaders should beware the tower.

2010-04-29T12:45:00.000+01:00

Don’t walk through the arches under the Birmingham University tower!

That’s the tall brick structure shown on all the scene-setting shots of the University Campus, today’s Leaders Debate venue.

The student superstition is that anyone who walks under the tower is about to fail their exams. Imagine the gleeful postings on diverse blogs if one or other of the party leaders could be tempted to take a guided tour of campus… and just happened to pass under the tower…

And of course the press wouldn’t go to town on such a triviality when serious matters are being discussed… not.

Cry Havoc! And let loose the dogs of Anti

2010-04-24T07:16:00.001+01:00

Not a metaphor for the Tory press pack. Some voters in MK are showing displeasure at getting canvassed by the LibDems by letting their dogs speak for them. Others swear when they see us, other doors slammed in our faces.

But the great majority of residents seem pleased to see us and many actually want to talk on the doorstep (which does slow down progress of course).

The negative people do seem to be Tories. Many also seem to be angry at their own party – after the first debate we were told ‘Cameron has let us down!’.

Lets see if he has won those people round in the last couple of days..

An interesting sidebar is on how people describe themselves. For years now, ever since the late 1990s, known Tories have tended to be shy to describe themselves as such. As if supporting the Tories was an embarrassing inconvenience on a par with halitosis. . Over the last couple of years that embarrassment seemed to be dying out and in the early weeks of this election we were meeting more openly self-describing Tories. Not just people simply saying, as in the past, ‘I am not voting for you’. But in the last week the shutters came down again. ANTI is the word.

This doesn’t of itself mean that Tory votes will be reduced. There are a lot of angry people out there who will be voting against us with hot conviction because of the pain we have caused them in shaking them out of their complacency. One consequence of this election is to define ourselves to Tories more clearly than before as a political enemy. This could have consequences in future local polls, for example.

How many people nationally registered to vote in the last week?

2010-04-22T09:41:00.002+01:00

In Milton Keynes, over two constituencies, there were 1500 late registrations for the vote.

Almost all came in the last few days, after the First Leaders Debate.

The word is most of these are young first-time voters.

I wonder what might have prompted this surge?

How are other parts of the country doing in terms of late registrations? Milton Keynes does have a high proportion of young residents so it might not translate out pro rate UK wide... if it did it implies over 400,000 more voters on the rolls than this time last week.

Face to face campaigning with online geeks

2010-04-17T19:02:00.001+01:00

One of the things about having a major University in your patch is that there are a lot of bright and committed people around who are not necessarily easily contacted through classic campaigning.

In Milton Keynes the Open University is holding a special hustings with a theme. That theme is "Technology and the next 4 years, how my party will utilise it and how we will interact with an increasingly online population”.

The meeting will be an opportunity to make contacts with politically interested OU staff, which will be of value in this election and the future. Showing that face to face interaction will still be important perhaps?

Jill Hope, our candidate for Milton Keynes North, will be our representative. She would welcome all suggestions and advice.

Contact on:

jillhopelibdem@btinternet.com

At last the 1983 show?

2010-04-16T14:42:00.001+01:00

Maybe we will see at last what might have happened in 1983.

In that general Election campaign the ‘Liberal-SDP Alliance’ was running close to Labour in the opinion polls, the Tories of course heavily leading. Then a couple of Alliance campaign miss-steps led to Labour being seen as still the main challenger to the Tories and the fight was over. Despite the widespread dislike of Mrs Thatcher, the majority had as top priority keeping Labour out of office.

The smell in the air was that if the Alliance could have pushed Labour into third with two weeks to go the Tory position would have been a lot weaker. Then anti-Thatcher voters would have found somewhere congenial to escape to, and the Alliance would have been in the zone to come second in seats and become the official opposition. I recall being briefed at the time that the Tories had a well-oiled Plan B all ready to go to spend a ton of money attacking the Alliance with pretty grimy tactics expected. In the event we never had to face that bombardment. The alliance leadership was pretty nervous about this prospect, apparently.

Expect a bombardment on the LibDems this time though, from both Tory and Labour. Neither can afford to let us fill the Official Opposition psychological slot. We need to draw on all our reserves of calm…

One question in 2010 is however this: Have the Labservatories actually done the necessary preparation for such a plan B (as the Tories did well before the campaign in 1983) or will they have to do things on the hoof?

Incidentally, one of the 1983 mis-steps sadly was a messed up interview by Roy Jenkins. The Alliance ran him as ‘Prime-Minister Designate’ and he went into an hour long grilling by Robin Day (The Paxman of those times) with all sorts of solid and lofty themes to discuss, only to be ambushed by half an hour of nagging on the Wasted Vote theme that he didn’t have the long Liberal training to handle. Clegg has leaped over the equivalent hurdle with ease this time…

Resources for contering the drugs panic Labour want to trap us with

2010-04-01T16:30:00.006+01:00

There are rather more ‘legal highs’ out there than the currently controversial mephedrone. Shooting down one named ‘drug’ will not solve a much wider complex of issues. As an article on the US site SLATE noted back in 2007.

over the last two decades, the pharmaceutical industry has developed a full set of substitutes for just about every illegal narcotic we have. Avoiding the highly charged politics of "illegal" drugs, the pharmaceutical industry, doctors, and citizens have thus quietly created the means for Americans to get at substitutes for almost all the drugs banned in the 20th century. Through the magic of tolerated use, it's actually the other drug legalization movement, and it has been much more successful than the one you read about in the papers.
Tim Wu SLATE October 2007 'American Lawbreaking' articles

The technical name for this process is Avoision 'achieving a forbidden outcome as a by-product of a permitted act'. (More on this theme in an old post of mine here).

You may also like to see the US website EROWID which ‘documents the complex relationship between humans and psychoactives’ and particularly its ‘experience vault’ on individual reports on specific substances. Cant find an entry for mephedrone there though… but I am not a chemist.

Jock Coats recommended as a resource the Schaffer Library of Drugs Policy Research. I suspect (looking at his recent posting) that he would again like to call our attention to the paper on the economics of the black market.

On Jocks current thoughts, (see this debate), my pennyworth. Making a rational case on these themes calmly while the LibDems political opponents look for a way to manufacture a Littleworth And Saddleworth 'soft on drugs' scare will take the care and attention of all of us. Lets remember this 'Clare Short Gaffe' moment from way back in 1995. Labour are trying to ambush us with a carfully nurtured panic, no doubt about that.

To baldly go where many have gone before

2010-03-26T14:34:00.002Z

Before throwing around jokes about ‘Baldemort’. Dave You-Know-Who Cameron should beware of getting his own ‘bald’ label.

With his cunning plans in Northern Ireland getting as unstuck as his brilliant idea to force his MEPs to sit with assorted homophobes, the name to recall is Baldrick.

I do hope hesitations about Blackadder copyright don’t inhibit the spread of such a ‘Baldrick Dave’ meme…

Incidentally the original meaning of the word ‘Baldrick’ is ‘a wide ornamental belt’.

A few budget words

2010-03-25T14:15:00.001Z

The budget reminds me a little of a story of an American soldier back in WW2 time. He and his girlfriend turned up at the office of a Justice Of the Peace on a Friday afternoon asking to be married – the man was to be shipped off overseas on Monday morning.

‘Sure thing soldier’ said the Justice. ‘Just let me see your marriage license.’

‘License – we need a license?’ says the young man.

‘Yes and I am sorry. Without the license I just cant marry you’.

‘Well in that case Judge, could you just say a few words to tide us over the weekend?’

And that at the bottom is the budget – a few words to tide us over the next 40 days or so…

A sklightly rueful mutter about the sucess of 'save Traditional Election Night'

2010-03-22T15:30:00.002Z

It may be a Thursday night count in name… but the result may be ‘gone’ for some time…

Take this example.

Milton Keynes was going to count its vote on a Friday morning but thanks to the upcoming legislation is switching to a Thursday 10pm start. That is for both the MK parliamentary seats and for the local election counts too… when the results will actually be announced is not dramatically clear.

The RO for this double Parliamentary count has never had to handle a general election and local election combined poll day before (1997, 2001 and 2005 were the off-years in our election-by-thirds cycle). So we are concentrating on verifying the ballot papers in all boxes (parliamentary and local) as we cannot proceed with the actual count until it is proved that no ballot papers are in the wrong boxes. No start on the main Parliamentary count until ALL local boxes are also verified. The actual counting into candidate bundles has to start by 2am on Friday for both seats according to the ‘New Law’ and MK may be able to complete verification and actually do this – but on this timetable declared results are not to be expected much before dawn.

It is a good thing we are counting in the social hall of StadiumMK not our previously used sports halls as the stadium has excellent bars and food outlets (which I understand will be open all night) and comfy seats away from the count floor for shattered staff to crash into. Also I think TV screens to see the results from other places – though maybe if other seats have similar experiences the midnight drama of election night Thursday night TV programmes will be much less fact-filled than desired.

So I ruefully contemplate a LibDem work day stretching from 6am Thursday Good Morning deliveries through running a committee room and on to verification duties at 10 pm finishing with 4 am Parliamentary declarations next day. And back to count the Local Election Results from 1pm Friday. This assumes no Parliamentary recounts and as both MK seats are effectively ties on the ‘nominal results for 2005’ calculations after boundary changes that may be an interesting assumption.

Just for a moment I wish the Save Traditional Election Night agitation had gone the other way.

The perils of grapefruit juice and rational thinking about drugs

2010-03-18T15:03:00.005Z

With all the uproars about Mephedrone, should we also be thinking about another totally legal product with definite dangers – grapefruit juice?

Well, dangers if you are taking certain medicines to control high blood pressure. Grapefruit juice contains furanocoumarins, chemicals that inhibit certain enzmes in the gut. These enzymes partially destroy the active ingredients in statins (chloresterol-reduction drugs) and in ‘calcium channel blockers’ (drugs that directly reduce blood pressure). The dosage for each patient is prescribed on the assumption that these enzymes are working normally. Inhibition means that the patient actually takes in a higher dose of the drug than intended and can unexpectedly suffer substantial side-effects.

The NHS says that

Drinking grapefruit juice whilst taking calcium channel blockers can lead to low blood pressure, increased heart rate, dizziness, flushing and headaches.
Whether or not you can drink grapefruit juice without experiencing these effects depends very much upon you as an individual. One person might be affected in a very different way to another, even though they are on the same dose of calcium channel blockers and drinking the same amount of grapefruit juice.
The reaction depends not only on the dose and on the individual, but also on whether you are a regular, long-term grapefruit juice drinker….
….. If you are taking felodipine, nicardipine, nimodipine, or nisoldipine you should avoid drinking grapefruit juice altogether.

I doubt whether many people will call for grapefruit juice to be taken off shop shelves …

Hat tip to Caron for digging up this link to a statement by Prof David Nutt on the present Mephedrone uproar, and it seems we can look forwards to the webpage for the new ‘Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs’ going live in a couple of weeks. In time for the election on other words and lets hope this new resource reduces the temptation of some ‘Old And Sad’ smear-mongers to do ‘soft on drugs’ stories on some of us…

The ISCD says it was founded by Professor Nutt

.... to objectively review and investigate the scientific evidence of drug harms free from political concerns. All too often, crucial information on the effects of drugs is buried away in arcane scientific journals and the debates of expert groups. The Committee will provide accessible information on drugs to the wider public and engage in an ongoing dialogue.

Webpage planned to be http://www.drugscience.org.uk/ (you only get a domain notice at time of posting this).

The interactions of this and that chemical in the human body are a wonderous thing!

Thatcher right and Savage Cuts are clearly the Labour attack mantras to come...

2010-03-17T13:59:00.002Z

Well I was wondering what Labour was up to on my patch, this being a constituency with a sitting Labour MP and after boundary revision nominally a dead heat with the Tories. To hold on they need to squeeze every vote possible. And this morning a glossy gold card through the door with headline ‘LibDem Leader: Thatcher was right’ and parading a certain remark about ‘savage cuts’. On reverse a bar chart of NATIONAL vote figures and the mantra ‘Only Labour can beat the Tories’.

I suspect ‘Thatcher’ and ‘savage cuts’ will be a drumbeat mantra from the Brown Trousered troops from now until polling day.

A bit late for first Labour activity you might think in this LibDem/Con battleground ward moved from Milton Keynes North-East to Milton Keynes South in the last review, where nobody knows who Enid Starkey MP is at all… But we think Labour spent so much money in wasted preparations for the Election That Never Was that they were too broke up to now to do anything like paying for a household delivery in a key LibDem area.

As I said obviously a nationally produced publication so others will be seeing it on doorstep soon.

Milton Keynes is a strange beast this time round. The Tories won MK Northeast (a gain) and Labour held MK SW in 2005. The boundary revisions mean that just about all pundits thing the new MK North seat is on 2005 figures a nominal Labour one with a sitting Tory MP and the new MK South seat is so close that some rank it as a nominally Conservative seat with a sitting Labour member. The scope for creative bar charts on all sides may just be too tempting!

Any other sightings of this Labour fart?

What IS on at conference at party Website?

2010-03-11T12:39:00.003Z

Just been looking at the party website, acting as an interested visitor would. In particular the pages on the spring conference. Lots of easily available information about conference in geneal but where are the easy clicks to find the Spring agenda, the reports and the speeches that may be made?

Yes I do know where to link to the reports (and by the way at the time of writing the clearprint version of the agenda is in fact the plain text file repeated) but the only click-on link at present says 'training programme now available' or words to that efefct.

Am I missing something glaringly obvious or is there some last minute work to be done on this site?

The flag on high! Tory ranks tightly closed! Giovinezza! Giovinezza!

2010-03-06T15:06:00.005Z

So there is an organisation that claims to have trained 2,500 British Conservative Activists in such electoral skills as firing semi-automatic weapons. Yes, the Young Briton’s Foundation emerges blinking into the limelight again advocating inter alia the abolition of the NHS, support for torture for ‘terrorists’ and the adoption of US-Style gun laws. And also denouncing ‘global warming’ as a fraud.

The group has caused disquiet in Tory ranks before. Why? Well for example

The YBF chief executive, Donal Blaney…. has called for environmental protesters who trespass to be "shot down" by the police and that Britain should have a US-style liberal firearms policy. In an article on his own website, entitled Scrap the NHS, not just targets, he wrote: "Would it not now be better to say that the NHS – in its current incarnation – is finished?"
Blaney has described the YBF as "a Conservative madrasa" that radicalises young Tories. Programmes have included trips to meet neo-conservative groups in the US and to a shooting range in Virginia to fire submachine guns and assault rifles.
Robert Booth, Guardian, 6 March 2010
Senior Tories who have addressed YBF events include:

Eric Pickles, Con Party chair
Liam Fox, Con shadow defence secretary
Michael Grove, Con shadow education spokesman
Ed Vaizey, Con shadow
John Redwood
David Davies

The group’s president is Daniel Hannan MEP.

At least 11 current Tory PPCs appear to have gone through the group’s training processes. Wonder who they are?

The YBF web pages appear to have been partially blocked from open web access but it is just possible to glean a few things, such as that one of the trustees is Frederick Forsythe (yes the ‘Day Of The Jackal’ author). Also that the Parliamentary Council members include Lord Trimble (yes that Northern Ireland Trimble), Lord Parkinson, and the Earl of Stockton (Grandson of former Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan).

And the speakers panel is a tasty menu including Antony Worral Thompson and (roll of BlogDrums) Guido Fawkes.

One-day training sessions in the UK cost £25.00 I wonder who is subsiding all this.

Falklands in the fog of history again

2010-02-24T16:34:00.003Z

Well we seem to be into another season of uproars over the Falklands, with Argentina apparently taking the UK to the United Nations over the start of oil drilling in the area. And of course alternative statements of history are proliferating.

A detailed study of the Falklands history timeline (up to May 2008) that maintains the British position is on the Falklands History webpages. Spanish version here. This is a reply to a seminar held in the Argentine embassy in London on 3 December 2007, which was apparently the first time the Argentine case for the Falklands was ever presented in Britain. The study authors, Graham Pascoe and Peter Pepper, have also written a thousand page book ‘The Falklands Saga: a Critical Study of the Falkland Islands in History and International Law’ which appears to be unpublished as yet.

The Islanders own view of the matter back in 1983 is on the Falklands Information webpages.

Compare this to the Wikipedia versions of Falklands history and the history of the dispute which shows certain differences. For example Wiki states that Argentina ‘ever since the establishment of British Rule has claimed sovereignty’. Pascoe and Pepper assert that Argentina renounced its claims in 1850 and only revived them in the 1940’s.

In the 1840s Britain and France intervened militarily in the River Plate region, mainly in what is now Uruguay. However, both countries’ policy was a failure, and both withdrew their forces following treaties concluded with Argentina, which at the time was ruled dictatorially by General Manuel de Rosas, Governor of Buenos Aires. Negotiations between the British representative, Henry Southern, and General Rosas filled most of 1848 and 1849, and resulted in a peace treaty, the “Convention between Great Britain and the Argentine Confederation, for the Settlement of existing Differences and the re-establishment of Friendship”. We refer to it for short as the “Convention of Settlement”; it is also known as the “Arana-Southern Treaty” after its signatories, the Argentine Foreign Minister Felipe Arana and the British emissary Henry Southern. The Convention was referred to as a “peace treaty” many times by both sides; it represented a considerable triumph for Rosas, since he was able to impose his will on two humiliated opponents, Britain and France. But Rosas was prepared to pay a price – the Falklands. By failing to mention Argentina’s claim to the islands in the Convention, he effectively dropped it….
The Convention of Settlement ended Argentina’s protests over the Falklands. After the Message to Congress in December 1849, the Falklands were not mentioned
again in the Messages to Congress for 91 years until 1941
(Pascoe and Pepper)

The Argentine Embassy seminar entirly ignored the 'Convention of Settlement' but repeated what Pascoe and Pepper call the 'lie' that Britain expelled Argentine settlers in 1833. There were 34 civilian residents. Four chose to go, the rest stayed.

En su discurso inaugural en el seminario argentino en el London School of Economics del 3 de diciembre de 2007, el Embajador Mirré repitió lo que es probablemente la deformación más grave en la narrativa argentina – la idea que en 1833 Gran Bretaña expulsó a una población argentina de las Falklands. Argentina ha manifestado esto en repetidas oportunidades ante las Naciones Unidas. Pero esto no es verdad.
Cuándo el Clio llegó a las Falklands, había 34 colonizadores residentes civiles verdaderos; el Capitán Onslow les dio la libre elección de permanecer o partir; no los presionó para que dejasen las islas y realmente alentó a algunos para que permaneciesen… Sólo cuatro escogieron partir – y son nombrados en los libros de los prominentes historiadores argentinos Ernesto J. Fitte y Mario Tesler

Regardless of history things could be messy.

This Falklands business could lead to rather emotive politics in Britain – just look back at what happened in 1982 when the BBC was in effect accused by many Tories of treason. We should watch out for this as it could be an emotional distraction in the upcoming general election, not least because it involves debates in te United Nations and the LibDem position on the Iraq war depends heavily on the credibility of United Nations resolutions .

There are of course some Britons who doubt the British case – see this Comment is Free item by Richard Gott. And back in 1982 I recall there was mention of an alleged study made for the British Foreign Office in 1933, on the centenary of the establishment of continuous British control of the islands. This, based partially on American research materials, apparently showed the British case to be so weak that it has been suppressed ever since, but has made British policy makers cautious over British actions especially in relation to international tribunals. This being from pre-Internet times I cannot find the references to the study. It might be helpful to get references to what is publicly known about this alleged study so we can see if it more reliable than a Wiki history.

Ultimately though the British case is based on a claim that the Falklands were acquired in a legal process of colonial expansion, all done in accordance with nineteenth century norms. This in turn is the foundation to a legally established position in different political times. Those not attracted to colonial expansion either in history or today will no doubt find this justification less persuasive.

The Cameron road to Infangthief

2010-02-02T17:01:00.002Z

Never mind the birch as a rallying cry for legal reactionaries – David Cameron seems to be willing the law back to Infangthief.
That is the right of a property owner to exact summary punishment on a criminal found on his property. Or even Outfangthief – the right to pursue and punish off the property. Perhaps understandable as a legal expedient when the only police force was the Hue and Cry Posse, way back in the 1300’s, this concept has rather been eroded by some centuries of the Rule of Law.

Or so one would have hoped. Once more we are reminded of the 19th century controversy over ‘man traps and spring guns’ so wonderfully recounted in E.S. Turners book ‘Roads To Ruin’. This is a book that really really needs re-issuing.

Meanwhile we might all take a look at the new book on ‘the rule of law’ by Tom Bingham, former Lord Chief Justice of the United Kingdom.

As the ‘blurb’ says:

He makes clear that the rule of law is not an arid legal doctrine but is the foundation of a fair and just society, is a guarantee of responsible government, is an important contribution to economic growth and offers the best means yet devised for securing peace and co-operation. He briefly examines the historical origins of the rule, and then advances eight conditions which capture its essence as understood in western democracies today. He also discusses the strains imposed on the rule of law by the threat and experience of international terrorism.

And, incidentally, firmly says that the Iraq war was illegal.

The reviewer in the Independent On Sunday loved it:

He proposes eight essential principles, each of which he illustrates with a wide variety of examples. The first is that the law must be available to everyone and, so far as possible, intelligible and clear….His other principles include the equality of all before the law – "Be you never so high, the law is above you," as Dr Thomas Fuller wrote in 1733 – along with the fair exercise of power by the executive, the right to a fair trial, and the application of law, rather than discretion, when deciding questions of legal right and liability. Importantly, Bingham also includes the protection of fundamental human rights. Though some people might not see human rights as a necessary ingredient of the rule of law, Bingham argues that such a view would be based on an impoverished or "thin" definition, as compared with his own preference – what he calls a "thick" definition – and his arguments are cogent and convincing.

Robert Gaisford IoS 31 January 2010

Sounds like a stinging slap-down to the pathetic Cameron ramble on the Andrew Marr show about burglars ‘forgoing their human rights…’

The rule of law and a fair society. Could that be a LibDem election theme? Against the rule of mob headlines and tax breaks for the rich which has been the mood music of New Labour and looks like being the theme song for the Tories in continuation…

Is the Second Iraq War Resolution question really so relevant?

2010-01-29T07:58:00.002Z

Yes it is important that we get answers from Blair and others on the ‘Second UN Resolution’ fiasco. Even with a second resolution however backing the Iraq war was still wrong – in the famous phrase ‘worse than a crime, a blunder’.

In a sense we in this party have been let off the war hook because we could oppose the attack on legal grounds and gain essential party unity on that basis for our public advice. Would we have been so firm if we had had to oppose on the grounds that it was a stupid and wrong thing to do even if ‘legalised’?

By relying on the (lack of) UN votes to delegitimise the attack we are relying on the better political judgement of other countries representatives who prevented such a vote. It would have been more honourable to campaign against the taking of the vote and advising for a NO vote if it was eventually presented.

For my part I would have opposed the Iraq war whatever position the party took. But then I opposed the 2001 Afghan attack also.

Haiti - The possible explosive political fallout in neighbouring Dominican Republic

2010-01-18T13:53:00.004Z

With all the attention on Haiti and what needs to be done there, a quick thought on the situation in the Dominican Republic, Haiti’s neighbour on the island of Hispaniola.

To illustrate the possible political fallouts, see this November 2009 online article entitled “France, US, Canada aim to unify Dominican Republic and Haiti”. That reports a statement by the an influential member of the Dominican Republic ruling party, Professor Euclides Gutiérrez . In brief, he claims that for decades people like (former US president) Bill Clinton and (Former French president) Jacques Chirac have tried to get the Dominican Republic to merge with Haiti and thus manage its problems. One online comment on this (before the earthquake) says there are ‘already’ two million Haitians in the Dominican Republic and ‘it is time to strike back’.

If the Dominican incarnations of the S*n and the D*ily Wail start peddling the line that the US and the international community are using the disaster as a cover for forcing the DR into a merger with Haiti, thus picking up the lions share of the political and economic costs, much hell will no doubt break loose.

There is already and unfortunate history dating back many decades of racist animosity in some parts of The Dominican Republic towards migrants from Haiti and Dominicans of Haitian descent. Amnesty UK this year featured in its greetings card campaign a Dominican activist (Sonia Pierre) suffering because of her work for Haitians in the DR.

The amnesty briefing sheet says:

HUMAN RIGHTS defender Sonia Pierre has been threatened and harassed as a result of her work to stop discrimination against the Haitian community in the Dominican Republic. Prejudice on grounds of race, language, colour and nationality is an everyday reality for many migrant workers and Dominicans of Haitian descent. Sonia is executive director of the Movement for Dominico-Haitian Women (MUDHA), part of the Jacques Viau Dominico-Haitian Encounter Network, which works to combat anti-Haitian prejudice and racism in the Dominican Republic.
In August 2000 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights called on the Dominican authorities to put in place protection measures for Sonia Pierre. Despite this, in 2005 she and her children were forced to leave the country for several months following further threats. The court’s order was extended in February 2006 to include her children. To date the Dominican authorities have not acted to implement these protection measures.

(ongoing links provided by me, not by Amnesty. EB)

I suspect that the Dominican Republic may itself need some physical help to avoid being overwhelmed by the needs of its neighbour, and also perhaps some international attention to prevent very negative reactions from people in that country, possibly including part of the government. Maybe our Foreign Affairs team could raise this matter in questions to the UK Government?

Enquiries and the state of Brown's trousers - a historical note

2010-01-14T11:26:00.003Z

The Brown Funk on answering questions on the Iraq war to the Chilcot enquiry before the General Election is unlikely to lead to mass protests in the streets – unlike the events of 1812 when Parliament decided to hold enquiries into the fiasco of the 1810 Walcheren expedition in secret. That resulted in protest crowds thousands in the streets and a near-miss for a violent revolution.

When one radical commentator was thrown into Newgate goal without trial for putting up a poster denouncing this ‘outrage’ the radical MP Frances Burdett made a stinging statement denouncing his colleagues for arbitrary practices. A vote of the commons (189 to 152) declared this statement a breach of parliamentary privilege and Burdett was committed to the Tower of London. Burdett declared the warrant illegal and tens of thousands of people took to the streets of London in his support. Small boats blocked the river approaches to the Tower and crowds blocked the land approaches. Burdett’s Piccadilly house was surrounded by a protective cordon which spilled over into Albemarle Street and Berkeley Square. However Burdett did decline the support of another radical MP (Cochrane) who arrived with a barrel of gunpowder and a proposal to set up ‘improvised explosive devices’ to be set off if the authorities attacked. The authorities set up artillery batteries in St James’s Park and Soho Square and the Life Guards charged the demonstrators.

Burdett was eventually arrested by a police constable who climbed in to his house though a rear window, and taken to the tower. There followed two months of mass demonstrations around Parliament while the commons debated whether to expel Burdett. Burdett’s supporters were carried to the house daily on the shoulders of protesters through cheering crowds. In the end the governing cliques quietly allowed his release on the prorogation of Parliament.

So the whole thing ended in a somewhat British farcical whimper rather than a great resolution of the issues. It will be interesting to watch the state of Brown’s trousers as this 2010 Chilcot farce plays out, but we are unlikely to see such passionate public engagement in the issue. We do of course nowadays all have a ballot as an alternative to gunpowder…

On an emerging narrative of clarity and honesty

2010-01-12T12:01:00.003Z

Watching Nick Clegg trying to set out a clear and consistent approach to this coming election while at the same time that I am reading a book on Quantum Theory (and trying to understand the narrative of how that theory evolved), a couple of concepts crossed over in my mind.

One is Albert Einstein’s guideline for explaining science to the world

“Make it as simple as possible, but no simpler”

The other is a phrase Einstein drew on for solace, from the works of the philosopher and playwright Gotthold Lessing that the aspiration to truth is more precious than believing one has possession of a fixed truth.

“It is not the truth that a man possesses, or believes that he possesses, but the earnest effort which he puts forward to reach the truth, which constitutes the worth of a man”

Nick may just be managing to make our narrative simply expressed without losing sight of the complexities and also keeping in mind the fact that we don’t actually have all the answers ourselves.

(For the Quantum part of this experience see Manjit Kumar “Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the great debate about the nature of reality’)

election dates and political advantages

2010-01-04T11:54:00.003Z

Controversies over budgets and election timings are not new things under the UK political sun. Way back in 1950 Attlee wanted to call the 1950 election for May, after a spring budget that would have included the ending of petrol rationing. However his chancellor Stafford Cripps had other ideas.

…. Cripps was adamant that it would be immoral to deliver a budget just before an election – and threatened to resign over the issue. Such was Cripps standing in the country … that Attlee felt he had no alternative but to yield to Cripps wishes. But as he remarked privately … ‘(Cripps was) no judge of politics’.
(Quote by Douglas Jay a sometime Labour Cabinet Minister )

The election took place on 23 February 1950 with petrol rationing still in force. Labour just squeaked back in.

Bearing in mind this financial immorality argument, note this Sundays exchange on the Andrew Marr show, as commented on by Impartial Nick Robinson.

"The slip came when Marr asked him if there'd be a Labour Budget this Spring - a coded way of asking him to rule out an election before May.
'Of course' came the reply, before the PM realised what he was being asked and so he hastily added 'if it's the right time'.
So, May it is...I think."

(Jay, D 1980 “Change and Fortune” cited in Kynaston, D. ‘Austerity Britain’ p 358)

A modest suggestion on the MPS expenses nonsenses

2009-12-11T15:51:00.002Z

Tearing-haired frustration at yet another round of MPs expenses nonsense. One part of this is the utterly incompetent accounting practices so glaringly exposed, especially when it comes to claiming ‘part of a set of receipts’.

Here is what I do for the accounts of an annual families summer camp organised by Quakers. I get a lot of claims for various reimbursements of legitimate common costs incurred by participants. If some item on the receipt is not part of the claim the whole thing goes on the spreadsheet like this:

Items to be reclaimed, if necessary itemised by nominal category.
Total of items on this receipt NOT to be reclaimed.
Total of all items under category A to be added to reclaim schedule
Total of A plus B, which should exactly equal the amount shown on the crude receipt.

And I file these away so that if I get a charities-commission audit check I can prove what is what. And that payments have not been made for dubious items. And that despite being 'on a receipt' a claim has not in fact been made for a non-allowable item. Even Quakers can make mistakes.

I then refund the amount under category C.

I have looked at some of the MPs expenses claims forms online and I could not keep track of and control my camp expenses if I had to work on the so-called system exposed there, either as a claimant or a cost controller. It is a farce. I have looked at the claims online for my local (non-LibDem) MP and he or his staff have shown avoidable chaotic errors basically I believe because there is no proper accounting system in force.

Here is a modest suggestion for our party. Produce a set of standard accounting software tools for MPs to handle expenses. Build in some basic accounting double checks. Require all our MPs (and Peers) to produce and file in their core accounts monthly schedules of expenses generated by this software to back up any Parliamentary Fees Office claims. Nobody to make expenses claims unless they can produce such further systematic documentation.

Then insist that the fees office and require all MPs and so on of all parties work to the same standard. But put our own house in elementary good shape first.

The Bonus fallacy and tournaments

2009-12-04T14:13:00.003Z

Most people, I suppose, think of a ‘bonus’ as something extra. A pay ‘bonus’ in this definition means something earned by ‘defined exceptional circumstances’ – not something paid over as routine. So good work, increasing efficiency, improved customer satisfaction – all the might earn a bonus.

The ‘Financial Sector’ likes to claim that their ‘bonuses’ are just like this, a kind of posh term for ‘payment by results’ or ‘piecework rates’. This may be the kind of hot air that suggests the collective noun ‘a Wunch of Bankers’.

The reality may be the ‘Tournament System’ so ably described for lay readers in Tim Harfords book ‘ The logic of Life’. Specifically the chapter on ‘why your boss is overpaid’.

This is how I understand Harford’s argument.

Basically most jobs cannot easily be assessed by performance by results. And jobs that involve handling big flows of money are difficult to constrain in the public interest. So what happens is a pay system analogous to a top tennis tournament. The winner, the champion, the chair of the Board, is guaranteed a huge wad of cash. Second place wins much less but still a worthwhile consolation. The aim though is to inspire the twenty or so people in the immediate lower tiers to work their socks off in order to make the organisation work. They need to be guaranteed enough money not to be seduced into rival tournaments. In turn this premier league gives incentives for a strata of much less well paid potential contenders, the people who may actually create the wealth for the organisation if wealth creation is part of the deal.

It is actually irrelevant whether the people getting the top prizes are competent or even active in the organisation. All they have to do in this system is avoid doing conscious damage, and avoid distorting the company accounts too blatantly to make shareholders pay covertly for top corporate benefits.

But admitting that the pay structure is a kind of danegeld paid out to prevent other forms of legalised looting by corporate insiders would be highly embarrassing. So the term ‘bonuses’ has been conscripted to make the general public believe that some kind of payment by results is in place.

Trouble is that when huge losses are the financial order of the day, payment by results suggest no ‘bonus payments’, in the popular sense, should be made. But if you accept that the system is a tournament, it becomes unworkable without some element of obscene overpayments.

The RBS board (and others) are trying to maintain the ‘tournament system’ without actually admitting that is what they are doing. As I understand Harford, he also believes that an element of Tournament Economics’ is inevitable, so he does not suggest a solution.

Is Harford right? If so should we be bringing in the implications of ‘tournament economics’ into our political discourse?

Whats what with The wave?

2009-11-11T17:21:00.000Z

It appears I am invited to take part in a Day Of Action on climate change, including a march in London on Saturday December 5th. And there is an online registration form for party members so we LibDems can all congregate together and make the maximum impact.

Sounds good stuff.

But those of us who live outside London really need to know what time all this kicks off, so we can decide whether we can make the travel arrangements. None of the party publicity I have seen mentions this rather crucial point. Anyone know? And anyone have influence on the publicisers-that-be so that this information is prominently flagged on the party website and in emails?

(Yes yes I can do a Google search on The Wave to get general event timings, but what are the specifics for the Libdem assembly point).

Primary Education At Six was once party policy - or is it still?

2009-10-18T15:11:00.001+01:00

We have been here before in the debate generated by the Cambridge Primary Review report which amongst other measures suggests ‘delaying the start of formal education until age six’.

Specifically the LibDems had an education paper to conference a few years ago and Federal Conference actually, I believe, voted in favour of a play-based primary learning strategy until age 6. I can’t find my printed copy of the briefing paper however, nor online resources.

Our current touted policy on extra resources to cut 5 to 7 class sizes to 15 does seem to have abandoned this policy.

I would find it helpful if we could re-visit those discussions as I was persuaded of the ‘start formal teaching at six’ strategy at the time of the last party debate.

Bedford - the entrails

2009-10-17T15:10:00.002+01:00

Well it was fun being part of a winning campaign! Massive congratulations to Dave and his team...
People speculating on how this Bedford Mayoral result could impact on a Parliamentary result should note that Bedford Unitary Authority spreads over three Westminster constituencies namely:

1 ALL of Bedford Borough constituency.
2 Three wards of Mid-Bedfordshire constituency
3 Ten wards of Bedfordshire North-East constituency

Bedford Borough constituency is held by Patrick Hall, Labour.
Libdems third in 2005 with 21.5%

Labour held three double and two one-seater wards here in June. The Conservatives had two one-seaters. Libdems took four two-seater wards and one one-seater. Independents one two seater. (The independent candidate who came third for mayor is one of these concillors).

Mid-Bedfordshire constituency is held by Nadine Dorries, Con.
Libdems second in all constituency in 2005 with 23.8%, Labour had 22.5%

Of these three mid-Bedfordshire wards Libdems hold one double-seater, Cons one and Independents one. Dave had a whopping vote in Wooton ward I believe...

To note that in Central Bedfordshire council, which broadly makes up the rest of the constituency, Labour were completely wiped out in the June 2009 all-council election. Libdems are the only opposition group, with 11 seats.

Bedfordshire North-East constituency is held by Alistair Burt, Con.
Libdems third in all constituency in 2005 with 20.8% Labour second with 25.2%.

Of these ten wards LibDems hold two single-seaters, Cons one double-seater and three singles, independents the remaining four single-seaters.

Make of all that what you will...

Bedford last push

2009-10-14T09:38:00.003+01:00

The Tories seem to be taking the Bedford Mayor by-election fairly seriously - national Tory Party chair Pickes was canvassing yesterday. We know this as he canvassed a strong LD supporter and she promptly phoned in the Tory doorstep script to LD campaign HQ. Strangely, despite having a huge LD stakebard in her front garden Pickles seemed unaware of how she might be voting. Anyway, the Tory line is 'send Gordon Brown a message'.

Bedford voters however might be sending the message that they want a competent and hard-working Mayor to handle the problems in the new Unitary Authority. Which gives our candidate Dave Hodgson a real chance of a win.

I will be on the Bedford streets at 5am Thursday. Listen out for feeding back hearing aids and hope these dont set of too many dogs.

Avoid Bedford. Cowbridge roundabout, that is.

2009-10-09T09:45:00.003+01:00

Yes please come to the Bedford mayor by-election if you can, but be aware that there are a massive series of roadworks along the A421 between Junction 13 of the M1 and Bedford. And a separate and really snarly roadworks in Bedford at Cowbridge roundabout, where the A6 crosses the A5134. If coming up the A421 Bedford by-pass from the J3 direction it may be better to ignore the A6 exit and go on to the next one, getting on to the A600 towards Bedford town centre (Harrowdean Road, and your first navigation target London Road).

If coming down the M1 from the north it is better to get off at J14 and take the A422 into Bedford even if you have to negotiate the fringes of the town centre.

Johnny Washy's Old Sloshy and the Cameron Pickle progressive con

2009-09-21T11:35:00.001+01:00

The Con Trick (as Nick Clegg named it) by Cameron and Pickles trying to position the Tories as the Progressive Party reminds me of Johnny Washy’s Old Sloshy.

Johnny Walker’s whisky company takes great care to crack down on people trying to pass of duff products as the real think with misleading labelling, and their museum of counterfeits has exhibits of many of these. By some weird process, this caught up an obscure brand of shampoo called Johnny Washy’s and so on, which apparently had an understandably brief career as an after-dinner drink trading on a misleading label design..

It is probable that potential drinkers had a swift reminder of the difference between whisky and hair treatment products.

Lets hope that the difference between Real Progressive Politics and Cameron’s Progressive Pickle will be as easily spotted so we can wash that man right out of our hair.

(hat tip to that excellent book ‘Almost Like a Whale: the Origin of Species updated ’ by Steve Jones for the Johnny Washee gem - se P 110).

Bloody September

2009-09-01T16:20:00.001+01:00

In many ways the Second World War lasted longer than our standard –UK-centred dating suggests. From 1937 to perhaps 1952. Or maybe the ‘World War’ was actually shorter than the European phase?

If you count continuous conflict involving core belligerents, the war stared in July 1937 when Japan attacked China. The slide to European participation came with the annexation of part of Lithuania by Nazi Germany in January 1939 and the Hitler-Stalin pact which regulated the partition of middle Europe between the major dictatorships.

Britain conventionally dates the Second World War from 3 September, when Our Empire declared war on Nazi Germany following the 1 September invasion of Poland.
Globalisation of the conflict, it might be argued, dates from the German attack on its partitioning partner USSR in June 1941. The attack in December 1941 by Japan on the European colonies in Asia, and on the USA, knitted in the ongoing Asian conflict with the European. Fighting consequent to the major phase of the war continued after the surrender of Germany and Japan, ceasing in east Europe in 1952 when armed resistance to the imposition of the Soviet system finally ceased.

Another way of looking at this is that a huge European Civil War lasted from 1914 to 1991, from the conventional First WW opening through to the liquidation of the occupation structure imposed by the USSR on east Europe. The ‘2nd WW’ was the second phase of intense hostilities in this process…

Whether as a beginning in its own right or as a major escalation September 1939 remains a terrifying dark moment of despair…

It is up to us to bear the pains of the truth of War

2009-07-30T14:10:00.003+01:00

They say that when your parents die, you realise with shocking clarity that the roof is finally off the house of your life and it is up to you provide all the security for what you love.

The funeral today of Henry Allingham, and the upcoming funeral of Harry Patch, mark the point where we have no more witnesses to the obscene slaughters of the first part of the Great European Civil War of 1914-1990
That was my grandparents generation. My dad (already dead) a veteran of the 1939-1945 period of hot combat, could at the end of his life still be aroused to blind fury by accounts of what happened to his parents generation. I recall him talking about Passchendale and declaring ‘we should have shot our own generals there not the Germans’.

I doubt though whether he was aware of the line from the Internationale that the authorities would know

bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux

Now it is up to us, my generation which will soon pass as well, and those younger, to do a better and more peaceful job of dealing with the serious idiocies of war and what it does to the people who we may still send out to fight.

Starting with making sure that the Iraq war Enquiry is a servant to truth not political sensibilities, let the roof fall where it may.

And that we do not fall into the ‘they must not have died in vain’ trap in Afghanistan, pushing in more troops regardless of any realistic military or political objectives, or national interests .

And that we do not let the ramshackle instruments of co-operation that we have in the European Union get sabotaged by nostalgics for the hatreds of the great Civil War.

Alternatives to warehousing older people - an ongoing debate

2009-07-29T15:13:00.002+01:00

One of the first decisions made by the LibDems when we took over Milton Keynes Council in 2002 was to support the development of an ‘extracare’ retirement village – an alternative to the traditional ‘care homes’ for older people. Now this very development is the centrepiece of a six-part BBC TV programme ‘Silverville’, the first episode going out on Wednesday 29 July at 10.45pm on BBC ONE

Have a look and decide whether you think this kind of ‘retirement village’ is what we should be encouraging more generally in the UK. Were we right to back this initiative?

The programme is a co-production with the Open University and the OU has prepared some backup material – see the silverville website for details. You can get a free OU booklet that sets out the options available to people approaching their retirement years. Call 0845 366 8008 or visit www.open2.net to order a copy.

If you want information on the organisation ‘extracare ’ (Including the location of other villages of this type across the UK) take a look at this link.

You might also like to take part in an OU survey on ‘care, health, accommodation and many other issues associated with ageing.’

The aim of the survey is to investigate how much is understood about services available and how they are accessed. Whether a carer or being cared for, economic factors and forward planning are key determinants of what is available and at what cost. Knowing how to make plans and where to seek advice and assistance are crucial to obtaining the best from the services.
The responses will be used by Open University researchers to map out the current “state-of-play” between perceptions and reality of life for older people in the UK.
The survey outcomes will contribute to current consultations on the future shape of the care and support system in England.

The survey can be found at www.open2.net/caresurvey/index.html

Sheila Peace, Professor of Gerontology with The Open University, is leading the research and says: “We are living at a time when we all need to address the big question over how as a nation we provide a life of quality for older people. Society will need to find new ways of caring for and supporting older people. Living arrangements will continue to change and the environment in which people grow older can be particularly important to how people feel about themselves. Different types of accommodation may provide solutions for particular groups of people but lifestyle changes need to be set within a wider discussion which the responses to the survey will help provide.”
OU press release 17 July 2009

This theme will be a hot political issue in the coming decade. The OU is to be congratulated for this public information initiative that could enrich and focus our political life in all parties.

Cuts, squeezes and the Latvian litmus paper for ourselves.

2009-07-24T14:26:00.004+01:00

The Latvian mess continues to rumble on, with lessons perhaps even for stronger economies, such as our own. Something to ponder as our party looks at our spending commitments and decides what we can afford to promise...

A central point is the political will to carry through policies, and the way the EU is being 'played off' against the IMF by countries in severe difficulties. See the latest (23 July) AFOE story by Edward Hugh

what the IMF are evidently worried about is the possibility that some (Latvian government) coalition members may support the agreed measures just long enough to get the payout, and then effectively disown them. This seems to be a far cry from the substantial political commitment that was earlier considered to be so essential to maintaining the peg.

And the issue goes well beyond Latvia, since as Apps points out, a string of other countries are in a similar if currently marginally better condition, including Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuanis and Hungary, all busily making cuts while coming to rely more and more on multilateral lenders.

So if there is no clear resolution to Latvia’s growing dispute with the IMF, the European Union could end up facing a dilemma - whether to bail out troubled emerging European countries who won’t make cuts or face the consequences of not doing so. As Lars Christensen, head of emerging markets research at Danske Bank in Copenhagen says:

“This could be a test case for Europe….In Latvia, it’s domestic politics that really become the driver. The question is what the EU would do if the IMF walks away.”

A good question.

And what about our own domestic politics?

The first real National Crisis in recession Europe ?

2009-07-22T14:08:00.005+01:00

By Friday Latvia may go bust unless the IMF agrees to certain levels of support. This would have a serious knock-on effect right across the European Union.

For some sobering background to all this see the postings on 'A Fistful of Euros' blog from Edward Hughes. Such as this one on the European Community memorandum muddling the IMF approach.

The (European Community) document also stipulates that the government will have to report every month on all key aspects of spending and revenue, including providing a breakdown for each ministry as well as for local governments. These performance criteria, given the now near total dependence of the country on external support - de facto, as a sovereign state Latvia has effectively ceased (at least temporarily) to exist, some 19 years or so after its foundation - are not surprising in and of themselves, but it could have been hope that the country would have been better served in terms of the kind of advice which is being offered

With the IMF and the EU in a rift on this we can expect more confusion to come

One of the IMF demands is that Latvia end its 'Flat Tax' system in order to generate more revenue. As this posting shows, Latvians are very versatile evaders of existing tax rules (a hangover from Soviet days when it was a patriotic duty to bilk the government).

What will our MEPs do on this matter?

Helicopters, heat and Afghanistan

2009-07-14T16:40:00.007+01:00

What is all the fuss about helicopters in Afghanistan? Well for one thing the hugely expensive British-made Lynx helicopters can't fly in a hot climate at high altitude. Basic physics about warmer air ... a distressing number of British built helicopters can only hover at sea level in temperate latitudes.

Some good references on all this on a blog called 'Defence of the Realm' which I've just found.

We reported in detail on the unhappy experiences of the Lynx in April 2007, when we had discovered that, not only were the baseline costs per hour of operating Lynx Mk7s a staggering £23,000 but, because of its inherent fragility, additional costs were being incurred. These were, "as a result of the operational use and particular climatic conditions experienced in theatre." We wrote at that time:

These costs cover additional wear and tear, additional spares and additional equipment and are paid for by the Conflict Prevention Fund. A total of £11 million has been claimed against the fund in financial year 2006-07 for additional operating and capital costs for Lynx Mk7s operating in Iraq, of which six are believed to be in service.

At that time, we also discovered that, in order to deal with the "hot and high" conditions for its deployments in Belize and Brunei, the Army had leased Bell 412s, aircraft based on the Vietnam-era Huey. The type had been selected specifically because its "unique abilities include flying in hot and often humid conditions whilst also being able to carry considerable loads." That includes the ability to lift up to 13 troops.

However the blog also analyses the claim that the recent casualties are the result of inadequate suppy of helicopters and challenges the argument being put forwards by opposition MPs. Not necessarily so....

The Conservatives' line is to accuse Brown of attempting to cover up the fact that British troops do not have enough helicopters, which has forced them to travel by road and left them vulnerable to the Taleban's IEDs. Twelve of the 15 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan this month, and three-quarters of those killed over the past two years, were killed by IEDs.
Far be it for us to disagree with the premise that more helicopters are needed in theatre, but Dr Fox is on somewhat shaky ground if he is asserting – as he appears to be doing – that the bulk of the recent deaths arose from the lack of helicopters.

And they go on to make a detailed argument challenging this, accusing the Tories of grandstanding and hot air production in their own right.

I trust our MPs such as Lynne Featherstone are being kept informed of this line of analysis.

The Lynx by the way is built at Westlands, which is in a LibDem held constituency.

Anyone got a line on who is running the 'Defence of the Realm' blog by the way?

Still weekly, now even Greener

2009-07-13T16:31:00.001+01:00

One of the things we discovered this week, through worried e-mails from residents, is that some people actually moved to Milton Keynes because we still have weekly rubbish collections. They feared that Milton Keynes (‘such a clean place’) would deteriorate…Yes the fortnightly collection question still simmers on…

Why were they worried? Well the new MK weekly food waste collection system has started rolling out in my patch. So many people got new green bins, and some though this was an undercover step to move to different collection weeks for different bins. Not so. Weekly collections stay for recyclable paper and plastic (pink sacks) glass (blue boxes) unrecyclable packaging junk (black sacks) and now garden waste and food waste combined (green bins or green sacks).

The new collection option means that things like the stale bread, banana peels, bad eggs, spoiled meat, burnt porridge, onion peelings, used teabags, scrapings from dinner plates and so on that used to go into the black ‘landfill bound’ sacks are now taken away to be processed into agricultural compost.

The first collection cycle was last week for me, and I was amazed how much food waste one person could generate and how much smaller the black sack was.

How are things for you in your area?

The Curse of Job and blogging

2009-06-27T13:04:00.005+01:00

The Book of Job makes a pithy point on the theme raised by Charlote Gore:

"Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book."

I suspect that Job would pray that his adversdary had a blog, if such a thing had occured to him. If you are someones adversary and also Vince Cable, writing a book is likely to be of little comfort to their hostile researches. For the rest of us there are potential goldmines to exploit.

Congressional Quarterly in the USA is exploring a similar theme, noting the devastating effects of unwary facebook disclosures in campaigns now unrolling. (facebook: opposition research dream come true. CQ 26 June 2009)

It quotes one research company

“It’s a godsend for us,” said Jason Stanford, president of Stanford Research. “Most times you have to get someone’s enemies to give you an embarrassing photo. Now, candidates themselves are posting them on the Internet ....There’s a way to live your life publicly but not stupidly and the Internet generation is late to the discretion party,” Stanford said.

I suspect that the same may be true of adventurous blog posts.

(It is Job 31:34 if you are scrabbling for the exact reference).

It is OPEN on Saturday. All welcome

2009-06-25T15:13:00.004+01:00

The Open University is 40! And if are near Milton Keynes you can help celebrate on campus this Saturday at the Open Unlimited day. Just turn up and take part... including tasting the famous Open University Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream.

Description of the events is here...

Sample events:

On the criminal justice system:
Stop and Search
On a dark evening Jonny Richards was stopped by police and asked to empty out his pockets. Now he is charged with going equipped for burglary. But is he guilty? You decide. Our 20 minute reconstruction of a magistrates’ court case gives an insight into the workings of the legal system.
Magistrates Information
Magistrates deal with 95% of all crime that comes through the courts – only the most serious 5% go to the Crown Court. There are about 150 magistrates working in Milton Keynes.
On accessibility:
Knowledge Media Institute
Find out more about the OU’s Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) its work in designing technologies to enable disabled students to participate in field research and enabling OU downloads from iTunes (iTunes U) and many more innovative projects.
On shaking that botty
Connect to the Drums
The Music Computing group in the MCT Faculty will be demonstrating a haptic drum kit. This enables a drummer to feel the music. So come and feel the music!

It is possible I might be in the library sometime that day, if I survive the drums.

Interactive campus map here.

The Bercow effect The new hole in the heart of central England politics

2009-06-23T15:46:00.005+01:00

So what are the on-the-ground effects of Mr Speaker Berkow removing Buckingham constituency from normal Parliamentary competition? By convention there will be no LibDem or Labour General Election candidates and of course no Tory ones also. What effect will this have on politics in that area and on neighbouring areas? Bercow could be Speaker for several general elections, given his youth, so this could be a generational influence in terms of local politics.

Will Parliamentary level activity atrophy here and if so will it affect parties in different ways? How will the local government fights be affected? What about recruitment and retention of activists? Will the various established parties be able to recruit flying squads to go to nearby target seats and if so on balance which parties are likely to benefit most? Should we respond in party terms if UKIP or the BNP or the Greens (for example) ignore the ‘convention’ and contest the seat with real resources?

In Party terms this area is right on the edge of South-Central region so we may need to evolve action plans co-ordinating support work in several LibDem regions.

Where it is: Buckingham constituency takes up the northern tip of Buckinghamshire County. The present constituency is the basically the whole of Aylesbury Vale District Council EXCEPT for the city wards in Aylesbury. The southernmost townships are at present Long Crendon and Haddenham and after the boundary changes noted below Princes Riseborough takes over southernmost spot.

There are some boundary changes upcoming for the next General Election. One will correct anomalies, putting the whole of Coldharbour Ward (Aylesbury) and the whole of Aston Clinton ward into Aylesbury Constituency: they are at present each spilt in two between Aylesbury and Buckingham. Quarendon ward will also shift to Aylesbury so will have a ‘proper’ MP again after the election. On the other hand Icknield ward and The Riseboroughs ward of Wycombe District transfer from Aylesbury to Buckingham and so lose their proper MP coverage.

Aylesbury Vale (a district the LibDems have controlled in the recent past) will therefore have a split political personality.

The new Constituencies neighbouring Buckingham (from north tip clockwise):

South Northamptonshire
Milton Keynes North
Milton Keynes South
Mid-Bedfordshire
South-West Bedfordshire
South-West Hertfordshire
Aylesbury
Henley
Banbury

And of course in easy reach are the Northampton and Oxford constituencies.

In the short term the two MK constituencies are in theory both marginal and will undoubtedly be Tory target seats come the election, so I suspect that in the next year the main effect of Buckingham not being contested properly will be an increase in outside Tory help here.

A Guardian opportunity to annotate Those Claims and avoid the oboe-player joke

2009-06-19T11:56:00.005+01:00

The Guardian is linking up all the MPs expenses claims and receipts to a special tool which allows web users to highlight and comment on each and every page of claims and receipts. They ask us to ferret out points that need further investigation. This of course also gives MPs or their staff the opportunity to access the same online tool and add notes to any page so that obscure entries are clarified.

Having glanced through several entries from MPs of all parties I would say such annotation is very much needed, and that is assuming everything is completely above board. Especially needed where the inept blacking out simply leaves us with no clue as to what the claim was for.

So what about it for our MPs? After all if we had a proper publication of proper accounts there would be notes to various items putting them into context - standard accounting practice.

The masking out really is a stupid nuisance. The effect is rather like the story of the music reviewer who wrote of one orchestral performance

'The Oboe player spent the whole evening gazing at his navel'

The sub-editors objected, saying it was a crude line please change it.

So the reviewer did and it was printed as:

'The oboe player spent the whole evening gazing at his *****'

Not quite the effect intended.

The SF phantoms at the expenses trough

2009-06-18T20:42:00.002+01:00

Lots of fuss on the blacking out of parts of MPs expenses claims, including addresses of ‘second homes’.

Some MPs say this is necessary for their personal security, and this might just be the case for one or two of them, such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Knowing exactly where they live in London could be useful information for violent idiots.

Living in London of course when they have (in the words of the official legal declaration they both signed) to ‘stay overnight from my only or main home for the purposes of performing my duties as a Member of Parliament’.

Oh wait, Sinn Fein MPs Adams and McGuinness have never taken the oath as MPs and have never attended Parliament for a second since they were elected. Nor have the other three Sinn Fein MPs.

McGuinness claims a rent of 1800 quid a month and Adams a rent of 1800 quid a month. This is apparently for the same flat in London, a fair rent for which would apparently be 1400 quid a month for the whole property.

All five Sinn Fein MPs pay rent to the same landlord in North London.

Slugger O’Toole is on the case as this posting from way back in May 2009 shows, and this for 18th June.

This is a bit more incendiary than a duckhouse, surely.

Iran - the Armenian example is not hopeful

2009-06-17T13:07:00.003+01:00

All sorts of conflicting theories about events in Iran and what might be happening.

Basically there are similarities to what happened in Armenia in March 2008 when the incumbent President Serzh Sarkisian blatantly stole an election and remained in power because the authorities were willing to mow down protesters in the streets. Armenia and Iran are neighbours and have very good relations - Sarkisian and Ahmedinejad 'work well' together. There is a large Armenian minority in Iran which has substantial priviledges.

Over in A Fistful of Euros Douglas Muir paints a sombre picture. The shades of Tien An Men seem likely for Iran.

Hoping that the green Proetsers succeeed but not optimistic

Hooray - But Trident costs only start of urgent debate that we need

2009-06-17T10:30:00.004+01:00

It is good news that Nick Clegg is moving onto a more realistic position on ‘Trident’.
I support the slightly qualified pleasure Lindy blogs to this news. Yes we MUST have a full debate at the next Federal Conference. Our present voted-on policy is not a fudge, it is an acid drop.

‘Trident’ (the missile system) is only a minor part of the problem we face and we need to look at these wider issues if we as a party are to regain full coherence on this issue. Pushing Trident as the issue is in a way a smokescreen hiding the real problems.

On the question of costs we must demand a proper financial statement of the overall ‘nuclear weapons’ policy. The Armed Forces insist that huge chunks of the current Nuclear Weapons costs never appear in the Defence Estimates, but are scattered over several other budgets. Claims that this extra expenditure amounts to several thousand million pounds over the last decade need to be investigated. If substantiated, the sums should be publicly admitted and placed before the public as evidence in debates on the cost of the deterrent. As costs which might be cut if certain decisions are made. Just scrapping the Trident missile will not bring is real savings, if hard choice cost savings are the driving impulse for a review.

Back in July 2008 some of our MPs signed an open letter on nuclear warhead replacement. I have blogged at boring length on all this over the years, but to summarise many of my comments from my posting on that initiative:

We should for example:
1 Look at the way the debates on this are put into ‘defining frames’ that shut out important questions and make sure we bring in some neglected frames and themes. Please, no more tribal ‘unilateralist or not’ hot-button posturing.
2 Insist that the whole question of expenditures on AWRE Aldermaston is put in the public domain, at least to equal the public accountability enforced on equivalent establishments in the USA.
3 Insist on a complete review of the way all our weapons procurement policies are managed especially on whether purchasing decision are made to subsidise industries rather than to meet vital defence needs.
4 Make clear the connections between the procurement mess and the corruption allegations about the dealings of BAe and certain foreign customers.
5 Examine the evolution of new non-nuclear high-destruction weapons that may make nuclear devices an expensive obsolescence in the next couple of decades.
6 Above all, insist on a clear strategy for armed forces evolution and for equipping our forces actually to do the jobs we say they must.

Nick Harvey’s February 2007 blog from before the last Federal Conference debate has some points on the issue that I raised, but were not as far as I can see answered. Also some points on a Nick Harvey led discussion in LibDem Voice (February 26th 2007). Looking back at these official party positions now makes it clearer than ever that we need a full debate at upcoming Federal Conference 2009

(Just to remind ourselves that the Non-Proliferation Treaty comes up for re-negotiation in 2010. Almost certainly now an election year in the UK. So nuclear stances could be live political themes for once…)

I put this forwards as a policy line in the February 2007 discussions:

If we are to go into NPT negotiations in good faith and with the intention of actually getting results, we need to be able to show the world:
1 What the UK nuclear weapons system actually means in terms of financial costs and defence opportunity costs.
2 Give an awful warning to other states – ‘if you go down the nuclear road this is the kind of burden you will take up’.
3 Show other states that we know that disarmament measures would mean for us, have thought them through, and are politically capable of taking on the vested interests in the status quo (industrial and military and Freudian) should international agreements require us to do so.

This party has rightly taken a strong line on Civil Nuclear Power issues, and in particular on the disgraceful attempts of the current Government to ‘fake’ consultation processes. We need to take an equally strong line on the current attempt to ‘fake’ a debate on the nuclear future of the UK.

Now that Nick Clegg has shifted his position, we need to move urgently to tackle these themes. Yes we should have done this a few years ago… but better late than never

Just so I can keep track of previous posts, some links:

The Nuclear Weapons dance goes on (July 2008)

Nukes: Chris has it (nearly) magnificently right (Nov 2007) (this has a slightly polemic content now outdated but some core stuff I hold to)

Like it or not, defence policy must be debated again (Oct 2007)

Astute: the ongoing nuclear navy issue (and the BAe row) (June 2007)

Getting at the real costs of so-called Trident (February 2007)

Is ‘Trident’ a deliberate diversion from the real nuclear debate? (January 2007)

Trident, new weapons, and intelligence (December 2006)

Vanguard: the complexity or framing debate on ‘Trident’ (December 2006)

Nuclear independence and realities (December 2006)

Woman as judges - and the importance of more women in power

2009-06-12T11:19:00.003+01:00

Women have to imagine what it is like to be a man every day of their lives. Many men recoil from the idea of really imagining what it is like to be a woman.

The uproar over 'wise Latina' comments made by US Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor rumbles on. One posting by Dahlia Lithwick in SLATE looks at the work of LSE anthropologist David Graeber which she says thows a strong light on the isses here, and suggest that women in the judiciary may indeed, by virtue of their experience of being women, be better trained to be judges than men are.

Graeber says:

A constant staple of 1950s situation comedies, in America, were jokes about the impossibility of understanding women. The jokes of course were always told by men. Women's logic was always being treated as alien and incomprehensible. One never had the impression, on the other hand, that women had much trouble understanding the men. That's because the women had no choice but to understand men.

And Graeber cites concrete rearch on gender differences in perception:

Faced with the prospect of even trying to imagine a women's perspective, many recoil in horror. In the US, one popular trick among High School creative writing teachers is to assign students to write an essay imagining that they were to switch genders, and describe what it would be like to live for one day as a member of the opposite sex. The results are almost always exactly the same: all the girls in class write long and detailed essays demonstrating that they have spent a great deal of time thinking about such questions; roughly half the boys refuse to write the essay entirely. Almost invariably they express profound resentment about having to imagine what it might be like to be a woman.

The job of a judge is to take competing arguments and make a fair evaluation between them. Like a woman is trained to do by necessity.

Speaking as a man I recognise some of this underlying dynamic. It is why I am really keen to get more women into positions of power, to the extent that I back women for office unless I get a good reason not to.

But this data is of some years gone by. Do our younger people think there is a difference experience today?

Graeber, David (2006) (the Malinowski Lecture): "Beyond power/knowledge: an exploration of the relationship of power, ignorance and stupidity". I suspect that people who do casework will have jolts of recognition at some of his stories of the individuals crushed in the tramlines of bureacracy, public and private. Note his Wikipedia entry for hints of his wider political links.

A gentler place across the river

2009-06-11T12:05:00.003+01:00

Uzupis is the artistic quarter in Vilnius, which calls itself an independent republic. National Day April the first. The Constitution lays out a series of rights and reading these are a welcome distraction into humanity after our forced attention to the hate files if the BNP over here. And do enjoy this video clip if you can...

Some of the articles look rather liberal actually.

Constitution

Everyone has the right to live by the River Vilnelė, while the River Vilnelė has the right to flow by everyone.
Everyone has the right to hot water, heating in winter and a tiled roof.
Everyone has the right to die, but it is not a duty.
Everyone has the right to make mistakes.
Everyone has the right to individuality.
Everyone has the right to love.
Everyone has the right to be not loved, but not necessarily.
Everyone has the right not to be distinguished and famous.
Everyone has the right to be idle.
Everyone has the right to love and take care of a cat.
Everyone has the right to look after a dog till one or the other dies.
A dog has the right to be a dog.
A cat is not obliged to love its master, but it must help him in difficult times.
Everyone has the right to sometimes be unaware of his duties.
Everyone has the right to be in doubt, but this is not a duty.
Everyone has the right to be happy.
Everyone has the right to be unhappy.
Everyone has the right to be silent.
Everyone has the right to have faith.
No one has the right to violence.
Everyone has the right to realize his negligibility and magnificence.
Everyone has the right to encroach upon eternity.
Everyone has the right to understand.
Everyone has the right to understand nothing.
Everyone has the right to be of various nationalities.
Everyone has the right to celebrate or not to celebrate his birthday.
Everyone shall remember his name.
Everyone may share what he possesses.
No-one can share what he does not possess.
Everyone has the right to have brothers, sisters and parents.
Everyone is capable of independence.
Everyone is responsible for his freedom.
Everyone has the right to cry.
Everyone has the right to be misunderstood.
No-one has the right to make another person guilty.
Everyone has the right to be personal.
Everyone has the right to have no rights.
Everyone has the right to not be afraid.
Do not defeat.
Do not fight back.
Do not surrender.

Clegg takes on Toynbee

2009-06-11T11:11:00.003+01:00

Nick Clegg is in an 11 June video interview conducted by Polly Toynbee. From the body language Nick is in combatitive form.

The comments from 'readers' talk about a real exchange of views and a breath of fresh air.

Of course no subtitles enabled on this Guardian video and no sight of a transcript so I await LibDem comments giving some idea of the content. As ever new multi-media is sometimes unkind to deaf people.

I do know one of Polly's questions was along the lines of "Isn't your problem that you are too right wing?".

How the votes are distributed in d'hondt

2009-06-09T13:00:00.005+01:00

Looking at how the system actually works on real data - and it is clear what a narrow squeak it was in the Southeast of England with our second seat. We came very close to a Tory gain from us. Doing some calculations with a higher vote share for us shows we would need to raise our vote by nearly 60% to get an extra seat if other parties stayed stable.

Table shows the calculation. Method: top line is actual votes cast for each party that got a seat. Second line of table is this actual vote divided by two. Third line is the original actual vote divided by three. And so on. There are ten seats in Southeast England so we need to list out the ten highest numers in this table. That gives the seats allocation.

Still a lottery for tonights counts

2009-06-07T10:03:00.001+01:00

The basic thing to remember about First Past The Post is that it is a ‘party list system’ with the number on the list limited to one. The crude and rigid proportional system we enjoy for the Euro elections has a serious defect. When it comes to determining the last seat, one competitive name left on each list, it becomes in effect ‘first past the post’ with the winner being the party ahead relative to the others. By this stage normally nobody will have a full quota of votes so it will be the residues that decide it.

Something to remember if we are biting our nails as to whether one of our champions gets the last seat going in any electoral area. If there is a lot of scattering of votes including solid but not spectacular success ‘minor’ parties not quite making up a quota it could become as much of a lottery as a multi-competitive Westminster seat.

The last seat in a larger region could go to a party with a pretty low level of support.

Of course this could be mitigated if we had a transferable system…

Our eleven victors in Central Bedfordshire

2009-06-05T13:13:00.000+01:00

One of the frustrating things about the ‘standard’ election results in the media is that we cant get a picture of how the distribution breaks down by wards.

Congratulations to the new Central Bedfordshire UA for getting the full results up on the web promptly so election anoraks can dig away..

As far as I can see our winners are:

Ampthill; Gary Summerfield elected top of the poll in a two-member ward with 971 votes. Second was a Tory with 855 votes. Our second LD candidate was 6th with 418, a pair of Independents disturbing the field..

Barton: Tony Northwood and Janet Dunn topped the poll in a two-member ward.

Houghton Regis: Susan Goodchild, Rita Egan, David Jones and Peter Williams all elected in a four-member Ward.

Sandy: Peter Blaine and Nigel Aldiss in a two-member Ward

Silsoe and Shillingham: Alison Graham elected second in a two-member ward with 1226 voted behind a Tory with 1503. Our other candidate was fourth behind the other Tory.

Southcott: Peter Snelling elected second in a two-member ward with 858 votes behind a Tory with 986. Our other candidate was fourth behind the other Tory.

And that’s it. Any local analysis to flesh out these figures?

Small steps in great matters

2009-06-04T04:40:00.001+01:00

One of the lessons I picked up from my parents life experiences is that if you don’t take a interest in what is going on around you, other people will make the decisions for you. And you may not like the result. So at 4am preparing for a Good Morning drop I remember Belsen (My Dad was one of the Liberators) and my mothers resistance unit blowing up the tracks of a railway in Nazi-occupied Lithuania so that the men in the train (who the Nazis wanted to form into SS Units) could escape into the forest. I remember my Dad landing in Normandy in the second wave of D-Day and how emotional he was when his only grandson was born on June 6^th so many years later. Life on a day which had a memory of immense fear.

Delivering Good Mornings along the Ampthill Road in Bedford is a tiny thing but I am warmed by the thought I am supporting the Party least like either the Nazis or the Communists –both of which have a fundamental contempt for the individual as a free person of unique value. And as for Europe - I am proud to be a supporter of the Party upholding the immense changes for the good in our continent since my parents had to make their life decisions as young people.

And thanks to all of you out there doing your own tiny things.

Around Europe - how parties might fare country by country

2009-06-03T09:52:00.002+01:00

OK so nobody should take opinion polls as gospel. But this site which tries to analyse how the Euro-Election results will pan out across Europe has some interesting insights. In our UK Parish it suggests we are up to gain one seat (presumably in London) which matches our more realistically optimistic thoughts. Lest hope we can beat teh predictions though!

Elsewhere ALDE parties face a bit of a white water ride, some delegations (as in Germany) projected to increase, others to be wiped out entirely. In Poland for example the ALDE party in the last Parliament seems simply not to be standing this time, so goodbye four seats. The Dutch delegation may see one ALDE party (VVD) drop a seat and another (D66) gain. Which since VVD showed up in the Match Your Vote tests as one of the parties I would least likely vote for if I was a Dutchman is a bit pleasing for me.

See here for a country by country analysis.

On the Tories search for an Euro nest foul enough to attract them it looks like they will at least be spared the embarrassment of association with Tevzemei un Brivibai as that Latvian party is schedule to collapse and lose both its seats. On the other hand a couple of new embarrassingly awful Belgian parties may squeeze in and seek to embrace the Tories.

Compulsory vaccination and the national emergency state

2009-06-03T09:35:00.003+01:00

As measles once more becomes a real threat in Britain, calls to make MMR vaccinations compulsory are to come before the BMA for debate.

Liberals I am sure will be instinctively wary of such a move, which would be backed by sanctions such as exclusion from school for unvaccinated children and possibly loss of benefits for parents.

We do need to tackle the problems of assuring ‘herd immunity’ in a society of individuals. I suspect we will be unhappy at the compulsion approach though.

There is a history to this kind of move. For example, when I went up to University in 1967 all entrants were screened for TB with X-Ray vans on campus for registration week, and nobody could take up a place without proving either immunity or vaccination status.

Looking elsewhere, there is a passage in the wonderful book by Lewis Thomas (about the changes in medical practice during his long career as an immunologist) discussing the draconian powers of the New York City Quarantine Board. When Thomas served on that board in the 1970’s (I think) it could declare a medical emergency and order people to be isolated, more or less internment without trial or appeal. The most heartbreaking part involved the regulations on Children. If a child was found to have diphtheria for example not only would it be isolated with very limited contact with other people, but all its toys would be destroyed.

As Swine Flu puts our current attitudes and practices to the test perhaps Liberals need to think how best to approach the pressures for collective sanctions on individual sick people, which is what such programmes effectively involve.

Book reference: Lewis Thomas ‘The Youngest Science notes of a medicine watcher’. Seriously, if you have a chance, do have a look at this moving and deeply humane book which, with its profound love and respect for people as individuals, is a testimony to real Liberalism as well as the scientific life.

Autumn the season of mists, elections and flu outbreaks?

2009-06-01T10:37:00.001+01:00

More pressure for an Autumn election in the press and elsewhere. But another possible Autumn story may have an impact on that. So far we have not had great outbreaks of H1N1 ‘swine flu’. But cases are increasing slowly and the pre-conditions for a pandemic wave definitely exist. One persuasive epidemiological model suggest that H1N1 will rumble along at a nuisance level over the summer, inhibited in part if we have a summer outdoors in the sun. However when schools and universities and general workplaces start up again in September and October, H1N1 will be at a stage where it could proliferate very quickly and in a serious form.

And the impact? For starter this could lead to the cancellation of the national Party Conferences.

What would be the effect of fighting a General Election in the middle of a pandemic, where public meetings could be banned, people would be highly resistant to opening their doors to canvassers, and election volunteers (and candidates even) falling sick?

Should we be giving some thought to this possibility?

Famously, the 1991 General Election was postponed because Foot and Mouth disease was raging during the originally planned election period.

We may again find it an advantage not to have fixed term Parliaments..

ALDE and debates elsewhere on the Continental elections

2009-06-01T10:09:00.002+01:00

In all our local excitements on expenses and so on, we sometimes forget that the LibDems are fighting the EuroElections as part of an International grouping, ALDE. Some people are actually looking at the policy positions presented by ALDE and commenting. Take a look for example at this comment on energy policies.

The Eurotrib site tends to equate Liberalism with neo-Liberal ‘market worship’ by the way, many contributors putting it in the same basket as the policies of the last US administration. The tone of some comments elsewhere can be gauged by another post on Eurotrib which says ‘when something is being pushed by an ALDE member using "competition" newspeak, I reflexively check my wallet to see if I'm being robbed.’

By the way are there any projections on how ALDE as a whole will emerge from this election?

Have you had your letter from Gordon yet?

2009-05-30T11:22:00.002+01:00

If Labour are indeed sending out an individual letter (post paid not FREEPOST) to every elector in the UK they are really burning up on the money.

Anyway G Brown says sorry for the unacceptable expenses mess 'on behalf of all parties'. He also says Labour HAVE suspended MPs who are suspected of wrongdoing. The news this last week has come thick and fast and I have to say what I heard is that some Labour MPs have decided to stand down and that the Labour disciplinary panel is reviewing some nominations for others. But no whip removals for example.

So is this an indication that actual forced suspensions are about to be announced, or does it mean that I have been too busy delivering leaflets to notice the details in the news? The way the letter reads makes the Labour reaction one of the more vigorous responses to events. Could this possibly be intended to influence how people vote in the coming week?

It might be helpful for the reputation of politics in general if the claim is accurate. Can someone check out the facts?

Rest of letter is on credit crunch issues and immigration. Have a look when it comes.

But where did they find the money?

How happy are the Tory Troops over Cameron Power speech?

2009-05-27T08:16:00.002+01:00

I was outside the building where a certain D Cameron gave his so-called Power speech – this was in the Open University Library and I turned up in all innocence to access the Library not knowing it had been privately booked*. With car parks taped off, OU security everywhere and a fairly substantial police presence I knew something was up but my first thought was of a violent emergency, an impression not lessened as the Conservative audience was pouring out of the building like it was being evacuated.

They looked a bit grim to me, worried rather than excited. Not necessarily happy campers. That was my impression before I knew they had been listening to a Cameron speech rather than fleeing other kinds of troubles.

Conservatives may not necessarily be very happy about radical shake-ups.

(* I was much to busy delivering leaflets over the weekend for the very effective Bedford Unitary election push to notice and clues about Tory national movements. It is a great campaign to help if you are near Bedford and at a loose end over the next week..).

A banned book guerilla

2009-05-26T17:40:00.005+01:00

Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school? That question was raised* in an internet discussion forum by an US school student who circulated books banned in her school (such as 'The Catcher In the Rye'; 'The Canterbury Tales'; 'Animal Farm'; and 'Catch-22' **).

The original YAHOO query and some responses can be accessed here.

Wonder if I would have had the guts at her age?

*of course the inner cynic in me says no school could be as stupid as the one described here so is this all a bit of fiction to put US Catholic schools in a bad light? But assuming the existance of the school as described I hope there really is at least one student with this courage.

** some of the other books on the list I really should have read myself...

Voted, and what came with the ballot paper.

2009-05-21T15:35:00.005+01:00

The postal ballot paper came this morning (Thursday 21st) and is already (as of 12.30) back completed at Civic Offices. It is possible that the party is massively in the lead in the South-East Euro-Elections at this point. The long ballot paper looks quite tatty actually, black on yellow in this case, and the party symbols are rather similar looking blobs. The Tory Tree without the colour coding is frankly pathetic. Once you find it the Labour Rose looks like a rose if you really study it for a minute, but you have to find Labour first before you realise that the symbol is for Labour and of course it is The Labour so it is down amongst the Ts party-wise.

The Bird of Liberty does stand out from most of the others and may be a familiar enough sight to attract the eye for many to where our party is listed.

The plum positions of course for the donkey vote are BNP (top spot) and UKIP (bottom spot). UKIP symbol probably the most distinctive again.

For my bit of MK the ballot paper arrived in the same post as a LibDem Euro-election leaflet and a couple of days after a FOCUS went out with the Euro-Election back page. Another booster was that the news on TV as I opened the envelope was of the Gurkha decision (hurrah). Downer of course is that the other news on TV was of the Rennard resignation. Sad day to pick for such a move, the day when postal ballots arrive on doorsteps.

Also in the same post a letter from MK Council announcing the rollout of the new Green Waste collection arrangements. It is possible that some residents will recall this is the fruit of years of work by MK LibDems in control of the relevant cabinet positions.

Briefly Milton Keynes will now have weekly collections of:

1 General waste in black sacks
2 Recyclable dry waste in pink sacks
3 Domestic food waste in new tight-seal containers, which will deter rats when put out
4 Green garden waste in green wheely bins

The domestic food waste will be treated as a raw material for agricultural products.

Let's see how all that works out!

Oh and Ryan the cheque will be in the post this evening.

The credit crunch and the political credibility crunch

2009-05-16T10:32:00.003+01:00

One of the standard claims of an opposition party is that it will ‘Pay for budget priorities by eliminating wasteful expenditure’.

After the ‘events’ of the last week or so the idea that there is ‘wasteful expenditure’ out there to be cut looks quite persuasive. I suspect the general taxpayer needs no persuading. Who will the enraged public trust to identify and carry out such a financial purge though? The claims of Parliament in general to be an efficient monitor of expenditures is not necessarily credible at this time.

With massive tightening on public spending necessary as the credit crunch grinds on, this is the worse time possible for Parliament to be exposed as a regulatory incontinent. Better late than never though.

Or will the argument about poachers making efficient gamekeepers strike a chord?

At the very least as part of the credit crunch response, our political representatives have to renounce the greed-anointed morality of the Thatcher years.

Our general economic argument in the upcoming General Election (whenever that is) will face a huge degree of public cynicism, probably only exceeded by the derision coming up for the Tory semi-policies as floated so far.

However Vince Cable has already been making the case that we need massive reform of our Parliamentary procedures in order to bring in proper oversight of government and other expenditures. Parliamentary eunuchs is the phrase he uses.

What a bulwark and treasure he is.

Can we build on this ?

Around Europe economically and depressingly

2009-05-15T15:58:00.001+01:00

Stronger together and all that – so how are our European partners faring in these interesting economic times? These is an interesting series of postings coming up on A Fistful Of Euros on individual country performances, up so far are Italy, Estonia, Spain and Latvia.

Spain. GDP falls by an annualised 7.2% in first three months of 2009

Italy. GDP falls by an annualised 9.6% in first three months of 2009

Estonia. GDP falls by an annualised 15.6% in first three months of 2009

Latvia. GDP falls by an annualised 18% in first three months of 2009

Thoughtful reportage and unsettling graphs in all these reports. Wonder if our Cicero could put these, especially his beloved Estonia, into further context?

See also the general overview article by the same author ( Edward Hugh ) ‘Not all east European economies are the same’.

And our UK entry in this version of Eurovision is unlikely to be even as good as ‘nul points’….

Planes boots and military blood on the ground

2009-05-15T15:13:00.003+01:00

According to Stephen Grey in his book ‘Operation Snakebite’ Major Haston, the Deputy Chief of Staff for UK forces in Afghanistan was in 2007 repeatedly driven to buying spares for his troops’ equipment on the INTERNET using a credit card. (Grey pp130-131)

There is a list in the book of frightening logistics shortfalls.. for example a quarter of the new mastiff armoured vehicles being out of service at any one time because of a lack of cheap spare springs.

Not to mention simple design flaws in other UK armoured vehicles that, in Haston’s view makes their drivers and front-seat commanders
uniquely vulnerable to being killed by mine strikes. The continued use of such designs was barking mad..

So if we are not equiping our troops for operations in which they literally are getting killed today, what are we actually spending military money on?

At one time there was talk of Britain radically cutting its order for the Eurofighter but we now hear that we are to buy an unspecified number in the near future. This is presumably an addition to the 55 already in service and the 89 announced in 2004. . How much of the escalating cost over-runs on this aircraft could have been used to get front-line troops decent boots? To say nothing of the equipment they are routinely promised but not provided before going into action in today’s naggling wars.

The reports that the Typhoon has now been cleared ‘for a ground attack role’ in addition to its original specified roles is not comforting for those of us who remember how previous aircraft projects were compromised by attempting mission capability creep and consequent huge cost over-runs. In this case it will be interesting to see how the conflicting requirements of a high-level interceptor (Capability to accelerate up to a great height and operate in relatively thin air) match up to the technical need of an aircraft operating at near ground level. It is likely that we will see further escalations in costs.

The reports on the aircraft order as usual talk as much about the civilian jobs ‘saved’ as about the contribution or otherwise the aircraft could make to UK military range and capability.

Stephen Grey (2009) ‘Operation Snakebite: the explosive true story an Afghan desert siege’ Penguin Viking