Wednesday, December 03, 2014 

The candour deficit.

On Monday, Gordon Brown formally announced he would not be standing for re-election next May.  It was hardly a surprise, considering he rivals George Galloway in the rarely attending Westminster stakes, not that many other former prime ministers have knuckled down to life on the backbenches either.  With Brown leaving parliament and a whole host of other New Labour figures also heading for the exit, it pretty much signals the end of an era of politics which came to be defined by spin, media management, never-ending war (so no change there then) and whisper it, continuous growth.

For one suspects that regardless of how Brown is viewed now (indicative of the general tone is how a goddamned zombie comic portrays him in about the most sympathetic light of anything), history is likely to judge him far more kindly than it will either Blair or Cameron.  Jonathan Freedland fairly sums up why, and while you could argue that Blair and Brown are inseparable, as no doubt some of the accounts to be written shall, it remains the case Blair's failures were principally his own while Brown's were collective.  No one except the odd Cassandra said banking regulation should be tightened, nor warned they were becoming too big to fail.  Yes, Brown without doubt encouraged the City to let rip, to keep expanding, was pals with Fred Goodwin and so forth, but so would any other chancellor of the exchequer been.  The Conservatives it's worth remembering wanted to pare back regulation further.

Brown's departure will nonetheless leave us with those who love to emulate his worst traits while despising his best.  Each time George Osborne comes to the dispatch box for either the budget or the autumn statement, he morphs a little more into his supposed nemesis.  Each time he manages to confound those who said the deficit was going to be up, at least until you read the small print.  Each time he succeeds in finding a gimmick of some kind or another, usually one designed specifically to appeal to the middle-class, aspirational voters the Tories need to reject both UKIP and Labour if they are to ever win a majority again.  Each time he insists none of this would have been possible without the coalition's "long-term economic plan", a plan that has been altered radically from the one he presented in his first "emergency" budget.  And each time, he seems to get away with it, helped by a media obsessed by the very things he targets, and whose bias against Labour seems to only grow.

Osborne has after all failed miserably when judged on that first budget.  He promised a single parliament of pain, after which happy days would return.  Instead he's been forced into claiming everything's coming up Osborne despite how the country now won't be in surplus until 2018.  His big mistake, frontloading cuts in spending on infrastructure, choked off the slowing recovery and gave us two years of stagnation.  Even now, with Britain judged to be growing the fastest of any G7 economy, the quality of the jobs created is so poor and wages so low it's failing to bring in the income tax receipts necessary for borrowing to come down.  By rights, and if these were usual political times, all Labour should have to ask voters is whether they are better off than 5 years ago, and then sit back and wait for the inevitable.

Only they aren't, and if the coalition has succeeded in one area, it's in blaming Labour for the recession and everything since.  It was all the "spending, borrowing and welfare" that got us into this mess, not the most serious worldwide economic crisis since the great depression.  It doesn't matter that borrowing is now higher than it was under Labour, or indeed that the welfare bill remains stubbornly large despite the coalition's attempts to slash it, demonising the most vulnerable in the bargain, as those determined to err, do exactly what Osborne has done will never be trusted with the public finances again.  We are on the road to surplus, to prosperity.

Hidden away in the Office for Budget Responsibility's report is what it thinks of the cuts Osborne is proposing to get us there.  As they put it

The implied cuts in RDEL during the next Parliament would pose a significant challenge if they were confirmed as firm policy, one that would be all the greater if existing protections were maintained. But we do not believe that it would be appropriate for us to assume, ex ante, that these cuts would be inherently unachievable and make it our central forecast that this or a future Government would breach its stated spending limits if it chose and tried to implement them. But... we might need to include an ‘allowance for overspending’ in our forecasts, similar to the ‘allowance for shortfall’ that we currently incorporate to reflect likely underspending against DEL plans.

In other words, they're a fantasy.  All the obvious fat has already been sliced off.  Already it's resulted in this sort of situation in prisons.  Day to day spending on public services is projected to fall to 12.6% of GDP by 2019/2020.  Total public spending meanwhile as a proportion of GDP will fall to its lowest in 80 years.  As Rick says, were this to happen it wouldn't mean shrinking the state, but closing sections of it down.

Clearly, this isn't going to happen.  Osborne is many things, but suicidal isn't one of them.  He most likely will look to further cut benefits, as he says, only as we've seen doing it in practice is far harder than in theory.  He could slow the pace of reduction further, except Cameron has already promised tax cuts once the surplus utopia is achieved, and Osborne is set to force a vote in the new year on whether Labour will sign up to his plans.  That leaves only raising taxes, with VAT being the most appealing to a Tory who won't countenance putting up the top rate of income tax, as demonstrated by his swift removal of the 50p rate.

That's all for after the election though, when a Tory government or led coalition can do whatever it likes.  Trapping Labour just as Gordon Brown stitched up the Conservatives is Osborne's game now, even if it costs him money as the stamp duty cut will.  Nothing is too much for the aspiring classes, boosting the housing market once again just as it looks to be cooling.  It also helps those buying to let, and could have the perverse effect of making those about to exchange contracts think again now the £250,000 mark won't see the stamp duty to be paid leap.  Ed Balls was smart enough to say this was Osborne catching up with the idea of taxing expensive property more, just that it wasn't enough, as indeed it's not.  The best option would still be a complete revaluation of the council tax bands, only the howling about the proposed mansion tax would be nothing compared to the wailing should any politician dare to suggest those who have seen their home double or triple (or more) in value since 1993 should be contributing more to local services.  It also wouldn't reach the Westminster coffers, another reason it's not going to happen.

As for what further damage this approach will cause to politics once everyone realises they've been had again is anyone's guess. Only the Lib Dems came near to being frank in the 2010 campaign over the scale of the cuts that were to come, and it could be the same again this time.  What made Gordon Brown more than just a cunning, always out for political advantage strategist was he thought long-term also.  Without the funding poured into public services the cuts imposed so far would have been truly devastating; had we joined the Euro we'd facing the same problems as the rest of the Eurozone; had Brown and Alistair Darling not recapitalised the banks the chaos doesn't bear thinking about.  Osborne and Cameron by contrast have no long-term vision despite their "long-term plan".  Their approach has been to mortgage the future and use us as collateral.

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Monday, September 22, 2014 

All transitory.

Despite everything, I still felt a pang of disappointment on waking up on Friday morning.  I'd stayed up for the first results, Clackmannanshire, Shetland, Orkney, the first setting the pattern mostly to be repeated throughout the night: Yes had come close, but still not close enough.  For all my contempt for both campaigns, for the naivety, the scaremongering, the chauvinism, shallow nationalism and baleful bigotry, had I a vote I could only have crossed the yes box.  Given the choice between a state retaining a belief in solidarity, even if not with the neighbours south of the border, something akin to a social democracy, and the atomisation offered by all three Westminster parties? There is no choice.

True, the SNP weren't in reality offering anything like that.  Independence was always just a means to an end, with everything to be determined afterwards.  The idea Alex Salmond isn't an establishment politician is as much of a hoot as Nigel Farage presenting himself as the insurgent; it's how debased and safe our politics has become that both just about get away with it.  When it came down to it, the Yes campaign's failure to answer convincingly the most basic economic questions about an independent Scotland cost it.  The undecideds stripped from the polls simply made it look closer than it was.

We can't of course without further polls know exactly what it was that made the undecideds say no.  Were they always going to, was it last minute doubts, the Daily Record "vow", Gordon Brown's interventions (or the just as electrifying condemnation of the SNP from Vicki Greig for that matter), the warnings from businesses, the horror of making Salmond even more smug and self-assured?  All we do know is the commentariat made its mind up straight away.  Scotland might have said no, but no actually meant yes.  Moreover, despite the rest of us not having a vote, Scotland's no also meant yes to more devolution for rUK.

First though, let's not get too carried away with the 85% turnout.  Present a country with a yes or no choice on whether it remains part of a 300-year old union where every vote counts, and if turnout isn't approaching that level you've got severe problems.  More concerning ought to be how 25% of the electorate of Scotland's biggest city still couldn't be persuaded to make a decision either way.  Alternatively, it could be those 25% are the smartest people around, indifferent to the political weather and perfectly happy with their lot in life.  Perhaps they should be envied, rather than getting us dead inside political junkies why-oh-whying about how they can't be reached.

By the same token, only so much can be made about those who've spent the last year or so hoping against hope Yes would pull it off at the last.  Political movements are prone to collapsing the minute after the moment has passed; remember Occupy, or indeed any real organised opposition to austerity for that matter? Thought not.  When Martin Sorrell remarks on just how quiescent the young are, dulled he no doubt believes by the very promise his advertising offers, we ought to be taking notice.  The radical independence people are most likely to be this decade's Iraq war marchers: there for the extraordinary moment, and left bitter, angry and depressed at the failure to achieve their goal.  Nor is there much comfort to be taken from the level of debate: yes, more people than ever informed themselves via the internet and made their minds up that way; no, it didn't make up for the underlying tenor, the shouting down of the opposition, the all too frequent recourse to the language of betrayal and surrender, the never-ending torrent of shit thrown in all directions by more than just the usual suspects.

Equally, you can appreciate the irony of the London media, so often to be found either bemoaning Scotland or England both suddenly desperate for these septic isles to remain united, seemingly for subconscious atavistic reasons rather than out of any real affection, but it doesn't last long.  Not least when nationalism of one variety leads all but inevitably to the rise of its equivalents, understandable grievance followed by pitiful whinging.  Of all political bores, and let's face it, we're never the most engaging of folk, the most crushingly dull are the constitutionally fixated ones. England needs its own parliament like it needs two John Redwoods, West Lothian question aside.  The word devolution means whatever those clamouring for it say it does, and it's more power for them rather than true localism.  Time and again the public has made clear it has no interest in yet more politicians, whether it be through often rejecting mayors, the north-west assembly or most recently in the derisory turnouts for the police and crime commissioner elections, a creation no one asked for and no one wanted, and yet still a section of the media and the Westminster bubble thinks otherwise.

The dream might live on.  It's just the dream, as always, is transitory.

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9/22/2014 11:59:00 pm | | | links to this post

Tuesday, September 09, 2014 

Cometh the hour, cometh Brownman.

Every so often a political crisis comes along that just can't be solved by the usual, ordinary methods.  In such times, there is but one man you can turn to.  He can't be reached by phone, his real identity is known only to a select few, and there's no guarantee then he will help out, liable as he is to years of sulking and plotting.  Your best bet of attracting his attention is to ask Commissioner Gordon Hogan-Howe to illuminate the brown signal.  For he is, and will always be, The Brownman.

Yes, now recuperated from the exertion of saving the world from financial meltdown in 2008, Brownman is back to smash the Salmon(d)'s nefarious plot to break Scotland away from the United Kingdom!  Could Brownman this time have left it too late however?  Should he rather than the Boy Darling have led the battle against the Salmon(d)?  And what of the swirling rumours Brownman is only intervening due to the machinations of Two-Face Cameron and Poison Crosby?

Describing the actions of Better Together over the past couple of days as panic doesn't just do a disservice to those who suffer from anxiety attacks, oh no.  We're talking full on, head-just-been-cut-off, running around the farmyard with blood spraying everywhere type attacks of fear-induced mania.  It speaks volumes of the confidence of the no campaign that a single, solitary, within the margin of error, with don't knows stripped out poll giving Yes its first ever lead causes a quite staggering outbreak of oh my god what are we going to do we must do something anything and right now-itis.  These, remember, are politicians meant to be calm, collected and resolute in the face of any threat.  Menaced by the divisions of YouGov they've turned tail and ran straight for the high road.

Leaving it till now, both to use a figure who might make a better emotional case than Alistair Darling and to set out exactly what a no will mean in the form of further devolved powers is baffling, except when you know what a basket case the no campaign has long been.  They believed they could just go on saying no to everything Yes said they could do, and that would be enough.  No currency union, no EU membership, no deals, no friendship, no help, no chance of Scotland becoming Norway.  In fairness, the polls suggested this approach worked, except until the vote got so close you could start to feel it, more people began paying attention and Salmond played the if-you-hate-the-Tories-even-if-you-don't-know-why-vote-Yes card (PDF).

I've tried not to pay too much attention to the Scottish independence campaign for the reason that both sides equally depress, or rather infuriate me.  Generally in politics and as I've often tried to argue here, all involved are ghastly but there's usually one slightly better than the rest, even if the differences between them are almost imperceptible.  Yes peddles a fantasy vision of a Scotland freed from the perfidious English establishment, a country where the sun will always shine, the oil will perpetually flow and the welfare system will forever be more generous and fairer than its south-of-Berwick equivalent.  Sure, every so often either Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon will say they're not claiming independence will be a panacea or transform the nation overnight, but it usually comes after a very particular flight of fancy.  No by contrast paints a picture of a nation too wee, too poor, too stupid to go it alone, one where London knows best and to prove exactly that point will block any proposal, however modest, to give the Scottish people more say.  This is without getting into the petty grievances of both sides, the dead horses beaten daily, the phony differences played up by those who really, really ought to know better, the we're more Scottish than you attitudes on display by all concerned.

Just as sad is how otherwise intelligent people have been sucked in by this cavalcade of bullshit.  Some of those on the left backing independence really seem to believe this is the first step on the road to socialism in one country.  Never mind that the SNP is about as radical as those people wooing and cheering as Apple launches yet another slightly better iPhone than the last one, a party that as Shuggy says has not during its 7 years in power instituted a single redistributive policy, that Salmond is more than happy to pal up with those pinkos Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, as once the independence deal is done and dusted they can elect someone better.  Like whom?  The Greens?  A reinvigorated Scottish Labour party, suddenly receptive and open to policies they weren't when tied to the English party?  Or do they seriously think the tax cutting yet still somehow able to spend more SNP will turn from yellow to red?  The notion Scotland is more left-wing than the rest of the country doesn't stand up to any kind of real scrutiny; hating Thatcher and not voting for the Tories in the same proportion as us southerners have certainly doesn't equal the same thing.

Yet it's also impossible not to see the attraction.  Forget the chest-beating nationalisms for a second, and why wouldn't you want to take a chance on independence when the alternative is more years of austerity, whether delivered either by a Tory-led or a Labour-led coalition?  No one seems to have connected the spectre of another war on the horizon with the leap in support for Yes, despite independence suggesting a break from the overseas adventurism of the recent past.  Listening to David Cameron speaking last weekend from the NATO conference was to hear a man suffering from the most extreme delusions of grandeur, imagining the nation he leads is still a world power, able to project itself around the world as it builds a second aircraft carrier and ensures defence spending remains at high percentage of GDP.  Who wouldn't want the insufferable, jumped-up arse to be forced to go to the Queen and tell her in the space of four years he's managed to oversee the dismantling of the union?  The idea he could stay as prime minister in such circumstances is laughable, as is the one the general election would go ahead next year as planned.  Besides, do you really want to align yourself with the gimps in power at Westminster, complacent with the apathy they usually encounter, until at last they realise the situation is far more serious than first thought?

The problem with this is both that it's a strange independence movement that wants to break up the United Kingdom yet keep the pound, if necessary without a currency union, all while staying in the European Union, and that even if we accept at face value most of the claims about the true potential of the Scottish economy, it still leaves the country facing an incredibly tough initial decade, such are the levels of debt the newly independent state would take on.  This is if everything goes smoothly in the negotiations between Scotland and rUK, of which there is absolutely no guarantee, with Mark Carney explicit today about the incompatibility of sovereignty and a currency union the SNP insists will happen.  It could just be my natural pessimism talking, but I'd like to think it's in fact realism.

All three main party leaders are then off north tomorrow in their bid to lovebomb Scotland into submission.  It's a pretty pass we've come to when unleashing Brownman is the more rational, more likely to have an impact stunt of the week.

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Tuesday, June 12, 2012 

The neurotic returns.

As someone who a couple of weeks ago finally plucked up the courage to read Andrew Rawnsley's The End of the Party, having not really wanted to bring back all those memories of Tony Blair's last few years, it was ever so slightly difficult to take some of Gordon Brown's testimony at Leveson yesterday seriously. Blair did repeatedly renege on apparent deals or understandings that he would step down as Labour leader, leaving the way clear for Brown, which was partially Brown's motivation for his aides briefing against him; it doesn't however explain Brown's malice against anyone who he felt had either wronged him or was advising Blair to get rid of him, who were also mercilessly targeted. When the tables were turned, such as when Alan Milburn penned an article calling for there to be a contest for leadership of the party rather than a Brown coronation, Brown immediately phoned up Blair blaming him for putting Milburn up to it.

One thing that has defined Leveson so far, the apparent amnesia which afflicts so many once they're under oath, didn't affect Brown, as Andrew Neil noted. The difference was that Brown so often seemed to be trying to tell us that white was in fact black, despite many separate independent sources having previously told us the opposite. He went so far as to say that "he was so obsessed by the newspapers that he rarely read them". This after he had spent much of the first hour of his evidence detailing how the Sun had in his last year of office set out to destroy him, and when as Steve Richards said on Newsnight last night, he was notorious for spending the first half hour he was awake while prime minister reading every newspaper, causing his aides to repeatedly remind him that he was quite possibly the only person in the country to browse all the way from the Daily Star to the FT.

The really sad thing is that this fundamental reliance on being economical with the actualite, as Alan Clark put it, only damaged the rest of his at times gripping testimony. Perhaps his refusal to own up to the briefings or to his role in the attempted coup against Blair is down to keeping something for his still to be written memoirs; if it was instead because he feared that would become the story rather than the other things he wanted to say, then he was deeply mistaken. While most of the sketch writers were sympathetic rather than incredulous as the lobby hacks were, Brown in denial was the overarching theme.

This blunted his attacks on both the Sun and the Conservatives. Despite Tom Newton Dunn tweeting the paper's defence from last year of their story on the then four month old Fraser's cystic fibrosis, it barely bothered today to repeat itself. NHS Fife's statement that a member of staff "spoke without authorisation" of his condition all but confirmed Private Eye's report from last year that it was the partner of a doctor that was the source of the Sun's story, which is not quite the same as the Sun's claim that it received it from a "concerned member of the public". The paper also didn't mention Rebekah Brooks's testimony that she absolutely had authorisation from the Browns to run the story, something repeatedly denied by both Gordon and Sarah, suggesting she is now persona non grata in Wapping.

Brown's highlighting of how the paper repeatedly attacked him over Afghanistan, including notoriously over a condolence letter he sent, was met far more harshly, the Sun calling in a favour from former chief of the defence staff General Dannatt to claim that Brown had to be pushed to increase the troop presence in the country, as though that somehow reflects badly on the former prime minister. Most disgraceful of all is Tom Bower, claiming that because the Browns left Downing Street for the final time arm in arm with their two sons that this use of them as "political props" somehow undermines Brown's evidence on the denied authorisation; how then should they have left? Out the back door that Murdoch was asked to enter through, perhaps?

Regardless of whether or not Brown did tell Murdoch that he was declaring war on his company, and it seems an odd thing for Keith to make up and then tell others had happened, his linking of the Conservatives changing their policy in line with that of News International is hardly the conspiracy theory that George Osborne claimed it was. The Tories' defence that if there was some sort of deal they would hardly have put Vince Cable in charge of authorising the BSkyB bid is laughable: they hadn't expected that they would have to form a coalition, and Cable as business secretary was one of Nick Clegg's few red lines. Osborne was effectively given the benefit of doubt in his often curious evidence purely because he is neither Jeremy Hunt, who squirmed his way through his time under oath, nor his David Cameron, due to give evidence on Thursday. The fact that according to Rebekah Brooks Osborne had been "expressed bafflement" at an Ofcom letter on the BSkyB bid during a dinner in December 2010 was explained by Osborne on the basis that on whatever happened it would annoy some of his pals in the media, therefore he didn't really have a view. This nonsense was allowed to pass all but unquestioned.

As was his evidence on how the Tories came to choose Andy Coulson as Cameron's director of communications. It wasn't that he simply worked for News International and had contacts with those working there; as a "national newspaper editor" he had a wealth of experience, broader than Alastair Campbell, who had never been an national editor. This deserved to be gaped at as some of Brown's testimony had been: Campbell had been a political editor at both Today and the Mirror, whereas Coulson had no speciality in politics whatsoever, hence why he was surprised to be approached by the Tories. Osborne's inquiring into his background also seemed to amount to asking Coulson whether there was anything else to come about the phone hacking, to which he said there wasn't, and asking Brooks whether he was a "good person". She presumably didn't tell Osborne about how Glenn Mulcaire had also been hacking her voicemail, although as we know, Coulson has never so much as met Mulcaire.

Murdoch himself was dealt another blow today when John Major, a man who was clearly fair too humble to ever have been prime minister, confirmed that he was all but offered the support of Murdoch's papers in 1997 if he changed his policies on the European Union. It wouldn't have made any difference to the election result if Major had took up the offer, but it rather punctures Keith's claim that he had never asked anything of a politician. It also led nicely on to Ed Miliband's welcome call for quotas in media ownership, effectively saying that Murdoch should have to either sell the Sun or the Times. The longer this drip drip of allegations and calls for change at News Corp goes on, the more Murdoch is going to hold Cameron's setting up of the inquiry against him. And as Nick Clegg's refusal to support Jeremy Hunt shows, it's getting to the point where the Tories need all the help they can get.

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6/12/2012 07:18:00 pm | | | links to this post

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 

Decline and fall.

Last December, some of you might remember that Vince Cable told a couple of Telegraph hacks posing as constituents that he was picking his fights in government carefully. Not only had he declared war on Mr Murdoch over the proposed News Corporation takeover of BSkyB, he thought "we are going to win".

I thought the opposite, as must have Cable himself as he was quickly defenestrated for his indiscretion. Indeed, I went so far as to write:

That, more than anything, is the real lesson from today's antics. You simply can't be in any variety of government and be against Murdoch, let alone threaten to go to war against him, especially if you favour not having your voicemail messages listened in to. This is exactly why we've had the miserable sight of both Ed Miliband and John Denham rushing out to condemn Cable, even as Labour gets chewed to pieces in the Sun, as they still believe that one day it'll be their turn to bask once again in the warm glow of Murdoch media support.

In fairness to myself, absolutely no one predicted or could have come close to imagining how quickly Murdoch and News International could have gone from being all conquering behemoths, with the power to strike down any politician foolish enough to suggest that what's good for them isn't necessarily good for the rest of the country, to the pariahs they've become over the course of ten staggering days. True, almost all the media barons of the past few decades have been brought low in some way or another, Robert Maxwell and Conrad Black most notoriously, yet Murdoch just seemed too strong, too imposing, too, to paraphrase a cliché, big to fall.

As the reporters have all stated, the withdrawal of the bid to swallow BSkyB whole is almost certainly the biggest setback of his entire business career. It's also come only a month after News Corp quietly sold MySpace for $35m, having paid $580 million for it back in 2005. The deal may have been shrewd then; now it looks as embarrassing as one of the blinged up, abandoned profiles on the site. Last Thursday he shut the Screws, a still profitable if tainted brand in a futile attempt to try and save the BSkyB, as well as the skin of his glamorous surrogate daughter. Previously politicians may have accepted that as a sacrifice enough, even considering the depths of criminality it seems the paper may have went to. Today parliament was unanimous, if after the fact, in demanding that the takeover be dropped in the public interest. The fear that Murdoch, his papers and editors both inspired and played with to their utmost advantage has gone. It will almost certainly return, but for once it's difficult to demure from the much reached for expression that it will never be quite the same again.

Certainly the spectacle of a previous prime minister of this country denouncing News International as a "criminal-media nexus" is something I never imagined that I'd see. Gordon Brown's speech was typical of him: self-serving, intensely party political, infuriating and also, much to the distress of some on the Tory benches desperate to finger Tom Baldwin as somehow being as equally culpable as Andy Coulson could well turn out to be, mostly bang on target. Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband have tried to stress that both sides were too close to the Murdochs, and both have said lessons will be learn, but Brown's setting out of the record of how while he was prime minister his government blocked News International and BSkyB's aggressive ambitions to expand was in contrast to Cameron's turning of all their concerns and grievances into prospective policies. It was certainly something of a coincidence that when setting out his bonfire of the quangos while in opposition the one he expressly chose to make an example of was Ofcom, the regulator at the time being raged against by NI.

It's also apparent that had Brown, against the advice of Gus O'Donnell and others set-up a judicial inquiry so close to the election that he and Labour as a whole would have been torn to pieces by the Tory press and the Conservatives themselves. Again, it's worth remembering how no newspaper other than the Guardian reported on the employment tribunal that found Matt Driscoll had been bullied by Andy Coulson, while the Sun had just denounced the report by the media committee on phone hacking, which had reached only moderately critical conclusions, as representing "a black day for parliament". It may well be right that if Brown had really wanted an inquiry he could have ordered one, as some have argued in response, but it's more than understandable that he decided it wasn't worth a further monstering from the tabloids. As he's said, the record will come out.

All of this somewhat distracted from the actual announcement of the judge-led, two-part inquiry. It does thankfully seem to be broad enough in scope to consider the entirety of Fleet Street's use of the "dark arts", and not just the dependence of the News of the World on them. Held under the Inquiries Act, Lord Justice Leveson will have the power to summon almost anyone he feels appropriate, with evidence potentially being given under oath. Leveson, incidentally, was described earlier in the year by the Sun as a "softie", a description they may well come to regret. Especially promising is that he'll be allowed to make recommendations on cross-media ownership, with the potential that the Communications Act of 2003 could be amended to put in more stringent rules on the percentage of the media one person or company can control, prohibiting Murdoch from being able to resubmit a bid for Sky without offloading his other interests.

One thing that shouldn't be forgotten is that as Simon Jenkins wrote this morning, it wasn't ultimately the police, politicians or celebrities bringing civil cases who exposed what had been going on at the News of the World; it was other journalists. The withdrawal of the bid for BSkyB wouldn't have happened without the outrage from the public and the reverse ferret of politicians, it's true, but ultimately this was the Guardian's victory. This is why the reform of press regulation and change in practices while needed, should not go too far. While there should be a record kept of meetings between editors and proprietors and politicians, it doesn't need to be extended beyond that, discouraging contact between senior officials and hacks which often provide the stories that hold governments to account as much as the Commons itself does.

Not many wars are won without a shot being fired. Even fewer are won by individuals that had no direct involvement whatsoever. Vince Cable despite first appearances won his battle. His and our victory ought to remind us that in politics anything is ultimately possible, with even the most intractable and immovable obstacles and individuals being subject to the same forces as everyone else. It might take a long time, but eventually every empire declines and then falls.

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Tuesday, July 12, 2011 

The decline of Murdoch and Andy Hayman's relationship with News International.

The turn in political fortunes for Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation continues to frankly, amaze. Two Thursdays ago Jeremy Hunt rose in the Commons to all but rubber stamp the swallowing whole of BSkyB by News Corp; tomorrow the House will vote on a Labour motion which urges Murdoch to drop his takeover of Sky in the public interest, with all three parties due to support it. From having a seeming unshakeable grip on any politician seeking power, all of whom had to seek if not his open support then at least hope he wouldn't reject them outright to having almost no influence whatsoever is a fall of immense significance.

It's such a huge change that it's still impossible to even attempt to predict just where the crisis triggered by the phone hacking will eventually lead politics in this country. Where previously I imagined that things would soon return to something approaching normality, it's now difficult to see just how that can happen, at least for Murdoch and his papers. The latter are understandably in something approaching shock, wondering just whether they might remain under his ownership if their disposal is what it takes for the BSkyB deal to now go through.
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The response from the Sunday Times and the Sun over the allegations from Gordon Brown is the first sign that they're not going to take just anything which is thrown at them without fighting back. In his interview today with the BBC he wasn't perhaps as specific as he should have been: where he quite rightly said that there is evidence that the News of the World employed convicted criminals as private investigators, there isn't as yet the ocular proof that the Sunday Times did the same, let alone that they were the ones who specifically repeatedly targeted him. Indeed, their story on the flat he purchased looks on the surface to be the kind that was perfectly in the public interest, even if it turned out to be inaccurate. Far less clear cut is the blagging of his bank details, and other attempts at gaining access to private information.

On even more shaky ground is the Sun's reporting on his son Fraser's cystic fibrosis, despite their attempt at defending it today. Rather than being obtained through accessing his medical records, they claim that it was given to them "by a member of the public whose family has also experienced cystic fibrosis". This raises the obvious question of just how this "member of the public" managed to come by information which the Browns themselves were only just beginning to come to terms with, and also just why they decided to deliver it to the Sun. Notably, they haven't specifically denied that this person wasn't paid for the story, nor have they denied that Brown was determined to stop them having it as an exclusive, with Rebekah Wade phoning him up in an attempt to browbeat him into not issuing a spoiling statement. Regardless of how the Sun presented it, it's the kind of story which should only be published with permission from the parents, something which is clear they never directly gave (Slight update: the Sun claims Sarah Brown did give permission, see below, although whether this is the whole story or not remains to be seen).

In a way, Brown's intervention isn't especially helpful even if it's wholly justified, as it distracts attention from those who never sought any publicity or advantage through the media whose privacy was invaded in much the same way. It also gives the scandal a party political dimension which hasn't really been there so far: everyone after all was fair game to the News of the World, and Brown's time as prime minister is still far too controversial for any sympathy towards him to be universal. It's obvious that Brown, while wisely deciding not to comment on Andy Coulson directly in the interview, believes that if the true scale of the hacking scandal had been revealed at the beginning of last year rather than now that he could still be prime minister, such would have been the impact on Cameron and his team.

It also meant that the real action of the day before the home affairs select committee (not the media committee, as I first had it) was shunted into second place on the news bulletins, which meant that Andy Hayman's extraordinary evidence didn't get quite the billing it deserved. One of his first utterances was to admit that he'd had dreams of being a journalist, before he went on to admit that he'd received hospitality from News International at the same time as he'd been heading the original phone hacking investigation. The MPs for some reason found this to be shocking, although the laughter was louder after he said that not to have attended the dinner would have been even more suspicious. His subsequent employment by the Times as an occasional columnist "was a private matter" between him and the paper.

In hindsight, it's easy to be highly suspicious of the relationship between Hayman and News International while he was still assistant commissioner at the Met. Hayman was in overall charge of the notorious Forest Gate terror raid, which resulted in the shooting of one of the Koyair brothers. Having failed to find anything incriminating besides a large amount of money which was explained by the family's Islamic beliefs concerning bank accounts which paid interest, the brothers were smeared relentlessly in both the Sun and News of the World, with the latter breaking the story that child pornography had been found on one of their mobile phones, although no charges were brought. Who the source was for all these stories can only be speculated about.

Hayman certainly did have form however for briefing the press, as the investigation into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes showed. Hayman had told the Crime Reporters' Association on the day of the shooting that an innocent man had been killed, only to report to the Met's management board that

[T]here is press running that the person shot is not one of the four bombers. We need to present this that he is believed to be. This is different to confirming that he is. On the balance of probabilities, it isn’t. To have this for offer would be low risk.

When questioned by the Independent Police Complaints Commission on what he'd told the CRA and why he then decided to present the absolute opposite as being the "official" story, he said he couldn't remember what he'd said to the CRA, a failure of memory which was repeated today. When Hayman subsequently resigned from the Met in December 2007, the Sun's crime editor Mike Sullivan wrote that it was a "sad day for British policing" and that he "was one of the good guys", while the day after the release of the IPCC's report the Sun's editorial thundered that

ANDY HAYMAN’S brilliant leadership in the fight against terrorism has saved dozens of lives.

He is admired by his men just as he is feared by the terrorist scum determined to destroy our way of life.

It's doubly odd how Hayman thought it was appropriate to join the News International stable two months after he left the Met when his direct underling, Peter Clarke today outlined how he felt that the company had obstructed their investigation into phone hacking. As I've wrote this post tomorrow's Sun editorial has been posted up, for the first time commenting directly on the phone hacking through attacking Brown's accusations against the paper. It helpfully distracts from Clarke's view that if NI had offered "meaningful cooperation instead of prevarication and what we now know to be lies" then things could have been different. He later went on to state that he believed they had been "deliberately trying to thwart a criminal investigation".

This still doesn't explain why Clarke's team decided not to extend their inquiry beyond the Royal family and a few token others. No one is going to argue that the Met's anti-terrorist team had more pressing concerns than breaches of privacy during 2006, yet it stretches credulity that a thorough going through of Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks couldn't have been delegated or passed on to a different team within the force, as does his claim that some crime went uninvestigated as a direct result of his uses of resources on it at the time. As Sue Akers, the new broom brought in to helm Operation Weeting later said, having 45 officers working on the inquiry is not going to have much impact on an organisation which has 50,000 staff. Likewise, John Yates's evidence on why in 2009 he took only the best part of a day before he decided not to reopen the investigation remains as wholly lacking as it was originally.

Tomorrow we'll learn of the remit of the inquiry or inquiries to come. They obviously need to be as broad as possible, preferably with witnesses having to give evidence under oath, and investigate how the "dark arts" became so widely used across the tabloids especially towards the end of the 90s and into the 00s. The only thing that seems absolutely certain is that regardless of the fight the likes of the Sun are now beginning to put up, things only seem likely to get worse for News International. Editorials denouncing the previous inquiry by the media committee and calling their report a "dark day for parliament" now ring very hollow indeed.

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7/12/2011 09:33:00 pm | | | links to this post

Tuesday, February 08, 2011 

The Maltese double cross part 5.

It's long seemed appropriate that the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi should have been shrouded in the same level of secrecy, confusion and controversy as that in which the search for those responsible for the Lockerbie bombing was and continues to be. It's also been indicative of the continuing low level of our politics, the hypocrisy of absolutely everyone involved, and what some would term as the cold, hard realities of diplomacy with dictatorships and others would regard as selling ourselves incredibly short.

The facts of the case remain completely unchanged following the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell's review of all the papers involved, a review ordered by David Cameron almost certainly not in the interests of full transparency but instead in the hope of pulling something else out that could be blamed upon Gordon Brown and Labour, with a side order of sticking one up the Scottish National Party at the same time if possible. The background prior to al-Megrahi being diagnosed with terminal cancer surrounded the negotiation of the prisoner transfer agreement between Britain and Libya, which Libya subsequently linked to the ratification of the Exploration and Production Sharing agreement with BP. Strangely, from having previously wanted to exclude al-Megrahi from the PTA, under the weight of lobbying from BP, which was "suffering significant financial loss", Jack Straw suddenly decided that he could be included after all, although safe in the knowledge that the Scottish government would have to make the final decision. What the documents do disclose is that while opposing in public any possibility that al-Megrahi could be transferred back to Libya under the PTA, Kenny MacAskill wrote that it could be acceptable if authority over firearms legislation could be devolved and progress made over liabilities for damages concerning the Somerville judgement. This is as low as the SNP went, and in any case the UK government decided against concessions, going ahead with an exclusion free PTA regardless.

We were also previously unaware of just how far the UK government went in helping Libya with its representations to the Scottish government once al-Megrahi was diagnosed with cancer, and also how determined Labour ministers were that he should be returned. A "game plan" was drawn up, where ministers would stress that the decision was for the Scottish government to make, but would at the same time do all they could to facilitate contact between the two. In the event, much of this was rejected by the Scottish ministers as improper. Not elaborated on or redacted are exactly what threats the Libyans directly made or intimated in the event of al-Megrahi dying in custody. They were however serious enough for full contingency plans to be put in place to safeguard UK staff and nationals.

And that, more or less, is it. To say that there hasn't been the clichéd smoking gun uncovered is an understatement: the Scottish government did absolutely everything by the book. It didn't rush into making a decision as soon as it became clear the al-Megrahi was ill, it waited a further 10 months and received the medical opinion that he had less than 3 months to life, making him perfectly eligible for compassionate release. This incidentally, was almost what the US government intimated it would prefer to happen should al-Megrahi be released, the only difference being they would prefer him staying in Scotland rather than returning to Libya. It is worth being cynical about the possibility of a Scottish serial killer being released from prison in a similar fashion if he was struck down by a terminal illness, yet it's also hard to shake the feeling that the doubt about al-Megrahi's guilt also played a part in the considerations. This makes it all the more perverse or conversely, convenient, that he was all but forced into dropping his appeal before his compassionate release was announced. The embarrassment and brickbats the government would face over its decision would be nothing compared to his conviction being declared a miscarriage of justice.

The real outrage here apart from that is just how we conduct ourselves when making representations to some of the most repressive and unpleasant regimes on the face of the planet. It's worth remembering that Hosni Mubarak's 30 years in charge is nothing to Colonel Gaddafi's 41; if any Arab state is crying out for a revolution, Libya is it. While Tony Blair was Gaddafi's chief sycophant, Gordon Brown's cringe inducing letters to the tyrant, making clear how he looked "forward to developing a close and productive relationship" come fairly close. As with so much else, the "war on terror" and the apparent determination of government to help businesses regardless of any real remaining ties with the nation (BP's largest division is in America) overcame all obstacles: Libya is one of the nations we reached a wretched "memorandum of understanding" with, allowing us to deport "terrorist suspects" back to a country where torture is endemic safe in the knowledge that there'd leave the thumbscrews off just for us.

Secondary is just how pathetic and petty our politicians continue to be. Every opposition party in Scotland opposed the decision reached by the SNP, including the Scottish Labour party, almost certainly in spite of knowing just how Labour at Westminster was pushing for al-Megrahi's release behind the scenes. All, it is safe to say, would have reached exactly the same decision had they been the ones who had to make it. Much the same is the case in Westminster. Only last week did Lord Carlile signal that the UK should continue down the road of reaching MoUs with nations which we ordinarily would be unable to deport foreign "terrorist suspects" to, meaning that more authoritarian states will be dealt with in just the same fashion. David Cameron at least, in making the statement to the Commons yesterday on the report didn't tear into Labour as he could have done, no doubt for the same reason that he now finds himself sucking up to every dictator in Africa and the Middle East in much the same fashion, perhaps even more so considering the usual Conservative dedication to helping British business wherever they can, regardless of what they're doing and who it affects. I don't think I can really say it better than I did at the time:

Somewhere in all of this there is a dying man, denied the opportunity to clear his name, and over 280 families in similar circumstances, some equally uncertain of how their loved ones came to die, others outraged by the decision to release the man in anything other than a box. All are being ignored for as ever, short term political gain. This isn't going to win any elections, it isn't even going to make a difference in opinion polls; it's either, according to your view, bringing a good, humane decision into disrepute, or even further distracting attention from someone who has escaped justice. Politics is as usual struggling to pull itself out of the sewer.

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2/08/2011 11:54:00 pm | | | links to this post

Monday, October 11, 2010 

Jonathan Powell and the Machiavellian memoirs.

With the political coffee table already buckling under the weight of New Labour memoirs, the market all but saturated even before Gordon Brown and his few allies add to the all but unreadable pile, it's little wonder that the hangers-on and those behind the scenes are already embellishing their accounts with additional asides and analysis in a probably futile attempt to stand them out from the crowd. With Jonathan Powell, former chief adviser to Tony Blair, having already written a worthy if almost certainly little sold account of the Northern Ireland peace talks, his wheeze has been to cast a Machiavellian eye over his time spent in and around Downing Street.

Blair, unsurprisingly, comes out of this test well, his only real failing being that he wasn't as ruthless as Machiavelli advised when it came to dealing with a potential rival. It wasn't weakness on his part, Powell believes, merely a refusal to deal harshly with an old friend. The rival by contrast, despite his achievement in eventually forcing the prince to abdicate, was weak on exactly the things he needed to be strong on. As an addition to the analysis from figures associated with the last government as to why the party lost the election, it's certainly both more interesting and based in reality than Blair's own view that Brown lost thanks to his abandonment of "New Labour values". It is however just as lacking: while Powell recognises that the TB-GBs were far more complicated than many accounts have portrayed them, admitting that if Blair had sacked Brown he would be ridding the government of the other major talent within it and risk creating a concentrated opposition on the backbenches, even he still doesn't find that Blair and Brown, arguments and fighting aside, were better together than individually. Blair without Brown may well have in fact been brought down sooner, while Brown failed more than anything because he couldn't the party beyond New Labour, not because he repudiated its values as the Blairite thesis has it.

Away from the musing, Powell's account, especially of the last couple of years of Blair's time as prime minister strikes as being just as deluded as his master had become by that point. Having written earlier on of how Gordon Brown avoided responsibility, supposedly originating in strictness of his parents, it's interesting to note how Powell tries to blame the military for the Afghanistan deployment to Helmand in 2006, having lobbied for troops to be sent there in "strength", while poor Tony and then defence secretary John Reid were "reluctant". Powell tries to convince us that no prime minister "enjoys" going to war, in spite of media consensus, yet if Blair ever was reluctant about sending in the troops he certainly never let it show, although perhaps that's just another example of his taking Machiavellian advice on board.

Just as instructive is the reaction to General Richard Dannatt's outburst on the army's deployment in Basra, as detailed at length by Powell. To those outside the Blair circle it was little more than a statement of the obvious: that the army had took part in a war of aggression and that their presence in Basra was making things worse. He was right then and he's still right now: they had lost the city, unable to enforce order without using overwhelming force which would have been wholly counter-productive, and were simply acting as a lightning rod for insurgents. This was again though in the Powell Machiavellian analysis a signal of weakness, one which supposedly had the Mahdi army redoubling their efforts, while Nato and everyone else complained about Dannatt undermining morale. It didn't help the troops, and expanding the fallout even further, Blair and Powell both claim that such observations don't just threaten first-division army deployments, they threaten our very status as a country as we step back from putting troops in harm's way. That Powell believes military escapades define us as a nation in the 21st century is damning enough; that he doesn't know when we should either admit defeat or know when to pull back is far worse. To add to the projection, Dannatt is described without irony by Powell as being "divinely convinced of his own rightness". Completely unlike Powell's master then.

This hysterical view of the slightest criticism and its potential consequences was not just limited to Blair and Powell, but also to another adviser, Nigel Sheinwald, as the "al-Jazeera memo" trial showed when he claimed that its release would have "put lives at risk". It also extended to the belief that even when wielding such power, it was others who were so often out of line, such as the police during the "loans for peerages" scandal. Lord Levy, can you believe it, was only informed the night before that he was to be arrested the following day, while Ruth Turner was subjected to arrest in the early morning. They were, in other words, treated exactly like anyone else suspected of a serious crime would be, yet this was little short of an outrage. Worth quoting in full is Powell's view of the position the police were in:
The problem at the core of the whole fiasco was that the police had got themselves in too deep to be able to retreat with dignity. The more they dug themselves a hole, the more they were determined to turn something up.

Remind you of anyone or anything? Powell paints an image of a Blair administration that felt it was essentially above the law, yet which at the same time also saw itself as hemmed in by enemies who threatened everything regardless of their weakness or righteousness. Unable to see parallels, or rather, refusing to see them, it's difficult to come to any other conclusion than if hadn't been for the transition of power, Blair and his aides would have eventually collapsed under the weight of their own contradictions. Instead, set free and remunerated for their observances, they've been able to carry on believing they were right and everyone else was wrong, challenged even less than they were then.

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10/11/2010 10:43:00 pm | | | links to this post

Friday, July 16, 2010 

Gordon is a great man...

I've been doing my best to avoid the Peter Mandelson/New Labour monster raving ego pantomime, yet this from Mandelson's interview with the Graun is too good not to pick up on:

"I remember Paul Dacre saying to me, 'Gordon is a great man but he has two problems. One he is not on the same wavelength as middle England, and the other is that he is incredibly stubborn'."

The phrase, I think goes, takes one to know one.

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7/16/2010 09:42:00 pm | | | links to this post

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 

The Liberal moment has arrived!

Let's get the mea culpa out of the way straight off. Frankly, all of us who called for a vote for the Liberal Democrats now look more than a little silly. To be sure, it was always likely to end up this way, and indeed, we wanted a hung parliament: we just didn't really expect for Nick Clegg to jump so willingly into a coalition with the Conservatives. On any realistic measure, the policies of Labour and the Conservatives outside of economics and perhaps civil liberties are closer to each other than those of the Liberal Democrats on so many things that it seemed risible to imagine that the two parties could agree to a full-blown coalition, and yet that's now what we have. The right-wing press and politicos said vote Clegg and get Brown, and yet we've received the opposite. We saw Cameron and Clegg tearing strips off each other in the final debate, and now we have them as prime minister and deputy. Clegg urged us to shake off the shackles of old politics and vote for something new, and while we've somewhat got that, just how many Liberal Democrat supporters will be anything other than mortified by the Frankenstein's monster we now have in government?

The idea that this can possibly last for a full five years, with fixed terms thrown in as another of the concessions, is fantastical. We can't for certain completely dismiss the behaviour of the Conservatives so far, which seems to have involved throwing numerous cherished policies straight on the bonfire (or not, as argued below), such has been their desperation to return to power, itself puzzling considering how they could easily have governed with a minority and/or gone almost straight away for a second election at which they would have received a majority, but does anyone truly believe that they aren't going to go at the first completely open opportunity to try and get a majority of their own, even with this ridiculous supposed agreement which has already named the date of the next election? Do the Liberal Democrats now seriously imagine that even if they get their referendum on the alternative vote, which will in many places make safe seats even safer, that they'll be able to win it when both the Tories and almost certainly Labour will oppose it to the hilt?

If the concessions made by the Conservatives look eye-watering at first sight, then examining them from a different angle is most certainly required. A majority Conservative government might just have pushed ahead with its plans on inheritance tax, but a minority one would have risked a huge backlash at the same time as it was making what look likely to be horrendous spending cuts. It was always likely to be shelved, same as the marriage tax credit, or however recognising marriage in the tax system would have been implemented, although the Lib Dems have now said they'll abstain on that, giving it a chance of passing. As it is, IHT hasn't been completely buried, just not likely in this "parliament", while the Liberal Democrats' similarly fanciful mansion tax has been sacrificed. There isn't even it seems an agreement on the always doubtful Lib Dem policy of raising the income tax threshold to £10,000, instead simply putting something towards helping lower earners, while the "jobs tax" will not be imposed, despite the Lib Dems siding with Labour over the national insurance rise during the election campaign.

In fact, the more details announced, trickling out as I write this, the worse the deal looks for the Lib Dems. Trident will be replaced, the "value for money" simply scrutinised; there will be a cap on immigration, against all liberal instincts; spending cuts will begin this year despite the warning from the IMF that it wasn't necessary and could tip economies back into recession; and a referendum on transferring any further powers to the EU, although whether that's literally any powers we're unlikely to know. Where exactly the Conservative compromises that were "embarrassingly" being made, according to one senior Lib Dem source are, is difficult to ascertain, unless you include the five cabinet posts which are to go to the party, one of which is Clegg as deputy prime minister. Rumours are suggesting that Chris Huhne could be home secretary, which would be incredibly welcome and definitely a brake on the Tories' authoritarian instincts on crime, but I'll believe it when I see it. Can we seriously imagine the Sun welcoming an actual capital L liberal as home secretary, especially when Dominic Grieve was apparently thrust aside because of how he objected to Rebekah Brooks' (nee Wade) face about her then paper's coverage of law and order?

One of the most fascinating aspects of the deal will be just how the media responds to it. One presumes that to begin with the right-wing press will welcome it, simply because it ensures that the Conservatives are in Downing Street as they predicted and so earnestly hoped for. Once the novelty wears off though, and after they've forgotten how they previously attempted to shank Nick Clegg just like the hoody gang of their collective worst nightmares, are they really going to be happy with a coalition as potentially unwieldy and with such potential differences of opinion? How on earth can they be happy with the most pro-European of all the parties actually in power, even if they have no actual control on policy? More pertinently, they're going to be chasing their own backsides over just how much influence they will have over the government: previously they were assured of their concerns not just being noted but pursued and reacted to by a Conservative majority; now they're going to have to deal with unknown quantities also exercising power that by right is theirs! How long before the first newspaper urges the Tories to shaft the Liberals and either go it alone or call another election?

There's no doubt that this is a historic moment, but then history also tells us that past coalitions or pacts have ended badly. There's every reason to believe that this trend is not about to be bucked. The difficulty is in predicting exactly when: frankly, I can't see this lasting any more than two years, which would the best possible time for the Tories to back out, before the cuts have really started to hit home and when their support is likely to be highest. The Liberal Democrat vote is almost certainly going to be slashed in any event, and their Scottish seats especially must be in danger.

The least worst outcome, even when you weigh up the Liberal Democrats acting as a moderating influence on the Conservatives, was a Tory minority government. Yes, the coalition between the two parties seems to have delivered for now on civil liberties grounds, but that may well turn out to be the least of our worries. Can they Lib Dems really be happy, for instance, with the Tories' welfare reform proposals, which they've just signed up to? There'll no end it seems to the forcing of the sick and vulnerable into work, regardless of all the other factors concerning. Admittedly, coalition government, and it's almost certainly what we would have if we did finally get a form of PR, involves compromises and the doing of deals exactly like this one, but that usually involves parties which share more than the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives do, or at least do the surface. Key, after everything, might well be that Nick Clegg didn't so much as mention voting reform in his speech after the party accepted the deal. Perhaps, after everything, the sheer lustre of power clinched it.

For the wider left, the absorption of the Liberal Democrats into the government for however long it turns out leaves us in opposition but with more space for ideas than ever. For some of us, no longer sniping at those we are sympathetic towards, even if New Labour divorced itself so inexorably from our own values, will do us the world of good. It will also unite us far more than power ever did. To quote Bob Piper, with the caveat that I'm not going to dismiss Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats as the Ramsay MacDonald(s) of the noughties just yet:

Meantime, this is the opportunity for those of us genuinely on the left of centre of politics in this country to reconnect with the electorate, re-engage with the trade union movement, and ensure the Tories are defeated next time round, and Ramsey MacClegg and his rag, tag and bobtail quasi Tories are consigned to the dustbin of history. If we can get nearly 30% of the electorate to vote Labour at a time of financial crisis, with an unpopular government and leader, it should be a stroll in the park.

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5/11/2010 10:08:00 pm | | | links to this post

Monday, May 10, 2010 

The woman in a political sandwich.

It really is close to impossible not to reduce the continuing "discussions" between both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives and now the Liberal Democrats and Labour to that of two suitors fighting over the same person, so let's not even try. If we deign to portray the Lib Dems as the woman in this potential political sandwich, quite what she would see in the two desperate men for her hand is just as difficult: there's the strutting, not quite as cocksure as he might have been Conservatives, convinced of his suitability and endorsed by the public, but who has different qualities and general interests to the lady he still finds himself attracted to, and whose motives are deeply suspect; or there's Labour, who she has far more in common with, but who by comparison is far from his prime, and who has a recent past which would turn off someone who had more of a choice. This isn't to consider just whether the men themselves might yet have second thoughts, especially after behaviour which some have already called "two-timing" or "betrayal"...

Quite whether Nick Clegg used the same sort of techniques and tactics in his alleged 30 conquests as he has over the last couple of days is also impossible to know, but it's undeniable that he's played his hand as well. Not only he has succeeded in apparently getting the Conservatives to compromise both on a referendum on the Alternative Vote and on his raising of the income tax threshold to £10,000, but he's also managed to get the leader of one of the parties to resign as the very first concession on negotiations. Admittedly, Gordon Brown was going to have to relinquish his position at some point, but to do so in the "national interest" and so dramatically is one of those moments to be remembered in the years to come. I've never properly understood the loathing of Gordon Brown by some (maybe, to descend into uncomfortable honesty for a second, because I look at him and at least see something of myself) but get the feeling that he's more likely to resemble the John Major model of former prime ministers than that of the Thatchers and Blairs.

There is however something distinctly odd about all the manoeuvring going on, both because we're not used to political parties even considering working together, and also because it goes so directly against their better nature. Our political system has for so long encouraged mutual antagonism, the massive exaggeration of what have often been small differences between the parties that it's startling just how quickly all of that can be discarded when the possibility of pure, naked power is there to be grabbed. For let's not kid ourselves, this is the real reason why all three parties are finding their manifestos so malleable. Gordon Brown's sacrifice is then so that his party can potentially continue to govern; his personal motive may have been noble, but the overall one is not quite as unselfish.

As the deals on offer go, it really should be a no-brainer for the Liberal Democrats just on the issue of political reform itself: AV without a referendum from Labour, a referendum on actual proportional representation later, as opposed to just a referendum on AV from the Tories who would almost certainly oppose it in their own constituencies if not in the Commons itself. We can't though pretend that this is just about voting reform: a Labour-Liberal Democrat pact simply isn't realistic if you do even the slightest thinking about it, and a look at the Tory newspapers tomorrow will quickly reinforce that. Already the Mail and Telegraph are in full cry about coups and black days for democracy, as if the voters themselves, despite their cries, didn't in some way endorse a hung parliament. As John Reid has already elucidated, relying on the nationalists in both Wales and Scotland as both parties would to get an overall majority is a recipe for instability: both will demand to be somewhat protected from the cuts to come, further inflicting them on an England which overwhelming voted for the Conservatives. The ravages of Thatcherism and the party's penchant for testing their policies on that country first has left Scotland a wasteland for the Conservatives; Labour would face exactly the same in England, something it cannot afford to do.

The Liberal Democrats face a far worse dilemma. This could be both their greatest opportunity and their potential undoing. If they do go in for a coalition with the Tories, and they've rightly rejected the 2-year offer which Cameron initially made, which was clearly designed to leave them out to dry, and even assuming that the referendum on AV goes their way, not even close to being certain, then they're going to share the blame with the Conservatives for the savage cuts coming our way. Indeed, they've apparently given way on the cuts starting this year, against the advice of those noted lefties at the International Monetary Fund, not to mention the sainted Vince the Cable. AV might well mean not losing as many seats as they would have done should both parties find themselves forming only a one-term government, yet is such slight reform worth it to be thrown out along with the Tories, potentially for another generation?

The far better option, at least from my hardly towering vantage point, would be for them to reject both parties and let the Conservatives govern with a minority, support them on uncontroversial votes, abstain on the Queen's speech, and only vote against them on their worst excesses. This government will, in the words of Mervyn King, potentially find itself outside of power for decades, such will be the unpleasantness to come. Labour if it has any sense will spend the next five years rebuilding under its new leader, and it's already starting the process at grassroot level as shown by its performance in the local elections. It might well find itself cleaning up in 5 years' time, or even sooner. All depends now on just how much lust Clegg and his MPs have for real power, and on that score you should never rule anything in or out.

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5/10/2010 11:59:00 pm | | | links to this post

Friday, May 07, 2010 

The evening after the night before.

On the surface, last night's result looks bad for everyone and everything, with the one exception of the Greens and Caroline Lucas. The Conservatives, despite having everything in their favour failed to get the majority it looked for so long like they were going to cakewalk towards. For Labour, while not plummeting to the depths of 1983, they've come a distant second in the popular vote and even while they held on with mostly brilliant results in London and in some of the other major cities and town, they've been removed from almost everywhere else in England, obliterated, reduced to a rump. The Liberal Democrats have reason to be completely disconsolate: they improved their share of the vote, even if by a relatively measly 1%, yet they come away with 5 less seats.

Away from the parties, our other institutions, our media and our democracy have all taken a battering. Never has our electoral system looked so absurd, nor the union so dated. First past the post has been shown to be a relic of the two party system: it is indefensible to suggest it can continue to be the bedrock of our electoral system when a party increases its share of the popular vote yet still loses seats. Our parliamentary system deserves to be in tatters: it's equally as indefensible that the Conservatives have been denied a majority due to the modern rotten borough situation in Scotland and parts of Wales, when so much of policy in those two countries has been devolved to their parliament and their assembly respectively. The running of the election itself was in some areas a shambles, a complete joke: while the turnout differed wildly, an overall turnout of 65% is not even close to being historically high. How could people have been effectively denied the franchise through such rank incompetence when this was hardly an unprecendented event?

On the same point, 65% overall turnout is the most savage indictment of how we do politics in this country for a generation. Even when the result was the most uncertain since the 70s, when the campaign had been enlivened by the innovation of the leader's debates and when it seemed possible that a third party could dump the governing one into third place, still 35% of the electorate was either so disinterested or turned off by the campaign and what had gone on during this parliament that they abstained entirely. This is no longer simple apathy: this is clearly a sign of the contempt with which a significant minority in this country regard their representatives. The media, with the exception of the Mirror, the only paper to continue to support Labour, also look like chumps. All the screaming about how a hung parliament would be a disaster in the tabloids and yet that's exactly what the voters decided to deliver. The Sun, and especially James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) must be feeling sick at their failure to garner support for the winning party for the first time since Murdoch senior bought the paper. The Guardian and Independent meanwhile have shown just how much influence they have: precisely nil.

As much as a hung parliament was always the best possible realistic outcome, the distribution of seats has left us with the worst of all possible worlds. Neither the Conservatives in a coalition with the DUP can get a majority, nor can Labour joining forces with the Liberal Democrats in a modern pact. Nick Clegg's biggest mistake of the entire campaign was to say that the party with the largest share of the vote would have the right to make the first attempt at forming a government; as democratically sound as that is, it completely ignores the constitutional precedent and gives David Cameron and the Conservatives a huge advantage which they have gleefully grasped. For all the talk of discussions between the two parties, you only have to look at Cameron's derisory offer of just a talking shop on electoral reform to see that they're planning immediately for a second general election this year, simply going through the necessary motions. They could feasibly just get a Queen's speech/budget through parliament with DUP support, but only by dropping their plans to make cuts this year, something they also show no sign of conceding. And after all, why should they? Even if Labour and the Liberal Democrats could form a coalition which also contained all the other minor parties with the exception of the DUP, such a government has absolutely no legitimacy whatsoever in England. It could not possibly hope to govern for a full-term, and only then it would just be delaying the inevitable: a Conservative majority.

Far better would be for Gordon Brown to admit defeat now, resign and allow a new leader to start the rebuilding necessary as soon as possible. That will give the party a fighting chance in the election, whenever it comes. The alternative is clear: a Conservative majority in a second election on an even more derisory turnout, with no change in our broken electoral system. The only consolation is, as pointed out in the rather epic live blog, just how unpopular that Conservative government will be even with a majority: the cuts will be savage, with a one-term government being a distinct possibility. The next five years may be unbearably harsh on all fronts, but bowed as the left is, we are not anywhere close to having been wiped out. We have reinvented ourselves before and we will do so again, hopefully this time without the compromises which wounded us so deeply before. We have to unite, we have to fight, and we know what we have to do.

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5/07/2010 07:50:00 pm | | | links to this post

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