Why can’t Cameron sack Hunt?
Posted: June 3, 2012 Filed under: Conservatives, Media, Opinion, Westminster | Tags: David Cameron, Jeremy Hunt 2 Comments »
I find David Cameron’s inability to simply sack Jeremy Hunt quite mind-bending and politically illogical in so many ways. It can only possibly lead you to the conclusion that Mr Hunt does know where too many bodies are buried. Speaking today on the Andrew Marr show he said the governments penchant for u-turning was a sign of “resolve and strength” yet he seems totally unable to perform one when it comes to the Ministerial career of Jeremy Hunt. It’s not as if Mr Hunt is the only senior Cabinet minister in trouble, with the accusations stacking-up against Baroness Warsi as well.
Liberal Democrats should perhaps take note of how relatively quickly Vince Cable, David Laws and Chris Huhne were dispensed with by comparison; there is nothing quite like an appreciative and supportive Coalition partner in politics. Sadly, knowing how spineless the Lib Dems actually are, I am skeptical they will even day to vote with Labour when it comes to the vote on investigating Mr Hunt. I rather suspect Mr Cameron is congratulating himself privately on his Rambo-like machismo in not sacking his wayward ministers but the country is looking on, unamused.
Conservatives must be inwardly concerned that their leader has now on so many occasions let the weight of his own stubbornness outweigh sound political common sense. Meanwhile, Labour’s position, to do what any dutiful opposition should be doing, and harry these ministers out of office, needs to constantly bring the issue back to the judgment of the Prime Minister, something that with regard to his picks for high office looks increasingly suspect (and lest we forget the former head of Downing Street Communications being charged with perjury). It’s only a matter of time before more scandals break and Mr Cameron is the last one left clinging like a desperate limpet to the tattered remains of his tenure.
Why I am a republican..
Posted: June 2, 2012 Filed under: Opinion | Tags: Jubilee, Queen, Republicanism Leave a comment »
I think this weekend, perhaps more than any other weekend, it is relevant and necessary to state the republican case, what it is and what it is not. Let’s start with what it is not; it is not a personal vendetta against the Queen or the actual person who happens to be the monarch. This is not about saying the monarch is necessarily a bad person, it’s a fundamental question about how this country is governed and what our value system actually is. I do, however, reject the argument that the Queen is this semi-mythic figure who, for example, is somehow ‘above politics’. Just because the monarch is bound not to express their own political views in public does not mean they don’t hold them, indeed it would be downright bizarre if they didn’t have them and consequentially, to assert that they do not act upon them or advocate them, within a limited framework is similarly bizarre and more than a little naive to be honest.
I do not also believe the Queen (or any other monarch) was born inherently better than me. I believe that every single citizen in this country was born equal and is entitled by right to the same opportunities as everybody else. This cuts to the heart of my first objection to the monarchy. It embeds in our society and our value system the belief that somehow, there are some amoung us who were born better, with a right to govern and an entitlement to wealth that has nothing to do with merit or achievement or downright sheer hard graft. Nobody can dispute that this is what monarchy implicitly argues and that it destroys the myth that Britain is any kind of meritocracy. The presence of a Head of State who is appointed by sheer accident of birth is offensive to the very concept of meritocracy and the notion of equality for all.
It is also offensive to democracy. The notion that the Queen is a titular head of state is again one of the many myths that surround the institution of the monarchy. Significant powers are reserved to the Crown under the system of Royal prerogative. Typically, it is true, these are exercised by the Prime Minister but they are a way of the executive undemocratically undermining the elected legislature. It is therefore possible for the Prime Minister to declare war without the consent of Parliament (as indeed Tony Blair did when Britain went into war with Iraq) but not possible for the President of the United States to technically declare war without recourse to Congress. Of course, this does not stop American Presidents trying to circumnavigate the War Powers Resolution but the distinction is an important one.
This is all before we get started on the House of Lords which is, of course, an integral part of the constitutional monarchy state. Indeed, if anything typifies the poisonous and pernicious culture of patronage and inherited, not earned, power then the House of Lords has to be it. This is (or at least it should be) the essence of republicanism, an unstinting, democratic opposition to the undemocratic constitutional monarchy state. It may well be true that the majority of the British people would wish the monarchy continue and indeed, in some form, even as a republican, I willing to assent too and recognise that wish. However, what I cannot accept, and I believe the clear majority of British people would not accept, is the damage the constitutional monarchy state does to our democracy and the civil list do to our public finances. Republicanism, for me, is about a faithfulness to democratic principles and a committment to the creed of social justice and that is why we must tear the decrepit, degenerate constitutional monarchy state down, brick-by-brick.
The Borrowers…
Posted: June 1, 2012 Filed under: Economy, Labour, Opinion | Tags: Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Fraser Nelson Leave a comment »
It is one of the many myths that was made popular by this government that Britain’s national debt was caused by Labour ‘borrowing too much’. In fact, the crisis had many causes, and state spending only started to spiral out of control only when the then Labour government pumped hundreds of billions of pounds into the ailing banking sector (we are still waiting for the return). Furthermore, given this governments record on borrowing you would think it would like to reconsider its critique of governments gone by.
As Fraser Nelson helpfully explains;
The Prime Minister does know what should be done, as we heard yesterday: radical reform, and accepting that you can’t (as he puts it) “borrow your way out of a debt crisis”. But his government is attempting to do precisely that, borrowing more over five years than Labour did over 13.
However, this government isn’t borrowing money to service the national debt, it is rather borrowing money to institute a 1001 crazy reforms that will only damage Britain’s economic productivity and in the long-run damage its quest to balance the books. For example, billions are being poured into the NHS reforms that nobody actually wants.
Labour has been too shy when it comes to criticising this aspect of government policy. If the government was borrowing money to invest in the real economy, to offer debt relief help, to raise wages, to build houses (thus creating jobs), etc then actually this would be money well spent and in the long run it is money that would be a real investment in making a dent in the deficit. I suspect Labour’s shyness comes from the fact it feels it is vulnerable on this issue but it shouldnt let that cow it and silence its attacks.
In fact, this is yet another example of this government funneling obscene amounts of money to those who already have plenty of it, something else that will exacerbate, not solve our economic problems. Mr Miliband and Mr Balls should be planning a daring raid into ‘enemy territory’, to destroy this inept governments record for economic competency once and for all. No contradiction exists between building a socially just and sustainable economy and solving the debt crisis. You need to do the latter to answer the former. It’s about time Labour pointed this out and stopped approaching this aspect of the economic debate as if it was walking on egg-shells all the time.
Defend our doctors….
Posted: May 31, 2012 Filed under: Health | Tags: Andrew Lansley, Andy Burnham, BMA 4 Comments »
I am entirely sure that doctors, like other workers in critical, safety-sensitive, positions do not take a decision to take industrial action lightly. When they do take this decision, as they did yesterday, therefore their reasons deserve serious examination. Firstly, we can dismiss the notion that they should not be allowed to strike and that their strike is somehow ‘reckless’. Every single person has the right to withdraw their labour, there are no exceptions, and the British Medical Association has made it quite clear emergency care will still be provided;
“On that day, doctors will be in their usual workplaces but providing urgent and emergency care only”, wrote the BMA.
“We will be postponing non-urgent cases and although this will be disruptive to the NHS, rest assured, doctors will be there when our patients need us most and our action will not impact on your safety.”
In this context we can see the BMA is behaving responsibly, not putting peoples lives in danger but still exercising its right to make its voice heard. Sadly, Andy Burnham seems to have sided with those who think that doctors have no right to take any kind of action whatsoever;
“It’s the BMA’s right to make their own decision, but even at this stage I would urge doctors to pull back from any form of action that damages patient care, including disruption to non-urgent care.
“Instead, I would urge the BMA to follow other routes in making clear the substance of their disagreement with the Government.”
By implication, Mr Burnham rules out doctors right to strike as there is no form of actual strike action that would fulfill his criteria. Furthermore, he doesn’t really offer the doctors any answers having previously accepted their ‘strength of feeling’ is essentially legitimate. Once again we see what a hopeless muddle the Labour leadership gets itself in when it is confronted with this kind of situation. Rather than make an objective assessment of the issues at stake it twists and turns. trying to please everybody all of the time.
It is telling that the right-wing press have immediately sought to tarnish doctors as ‘greedy’ (notice how every striker is always ‘greedy’). This cheap attempt to play workers off against each other, one that does nothing to explain what doctors actually do to earn their money, the emotional stresses and strains, the long hours, etc is not one we should be reinforcing but combating.
Mr Burnham however acknowledges the doctors dispute has to be looked at both in the particular, a dispute over pensions, and the wider context of this governments ideological assault on the public sector. Changing pension schemes is only the first step in a program of dismantlement that moves through regional pay to the eventual end of a public sector that has been entirely privatised leaving the poor and the needy cast totally adrift. It is the height of hypocrisy for Mr Lansley to criticise one day’s worth of industrial action for the disruption it will cause on the day figures revealed his policies are leading to sky-rocketing waiting times for accident and emergency patients. Doctors would have to go on strike for alot longer than one day to do the kind of damage he and his Party are doing to patient care.
We should defend our doctors and support them as they take an action that has been forced upon them by an intransigent, ideologically driven government, which cares not a jot for anything other than its zealot’s agenda to destroy our NHS once and for all.
Syria and the impulse to intervene….
Posted: May 30, 2012 Filed under: Foreign Policy, International Politics | Tags: Syria Leave a comment »
Events in Syria seem to be rapidly spiralling out of control and the conditions for civilians seem to be dramatically worsening. The massacre in Houla was an act of barbarism; there are no two-ways about this and this is something we need to recognise. Furthermore, we need to recognise that witnessing this on a TV screen will lead many decent people to clamour for intervention. This is not because they are ‘stooges’ or ‘dupes’ of ‘imperialism’ as many on the left would have you believe but because they are decent human beings who see such atrocities and feel the strong, progressive, impulse to want to do something about what is happening.
In the age of 24 hour news media furthermore we have to recognise that people’s exposure to these events is much increased thus the feeling of empathy and compassion for the victims will be much enhanced. This is a good, progressive thing, have we not always preached solidarity, for human beings to stand shoulder to shoulder against repressive regimes and poverty, injustice, etc? However, there is no doubt that this impulse becomes twisted and is exploited by vested interests.
This is the tight-rope we walk, caught between the twin vices of between doing nothing, merely making propaganda on the one side and between having our own politics twisted and disfigured to the point where it becomes barely recognisable anymore on the other. Global politics and world geo-politics is one of those areas where the terms of reference even that the left thinks in are terribly outdated. It is simplistic and anachronistic to see the world as simply being split into two ‘camps’ of ‘imperialism’ and ‘anti-imperialism’. If it ever was totally relevant it was only so at the time it was first posited in this way and that was a long time ago.
Instead of simple ‘goody v baddy’ camps, the world is actually composed of a serious of complicated situational and always-shifting power relations. This is especially true in the post-crash world where Western ‘imperalist’ powers have actually lost alot of the economic dominance that their political hegemony was based upon. The slow, grinding decline of this hegemony and the consequent emergence of new power centres (like in China, India and Brazil, for example) is actually a defining feature of this epoch in international relations.
I would suggest that this new world requires new thinking and new approaches. Rather than defaulting to support smaller tyrannies (like the one that exists in Syria) or supporting the hypocrisy of the leading powers in the world, the left needs to develop a critique of both and start forumlating demands for a new world order, one that harnesses the progressive impulses that I have already mentioned. The decision on whether to support intervention or not should be based on a cold, hard-headed, risk v reward assesment, not an outmoded ideological view of the world. In the case of Syria I think, sadly, that assesment would find against supporting intervention (mostly due to the possible wider consequence of drawing Iran and Israel into direct military confrontation) however, something must be done. We need to strengthen international mechanisms of accountability and the teeth of international law to make the likes of Bashar al-Assad think again before they terrorise and butcher their own people and we, in Labour, need to be leading and forming this debates, standing as we do steepted in a fine tradition of internationalism.
Let’s call time on the Labour’s ‘fix-it’ culture….
Posted: May 29, 2012 Filed under: Labour Leave a comment »
I was really very disappointed to hear in one of the Facebook groups I am a member that Labour members are being told by their ward secretary which way they should vote in the NEC elections in at least one area. It is important to remember that while CLP’s and indeed other Labour bodies can nominate candidates in the first phase of the elections that now we are into the phase where each Labour member votes as an individual. This means, naturally, they make decisions on that basis, not at a ward or indeed CLP level.
What happened is that the Labour member in question was told that they should vote a certain way by the ward secretary as there had been a vote at the AGM in February. They were asked to ‘spread the word and encourage others to vote the way that had been decided. However, this was a vote that took place at the nomination stage and is of course non-binding on individual members so there was absolutely no need for the Secretary to send out this ‘reminder’ and the email can only be seen as an attempt at coercion. What causes me even more concern is that this occurred in Islington. Mark Ferguson has recently chronicled other problems occurring within the London Labour Party which basically boil down to a similar issue – the use of those who already have influence and access to gain more. It is high time we called a halt to the ‘fix-it’ culture that sadly seems to have become something of an accepted part of our Party life.
How do we do this? Well, first we need to ensure all election candidates in internal elections have the same level of access to data and contact details across the board and that they have exactly the same opportunities to contact the membership. Peter Kenyon has suggested this happen with an internal e-mail shoot for all NEC candidates, a suggestion I whole-heartedly support. Equal access to data happens as a matter of course for candidates in the standing in the selection process to represent the Labour Party in external elections so, why can’t it happen in internal elections? If it did it would also reduce our dependency on the slate system and encourage more grassroot members to stand independently and this, I believe would be a good and healthy thing for our internal Party democracy.
Ending the fix-it culture that is currently far too rife within Labour should be one of the new NEC’s top priorities; democratising the Party and making its processes more transparent is certainly one of my top priorities and even if I am not elected I will continue to bring incidents like this to light, using the medium of this blog, and continue to shine a light on the murkier corners of our Party’s practice.
A long road ahead on the economy….
Posted: May 29, 2012 Filed under: Economy | Tags: Big Society, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband 2 Comments »
Although recent opinion polling has been good for the Labour Party, I have consistently argued against complacency and continue to feel indeed that this is the biggest potential threat to our chances of winning the next General Election. The reality is that it is hard to discern a definite mood amoung people, they are confused mostly by the collapse of old certainties. This is totally natural. We have been told consistently for a good long while that there is no alternative to neo-liberal economics but yet the failure of said economic model is plain for all to see.
No doubt this plays a huge role in the often contradictory nature of opinion polling on the economy, something Anthony Wells outlines here. Indeed, as Anthony notes, the prevailing mood is one of wanting to have our cake and eat it all at the same time. However, confused and confusing times call for strength and clarity, people want an alternative but they are not prepared to make a massive break with the status quo in lieu of a viable alternative. Currently, our economic narrative is not to providing a bold alternative, it is more like managerial tinkering at the edges.
This may have a certain ephemeral appeal in the circumstances as outlined but, as they say, fortune favours the brave. The same is true of politics. It is the bold parties, the ones that capture and shape the popular imagination, that prosper in the end, no matter how isolated they look in the short-term. It is not as if we don’t have the building blocks in place either, a strong background in co-operative values, we as a Party are the progenitors and true heirs to the real ‘Big Society’, and I don’t mean the slash n burn variety as espoused by Mr Cameron and company. We could offer a vision, a co-operative and mutual vision, of a society and economy transformed, a phoenix risen out of the ashes but a sustainable one. All we need is the courage to strike out, yes probably alone at first, and show we are the only Party that can resolve this crisis and return Britain and indeed Europe to prosperity, but sustainable prosperity. So, Mr Miliband, Mr Balls, the ball really is in your court now, the heritage of the Party you belong too points the way and Britain expects and needs nothing less.
A little bit of soul searching….
Posted: May 28, 2012 Filed under: Labour | Tags: NEC Elections 2012 3 Comments »Over the next few days, Labour members will be receiving their ballot papers for elections to the National Executive Committee and National Policy Forum. Both are important bodies and indeed I have been very happy, as a candidate for the former, to receive e-mails asking a variety of questions. It’s great to see Labour members actively engaged with these elections and questioning people who want to represent them.
Internal elections are an opportunity for a little bit of soul-searching. When we face the public and ask them to elect us we should puff out our plumage, so to speak, and assert ourselves collectively. However, internal elections are an opportunity to collectively ask ourselves a few searching questions and this is a necessary and healthy thing. So, rather than pitch for your vote, i’d like to pitch some proposals about the kind of questions we need to be asking ourselves when we cast our vote.
1) How do we reconnect with our fundamental, core values? Some people will argue this takes the naval-gazing too far, that the real question is how do we re-connect with the voting public. I, however, would argue that any entity not in touch with itself is unlikely to be able to connect with others outside of itself; fundamental to this is the understanding of the simple fact that we lost office because we lost our way and that Labour, being true to itself, is the way to win back government.
2) Have we become ‘addicted to fixing’ and if so, what can be done about it? Mark Ferguson makes a spirited case on LabourList that we have become addicted to fixing as a Party and I think, sadly, he is probably right. This is indicative of a political mindset and culture which values form over process. Refounding Labour has made changes but surely those are mostly to our organisational forms with little impact on reconnecting with our essential animus.
3) What can we do to make Labour a more effective, cohesive, whole? Here I think much of the onus is on the leadership to start trusting the membership again. Ever since 1983, Labour members have been made to feel bad, like they are an albatross around the neck of the Party and that the leadership has to move mountains to effectively ‘save’ the Party from the ‘worst excesses’ of its own members. Rather than being treasured and valued, and that being reflected in our processes and internal democracy, I think members and activists are treated with cold disdain by the Party machine. How best can we repair this breach between the different parts of our collective organisation?
I think, whether it be me, or any of the other fine candidates, Labour members should let the answers to those questions guide them in how they vote and that they should vote for the people they think best placed to answer them and take our Party forward, back to its rightful place as a tribune of the British people.
Unsung heroes and heroines…
Posted: May 26, 2012 Filed under: Health, Labour | Tags: National Care Service 3 Comments »
I was recently asked to name a person who inspires me as part of a little interview exercise. Me, being me, I interpreted the rules creatively and named people not a person, the people I currently work with in the caring ‘industry’. No doubt exists in my mind that these people are unsung heroes and heroines who give so much for what is far too often so little reward. This is not to say caring for people, vulnerable people, is un-rewarding in itself but more that the sacrifices people are asked to make are too great and should not be asked of any worker, be they in a profession they love or loath; being caught between financial penury and exhaustion and illness brought on by a deeply unbalanced ‘work/life’ existence are not things that should be an issue in our modern, supposedly, ‘civilised’ society. For example, nobody should be asked to choose between work and seeing their personal relationships put under strain or to choose between scraping by and seeing their social life dwindle into nothingness. All-to-often staff end up effectively paying to work in the industry due to travel costs and other factors; all too often I hear of people being pushed to the limits of human endurance, exhausted by a physically and emotionally demanding job with ridiculous hours piled on-top and then, of course, they end up being ill, increasing the burden on others and even here I am barely scratching the surface of the industry-wide issues that exist.
It is however typical of our media that they are interested in these issues only when things go wrong, never mentioning the sterling and worthy work done in care every single day; it is however, sadly a constant battle many fight against the odds of a poorly run and ethically disoriented industry. The implication of the stories like the one circulating today regarding Serco is clearly that it is a few ‘bad apples’ that spoil the broth but nothing could be further from the truth; it is the broth itself that is already noxious and mouldy. The underlying cause of the much-touted ‘crisis in care’ is the private ownership of care companies and the consequent drive to maximise profits; the rest of the world be damned and until this boil is lanced, tragedies will continue to happen and good people, service users and staff will continue to suffer. Private enterprise simply has no place in the healthcare sector at all; too much is at stake for things to be left to the untamed whim of the market and no matter how ‘different’ agencies intend to be they are all, inevitably, at some point caught in the privatisation race-to-the-bottom and to maximise profit.
Radical times demand radical measures and the solution for service users and staff ultimately ends up being the same thing. If you want to solve the ‘crisis in care’ the only viable, sustainable solution is to drive the market and private ownership out of the industry altogether. A National Care Service is the only way forward as a fully integrated part of a National Health Service rescued from the yawning abyss of privatisation by a Labour government that celebrates the virtues and underlying ethos of public service. I hope I live to see the day when our Party, being true to its great radical socially transforming traditions, can make this a reality and finally all the unsung heroes and heroines I have met in the last 7 months get the recognition they deserve.
Votes for prisoners; it’s about justice…..
Posted: May 25, 2012 Filed under: Crime, Europe | Tags: David Cameron 4 Comments »
I have little doubt that David Cameron is immensely grateful to the European Court of Human Rights for their ruling that prisoners should be given the vote. It gives him the chance to go to war with Europe, flying the flag of ‘national sovereignty’, and look tough on crime all at the same time. If he was praying for divine intervention from the great gods in the political sky he could scarcely have wished for a better delivery service. I doubt it will be enough to save his ailing Premiership but he, like the rest of us, has the chance for a rare snatched moment in the sun.
Giving prisoners voting rights is certainly an emotive issue and it is also a complicated one. On the one hand there is the legal debate over whether the ECHR has operated within its boundaries and on the other there is the debate about pretty much whether prisoners have any human rights at all. The answer to this should be an obvious yes but even this debate misses the central question and that is how we view justice. People who answer ‘no’ to the previous question would naturally tend to say determining who the guilty are and punishing them appropriately. However, people who answer ‘yes’, as I would, would point to the need for offenders to be rehabilitated.
Yesterday, I took part in an interesting group exercise – the different groups were given a scenario and asked to decide upon an appropriate punishment for a drink driver. The fictional man in question was 74, had an alcohol problem and known depression, he had hit somebody and broken their legs. We were not told whether the offender had ‘hit and run’ or any other further details. Some decided on a lengthy custodial sentence, while others, myself included opted for a suspended sentence, with the condition of its suspension being counselling, and attendance at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
It was a common factor that those who opted for the former approach focused solely on the damage done to the victim, while those who took the latter approach tended to focus on the obviously bad situation of the defendant and his prospects for a post-punishment life. I would say the room split 50-50 which surprised me as I expected more to take the former view.
In truth, the question is striking a balance. No rounded concept of justice, for me, focuses solely on punishing the guilty. Indeed, this approach is impractical, purely ‘restorative justice’ is only practicable in the case of certain crimes (how do people propose, for example, to ‘un-murder’ somebody?). We also have a prison system that is well-known to be at breaking point. However, no rehabilitation would be successful without a punitive aspect. So, where does that leave us with this issue?
Voting is a part of playing an active part in society (though many of those nominally ‘free’ to do so actually don’t) and it is a way of forcing representatives to actually seek to represent people. Prisoners, like it or not, are as entitled to representation just like the rest of us; therefore they should have the vote, even in election for posts like Police Commissionaire. I am more than a little uneasy with allowing judges to determine when prisoners should receive the vote for I fear they would not be politically neutral in the application of this power. It should be therefore delegated to a panel of accountable representatives who have been appointed by an appropriate (and accountable body). This body should not be directly elected since prisoners would have the vote in that election too.
This is not an easy case to make but it is one based on a rounded and I believe the correct view of what justice should be as much as about human rights and this is the terrain we need to shift the debate onto.
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