Friday, July 11, 2008
House Points: Have environmentalists made us terrified of the natural world?
My House Points column from Liberal Democrat News.
This week's issue is a special on the environment. I am not sure whether I was fitting in with that or acting as a devil's advocate, but this is an unusually heartfelt column.
I wrote at greater length about the beneficial effects of exposure to the natural world for Openmind a few years ago.
Fresh air
A survey for the National Trust has found half the children questioned cannot tell bees from wasps. A similar percentage cannot recognise a barn owl or oak leaf, and one in three cannot identify a magpie. But nine out of ten know the Daleks and Yoda from Star Wars.
Perhaps not so surprising it is. Yet I was struck by the comment from the Trust’s conservation adviser: "The more distanced we become from nature, the more difficult it will be for us to survive on this planet."
This concern with survival is typical of the environmental movement. All its talk of "saving the planet" is really about saving the human race. The planet would jog along without us quite happily.
But survival is a depressingly narrow aim for any political movement. And it is a dangerous one for Liberals, because it can be used to justify any amount of repression.
Years ago environmentalists decided their only hope was to scare us half to death. Peak oil and global warming are just the latest in a list of dooms. The result has been to make many people terrified of the natural world. The environment is all around us (you cannot argue with that) and it is out to get us.
This fear combines easily with parental concerns about traffic and strangers, so their children’s encounters with nature are increasingly limited. Yet the best of 20th-century education and children’s literature saw such experiences as central to a wholesome childhood.
Liberal Democrats should have a more generous view of the importance of the environment. There is abundant evidence that experiencing the natural world is good for everyone from behaviourally disturbed children to recovering surgery patients.
And the claim that a vengeful Nature is going to sweep away our economic system is a cop out. We are going to have to use our intelligence to reform it if we want more people to live happy lives
I leave the last word to the great Victorian nature writer Richard Jefferies:
This week's issue is a special on the environment. I am not sure whether I was fitting in with that or acting as a devil's advocate, but this is an unusually heartfelt column.
I wrote at greater length about the beneficial effects of exposure to the natural world for Openmind a few years ago.
Fresh air
A survey for the National Trust has found half the children questioned cannot tell bees from wasps. A similar percentage cannot recognise a barn owl or oak leaf, and one in three cannot identify a magpie. But nine out of ten know the Daleks and Yoda from Star Wars.
Perhaps not so surprising it is. Yet I was struck by the comment from the Trust’s conservation adviser: "The more distanced we become from nature, the more difficult it will be for us to survive on this planet."
This concern with survival is typical of the environmental movement. All its talk of "saving the planet" is really about saving the human race. The planet would jog along without us quite happily.
But survival is a depressingly narrow aim for any political movement. And it is a dangerous one for Liberals, because it can be used to justify any amount of repression.
Years ago environmentalists decided their only hope was to scare us half to death. Peak oil and global warming are just the latest in a list of dooms. The result has been to make many people terrified of the natural world. The environment is all around us (you cannot argue with that) and it is out to get us.
This fear combines easily with parental concerns about traffic and strangers, so their children’s encounters with nature are increasingly limited. Yet the best of 20th-century education and children’s literature saw such experiences as central to a wholesome childhood.
Liberal Democrats should have a more generous view of the importance of the environment. There is abundant evidence that experiencing the natural world is good for everyone from behaviourally disturbed children to recovering surgery patients.
And the claim that a vengeful Nature is going to sweep away our economic system is a cop out. We are going to have to use our intelligence to reform it if we want more people to live happy lives
I leave the last word to the great Victorian nature writer Richard Jefferies:
Let us get out of these indoor narrow modern days, whose twelve hours have somehow become shortened, into the sunlight and the pure wind. A something that the ancients called divine can be found and felt there still.
Labels: Environment, House Points, Richard Jefferies
Friday, July 04, 2008
House Points: Education is all Balls
Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News.
As ever, I hit the bottom of the page just as I threaten to say something interesting. There is a an article on the good and bad points of Academies by Ross McKibbin in the current London Review of Books.
Ed-ucation
Judging by the name of the department Gordon Brown created for Ed Balls, this government has nationalised children, schools and families. So we shouldn’t be surprised at the subjects MPs think they can hold him responsible for.
What is Balls doing to reduce the bullying of children with disabilities and special educational needs? That was from our own Lynne Featherstone.
What plans does he have to increase singing in schools? That was from the Labour MP Robert Flello, who has inspired many songs himself. "For He’s a Jolly Good Flello." "Mellow Flello." "Goodbye Flello Brick Road."
Singing in schools is a wonderful thing and bullying is a serious problem. But aren’t these questions for local councils or individual head teachers?
Oddly, it was only when Norman Baker asked about teachers no longer being confident to touch children that Balls tried this defence. Because of measures like the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act of 2006, it is one area where the blame can be laid at ministers’ doors.
Regular readers will know how this column enjoys family history. And the history of the Balls is more interesting than most.
Step forward Professor Balls. Ed Balls’s father Michael is Professor Emeritus of Medical Cell Biology at Nottingham University. He is widely admired for his work on finding alternatives to medical experiments on animals.
Michael Balls is also politically active. While a lecturer at the University of East Anglia in the 1970s he organised the successful campaign against the 11 plus in Norfolk.
So when the family moved to Nottinghamshire, did his son attend one of the county’s comprehensives? Did he bunnies.
The young Ed Balls attended the private Nottingham High School (current fees £3358 per term.) That was not his choice, of course. But it is hard to forget when Ed Balls presents himself as the scourge of selection in education.
Back to Monday’s questions. It was interesting to see Vince Cable backing the establishment of two Academies in his Twickenham constituency. For too long Liberal Democrat education policy held that unless a reform could be introduced everywhere, all at once, then it should not be introduced at all.
The Academies programme has its absurdities, but Liberals should support variety and experimentation in education.
As ever, I hit the bottom of the page just as I threaten to say something interesting. There is a an article on the good and bad points of Academies by Ross McKibbin in the current London Review of Books.
Ed-ucation
Judging by the name of the department Gordon Brown created for Ed Balls, this government has nationalised children, schools and families. So we shouldn’t be surprised at the subjects MPs think they can hold him responsible for.
What is Balls doing to reduce the bullying of children with disabilities and special educational needs? That was from our own Lynne Featherstone.
What plans does he have to increase singing in schools? That was from the Labour MP Robert Flello, who has inspired many songs himself. "For He’s a Jolly Good Flello." "Mellow Flello." "Goodbye Flello Brick Road."
Singing in schools is a wonderful thing and bullying is a serious problem. But aren’t these questions for local councils or individual head teachers?
Oddly, it was only when Norman Baker asked about teachers no longer being confident to touch children that Balls tried this defence. Because of measures like the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act of 2006, it is one area where the blame can be laid at ministers’ doors.
Regular readers will know how this column enjoys family history. And the history of the Balls is more interesting than most.
Step forward Professor Balls. Ed Balls’s father Michael is Professor Emeritus of Medical Cell Biology at Nottingham University. He is widely admired for his work on finding alternatives to medical experiments on animals.
Michael Balls is also politically active. While a lecturer at the University of East Anglia in the 1970s he organised the successful campaign against the 11 plus in Norfolk.
So when the family moved to Nottinghamshire, did his son attend one of the county’s comprehensives? Did he bunnies.
The young Ed Balls attended the private Nottingham High School (current fees £3358 per term.) That was not his choice, of course. But it is hard to forget when Ed Balls presents himself as the scourge of selection in education.
Back to Monday’s questions. It was interesting to see Vince Cable backing the establishment of two Academies in his Twickenham constituency. For too long Liberal Democrat education policy held that unless a reform could be introduced everywhere, all at once, then it should not be introduced at all.
The Academies programme has its absurdities, but Liberals should support variety and experimentation in education.
Labels: Ed Balls, Education, House Points
Friday, June 27, 2008
House Points: The RIPA and council spying
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Serious snooping
Every month local councils launch over a thousand spying operations. They are so keen on the work that they will soon be carrying out more surveillance than the police. A Dorset family was followed for over a fortnight because the county council suspected them of lying on a school application form. Welcome to Labour Britain.
Everyone says such outrages are down to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. So I turned to Hansard and the debates that took place when it was passed in 2000.
If a week is a long time in politics, eight years is several lifetimes in computers. Here is Michael Fabricant speaking in the second reading debate:
Were MPs asleep on the job? No, because the extraordinary powers local authorities now enjoy stem not from the 2000 Act but David Blunkett’s decision in 2003 to increase its scope. When the Act was passed only nine organisations, such as the police and security services, were allowed to use it. By the time Blunkett had finished with it that number had risen to 792, including 474 councils.
Blunkett has resigned twice since then, but another Home Office minister implicated in the decision is very much with us. In 2003 critics -- quite rightly, it turned out -- complained the changes would make the Act "a snooper’s charter".
But Caroline Flint was having none of it: "We need to ensure that we strike the right balance between the privacy of the citizen and the need to investigate crime and protect the public. I believe that the new order achieves that balance."
Today Flint is in charge of the eco towns programme, aiming to do to the English countryside what she did to our liberties five years ago.
Serious snooping
Every month local councils launch over a thousand spying operations. They are so keen on the work that they will soon be carrying out more surveillance than the police. A Dorset family was followed for over a fortnight because the county council suspected them of lying on a school application form. Welcome to Labour Britain.
Everyone says such outrages are down to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. So I turned to Hansard and the debates that took place when it was passed in 2000.
If a week is a long time in politics, eight years is several lifetimes in computers. Here is Michael Fabricant speaking in the second reading debate:
"In the United States, 44 per cent. of families have access to the internet, whereas, in the United Kingdom, only 18 per cent. of families are connected. However, with today's announcement that Alta Vista will provide free internet access for only £10 annually … the UK percentage is likely to grow."In that debate there was no mention of councils. Everyone talked about the importance of the police being able to decrypt the computers of terrorists and paedophiles. (And quite possibly terrorist paedophiles and paedophile terrorists too.)
Were MPs asleep on the job? No, because the extraordinary powers local authorities now enjoy stem not from the 2000 Act but David Blunkett’s decision in 2003 to increase its scope. When the Act was passed only nine organisations, such as the police and security services, were allowed to use it. By the time Blunkett had finished with it that number had risen to 792, including 474 councils.
Blunkett has resigned twice since then, but another Home Office minister implicated in the decision is very much with us. In 2003 critics -- quite rightly, it turned out -- complained the changes would make the Act "a snooper’s charter".
But Caroline Flint was having none of it: "We need to ensure that we strike the right balance between the privacy of the citizen and the need to investigate crime and protect the public. I believe that the new order achieves that balance."
Today Flint is in charge of the eco towns programme, aiming to do to the English countryside what she did to our liberties five years ago.
Labels: House Points
Friday, June 20, 2008
House Points: Press barons, by-elections and David Davis
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Incidentally, if Bowles was the grandfather of the Mitford sisters then he must be a kinsman of our own Rupert Redesdale.
The Yellow Press
The prospect of Kelvin Mackenzie standing in Haltemprice and Howden on behalf of Rupert Murdoch reminds Leicestershire historians of the Harborough by-election of 1916. There, though there was a wartime truce between the main parties, the Liberal candidate Percy Harris (now best remembered as Matthew Taylor’s great-grandfather) faced a formidable opponent financed by the press baron Lord Northcliffe.
Thomas Gibson Bowles was the illegitimate son of a cabinet minister, the founder of Vanity Fair and The Lady, and the grandfather of the Mitford sisters. He had sat for King’s Lynn as both a Liberal and a Conservative. He stood in Harborough to protest against the Asquith government’s conduct of the war.
Percy Harris wrote in his memoirs: "The hoardings were covered with Daily Mail posters, ‘Buy Daily Mail and vote for Bowles,’ and a special issue of the Daily Mirror, then in Northcliffe’s hands, was published and delivered free to the voters."
Many thought Harris had no chance, "But I was young and energetic and kept to the front the query: ‘Were the electors to select their own MP or have one dictated to them by the Yellow Press?’ and a very effective question it was." So effective that Harris won by 4000 votes.
Now Kelvin Mackenzie is backing away from the contest and David Davis may find himself fighting just the Miss Great Britain Party. But should he be facing a Liberal Democrat?
David Cameron's strategy since becoming Tory leader has been to convince the world you can be a reasonable person - concerned about the environment and civil liberties - and still vote Conservative.
You may say amounts to little more than being in favour of motherhood and apple pie. But as Danny Finkelstein has pointed out, the Tories spent a decade giving every impression of being against motherhood and apple pie. So this marks considerable progress for them.
Now David Davis has taken it into his head to resign and fight a by-election on civil liberties. And the Lib Dems have stood aside to let him make the issue entirely his own. It is hard to see how that will help us win or keep the support of the liberally minded people Cameron is wooing. We should be standing in the by-election.
Incidentally, if Bowles was the grandfather of the Mitford sisters then he must be a kinsman of our own Rupert Redesdale.
The Yellow Press
The prospect of Kelvin Mackenzie standing in Haltemprice and Howden on behalf of Rupert Murdoch reminds Leicestershire historians of the Harborough by-election of 1916. There, though there was a wartime truce between the main parties, the Liberal candidate Percy Harris (now best remembered as Matthew Taylor’s great-grandfather) faced a formidable opponent financed by the press baron Lord Northcliffe.
Thomas Gibson Bowles was the illegitimate son of a cabinet minister, the founder of Vanity Fair and The Lady, and the grandfather of the Mitford sisters. He had sat for King’s Lynn as both a Liberal and a Conservative. He stood in Harborough to protest against the Asquith government’s conduct of the war.
Percy Harris wrote in his memoirs: "The hoardings were covered with Daily Mail posters, ‘Buy Daily Mail and vote for Bowles,’ and a special issue of the Daily Mirror, then in Northcliffe’s hands, was published and delivered free to the voters."
Many thought Harris had no chance, "But I was young and energetic and kept to the front the query: ‘Were the electors to select their own MP or have one dictated to them by the Yellow Press?’ and a very effective question it was." So effective that Harris won by 4000 votes.
Now Kelvin Mackenzie is backing away from the contest and David Davis may find himself fighting just the Miss Great Britain Party. But should he be facing a Liberal Democrat?
David Cameron's strategy since becoming Tory leader has been to convince the world you can be a reasonable person - concerned about the environment and civil liberties - and still vote Conservative.
You may say amounts to little more than being in favour of motherhood and apple pie. But as Danny Finkelstein has pointed out, the Tories spent a decade giving every impression of being against motherhood and apple pie. So this marks considerable progress for them.
Now David Davis has taken it into his head to resign and fight a by-election on civil liberties. And the Lib Dems have stood aside to let him make the issue entirely his own. It is hard to see how that will help us win or keep the support of the liberally minded people Cameron is wooing. We should be standing in the by-election.
Labels: Haltemprice and Howden by-election, House Points
Friday, June 13, 2008
House Points: Lord Bonkers looks back over the last 20 years
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News. It turns out that it is the 1000th issue rather than the 20th birthday, but the thought was there.Incidentally, the joke about masonry bees, which first appeared in an early Lord Bonkers' Diary, occurred to me when I came across them at the house in Shropshire where Malcolm Saville wrote Mystery at Witchend.
You see how it all fits together?
Completely Bonkers
What could I do this week but give over this column to Lord Bonkers? I have been editing the diaries of Rutland’s most celebrated peer for Liberator magazine for almost as long as the Liberal Democrats have existed. So here are his thoughts on the 20th birthday of Liberal Democrat News.
I sit in front of my hearth with a tumbler of Auld Johnston, that most celebrated of Highland malts, at my elbow, wondering that the last 20 years have passed so quickly. Let me share with you the pictures I see in the flames.
People say that Dr David Owen - or ‘Dr Death‘, as he is affectionately known by his many friends in politics - was so demoralised when his "Continuing SDP finished behind the Monster Raving Loony Party at the first Bootle by-election of 1990 that he closed the party down.
That is true, but it is equally the case that David Sutch never recovered from his disappointment at beating Owen by such a narrow margin. The poor fellow was to take his own life only a few years later.
In those days I had my own problems with masonry bees here at Bonkers Hall. (They burrowed into the mortar and exchanged peculiar handshakes.)
Time moved on, and the New Party and it philosophy of Newism was swept to power. I remember asking one newly appointed minister why he had not undone more of the mischief wrought by the Tories. "It's very simple," he replied. "Privatisation, for instance, is Government policy, so now that we are the Government it automatically becomes our policy."
Not that the Conservative Party took their defeat well. It appointed William Hague as its new leader. As a six-year-old he had wowed the party‘s conference. Three years later, now aged 74, he thought he would become prime minister. It was not to be.
The fire has burned low and I see I must draw my remarks to a conclusion. There is no time for me to tell you about the Bonkers Patent Exploding Focus (for use in marginal wards) and its important role in the Leicester South by-election.
Instead let me finish by wishing you the best of good fortune and raising my glass. Here’s to the next twenty years.
Labels: House Points, Lord Bonkers, Malcolm Saville, Shropshire
Friday, June 06, 2008
House Points: Set Boris free
One advantage of blogging is that publshing is instantaneous. That is not true of weekly journalism.
When I wrote this column for Liberal Democrat News on Tuesday evening it was true that no one had heard from Boris for ages. Since then he has resigned his Commons seat and been all over the newspapers.
Where's Boris?
Has anyone seen Boris Johnson recently? Fears are growing that he is being held against his will by an armed coalition of policy wonks, Cameroons and Tory spin doctors.
Look at the decisions being announced in his name. Boris was elected Mayor of London largely because he was seen as a Dangerous Politician for Boys. No more namby pamby, milk-and-water, pale pink policies for him. Socialism, Liberalism, Feminism, Multiculturalism, Ismism…
He would sweep them all away in favour of straight talking, grazed knees and common sense – or what passes for common sense among Old Etonians, Spectator readers and the other exotics with whom he used to surround himself.
But what have we seen? First alcohol was banned on public transport. Then we were told there would be no statue of Sir Keith Park in Trafalgar Square.
Sir Keith was a hero of the Battle of Britain. Shortly before the London election, Boris signed a Commons motion calling for a permanent statue of him to erected on the square‘s vacant fourth plinth.
Last week a written answer put out in his name said "complex planning issues would make it difficult to secure this location on an ongoing basis". Instead it will continue to be a temporary home for artworks. The next will be chosen from a shortlist including a Tracey Emin sculpture, a burned-out car from Iraq and a plan to allow people to stand on the plinth for an hour at a time.
You can’t get much more namby pamby, milk-and-water or pale pink than that.
It is instructive to compare Boris with Ken Livingstone. They have more in common than you might expect. Ken won the first Mayoral contest because, like Boris this time, he was disapproved of by dull orthodoxy. Voting for him was a way of putting two fingers up to authority.
But while Boris is being hustled out of Westminster with indecent haste, Ken - never a great "House of Commons man" - enjoyed his best period there after he became Mayor. He was a respected contributor to debates from the furthermost back bench.
Whatever you think of Boris’s politics, he deserves better than his current plight. If you know where he is being held, please tell the police.
When I wrote this column for Liberal Democrat News on Tuesday evening it was true that no one had heard from Boris for ages. Since then he has resigned his Commons seat and been all over the newspapers.
Where's Boris?
Has anyone seen Boris Johnson recently? Fears are growing that he is being held against his will by an armed coalition of policy wonks, Cameroons and Tory spin doctors.
Look at the decisions being announced in his name. Boris was elected Mayor of London largely because he was seen as a Dangerous Politician for Boys. No more namby pamby, milk-and-water, pale pink policies for him. Socialism, Liberalism, Feminism, Multiculturalism, Ismism…
He would sweep them all away in favour of straight talking, grazed knees and common sense – or what passes for common sense among Old Etonians, Spectator readers and the other exotics with whom he used to surround himself.
But what have we seen? First alcohol was banned on public transport. Then we were told there would be no statue of Sir Keith Park in Trafalgar Square.
Sir Keith was a hero of the Battle of Britain. Shortly before the London election, Boris signed a Commons motion calling for a permanent statue of him to erected on the square‘s vacant fourth plinth.
Last week a written answer put out in his name said "complex planning issues would make it difficult to secure this location on an ongoing basis". Instead it will continue to be a temporary home for artworks. The next will be chosen from a shortlist including a Tracey Emin sculpture, a burned-out car from Iraq and a plan to allow people to stand on the plinth for an hour at a time.
You can’t get much more namby pamby, milk-and-water or pale pink than that.
It is instructive to compare Boris with Ken Livingstone. They have more in common than you might expect. Ken won the first Mayoral contest because, like Boris this time, he was disapproved of by dull orthodoxy. Voting for him was a way of putting two fingers up to authority.
But while Boris is being hustled out of Westminster with indecent haste, Ken - never a great "House of Commons man" - enjoyed his best period there after he became Mayor. He was a respected contributor to debates from the furthermost back bench.
Whatever you think of Boris’s politics, he deserves better than his current plight. If you know where he is being held, please tell the police.
Labels: Boris Johnson, House Points
Friday, May 30, 2008
House Points: The Durham NUM, gypsies and Alistair Carmichael's dad
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Everyone writes satire nowadays and no one reports what is said in debates at Westminster. So maybe serious is the new funny?
A Westminster week
In Thursday’s Commons adjournment debate Kevan Jones, the Labour MP for North Durham, used Parliamentary privilege to continue his campaign against the leadership of the Durham Miners’ Association - as the Durham Branch of the National Union of Mineworkers is now known.
He voiced concerns about the Association’s deduction of a percentage of the compensation won by former miners, the salaries paid to its president and general secretary, and their practice of holding some funds in an offshore account.
When Jones turned his attention to Lindisfarne, members must have feared he was about to allege drunkenness and fornication among the monks. But he turned out to be supporting calls for the famous gospels to be returned to the North East.
One the same day there was a Westminster Hall debate on gypsies and travellers, with the Lib Dems Andrew George and Lembit Opik to the fore. There was an impressive degree of agreement across the parties, with the view emerging that it is no use the authorities taking stronger and stronger action against illegal settlements when the law makes it so hard for travellers to settle legally.
As Lembit said:
Travellers … should be brought in to the community so that they have to pay council tax and everything that goes with it? They will then end up feeling that they are stakeholders in society.Finally, again in Westminster Hall, this time on Wednesday during a debate on industrial relations in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Alistair Carmichael revealed:
It is ... a matter of some family pride that my father was for many years a member of the auxiliary coastguard, which is now a volunteer coastguard, on Islay. He was an active and leading participant in many rescue operations off Islay and several cliff rescues throughout the 1950s and 1960s.As dynastic politics appears to be coming back into fashion, perhaps Alistair should make more of this. His father seems to have done more good than most politicians’ relations.
Labels: Alistair Carmichael, House Points
Friday, May 23, 2008
House Points: Education and The Wind in the Willows
My House Points column from Today's Liberal Democrat News.
Good edukation
There was a telling moment at children, schools and families questions on Monday. Jim Cunningham, the Labour MP for Coventry South, asked what steps the Government has recently taken to raise standards in schools.
The minister, Jim Knight, replied with a dizzying list of government initiatives: personalised learning, progression, Every Child a Reader, Every Child a Writer, Every Child Counts, tutors, curriculum changes, academies, new 14 to 19 diplomas, raising the participation age, workforce reforms, continued investment and much else besides.
There was so much detail and it was delivered at such a pace that it resembled Ratty’s description of the contents of his picnic basket in the opening chapter of The Wind in the Willows. Remember the passage?
Instead he pointedly asked: "I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but will he now answer my question about whether he has any further plans to raise standards in schools?"
In reply Cunningham started on the list again, wavered and then decided it was safer to attack the Conservatives.
Perhaps this is a sign that initiative fatigue has reached the more sensible Labour back-benchers too. This government’s extra spending on schools has been welcome, but it has been accompanied by an extraordinary desire to dictate what happens in every classroom in the country.
So much so that Labour back-benchers now think it appropriate to seek ministerial praise for individual teachers and pupils. Anne Snelgrove told the House about Kerry, Charlene and Dylan from Oaktree primary school, and sought congratulations for Celia Messenger, the tutor in charge of reading recovery.
And we can’t leave Monday’s question time without paying tribute to the Tory Patrick McLoughlin. He asked: "How many children in English primary schools does the Minister think is failing?"
George W. Bush once asked "Is our children learning?" But let’s leave the last word with Kenneth Grahame:
Good edukation
There was a telling moment at children, schools and families questions on Monday. Jim Cunningham, the Labour MP for Coventry South, asked what steps the Government has recently taken to raise standards in schools.
The minister, Jim Knight, replied with a dizzying list of government initiatives: personalised learning, progression, Every Child a Reader, Every Child a Writer, Every Child Counts, tutors, curriculum changes, academies, new 14 to 19 diplomas, raising the participation age, workforce reforms, continued investment and much else besides.
There was so much detail and it was delivered at such a pace that it resembled Ratty’s description of the contents of his picnic basket in the opening chapter of The Wind in the Willows. Remember the passage?
"There's cold chicken inside it," replied the Rat briefly;But Cunningham did not throw up his little pink hands like Mole and cry ecstatically: "O stop, stop … This is too much!"
"coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater -"
Instead he pointedly asked: "I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but will he now answer my question about whether he has any further plans to raise standards in schools?"
In reply Cunningham started on the list again, wavered and then decided it was safer to attack the Conservatives.
Perhaps this is a sign that initiative fatigue has reached the more sensible Labour back-benchers too. This government’s extra spending on schools has been welcome, but it has been accompanied by an extraordinary desire to dictate what happens in every classroom in the country.
So much so that Labour back-benchers now think it appropriate to seek ministerial praise for individual teachers and pupils. Anne Snelgrove told the House about Kerry, Charlene and Dylan from Oaktree primary school, and sought congratulations for Celia Messenger, the tutor in charge of reading recovery.
And we can’t leave Monday’s question time without paying tribute to the Tory Patrick McLoughlin. He asked: "How many children in English primary schools does the Minister think is failing?"
George W. Bush once asked "Is our children learning?" But let’s leave the last word with Kenneth Grahame:
The clever men at Oxford,
Know all there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know, one half as much,
As intelligent Mr. Toad!
Labels: Education, House Points
Friday, May 16, 2008
House Points: Cameron's Conservatives are so like New Labour
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Lookalikes United
What would a Conservative government look like? Depressingly, the evidence suggests it would look remarkably like the one we have now.
Boris Johnson’s first act as Mayor was to ban people from drinking alcohol on trains and buses. It is fine to turn up drunk at a station or bus stop – he would have to scrap the whole night bus network if he was going to challenge that – but you can’t have a can of beer open after work. Worthy of New Labour at its finest.
Then Boris floated the idea of Saturday "respect" schools. These would employ a "magnificently untrendy bootcamp style of discipline" and make children march and learn their manners . Just the sort of nonsense Alastair Campbell used to throw the Daily Mail to keep it sweet.
New Labour cliches were also spouted from the Tory benches during Monday’s debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Iain Duncan Smith wanted to keep the provision of an earlier Act that clinics must take into account "the need for a father" when considering applicants for IVF treatment.
"I am aware of no gay couple who have been refused treatment," said Duncan Smith. Yet he wanted to keep that wording (the new bill talks of "the need for supportive parenting") as – wait for it – "a signal".
The official Conservative line came from Andrew Lansley. He wanted the bill to refer to "the need for supportive parenting and a father or a male role model". There has been no more cherished figure in the New Labour years than the role model, but how could such a law possibly be enforced?
What exactly is "a male role model"? Are all males role models? Or do you have to be heterosexual? Play rugby? Smoke a pipe? Doctors have enough on their hands without being forced to ponder questions like that.
Tolstoy wrote that "Happy families are all alike". But old beardie was wrong: happy families take all sorts of different forms. The idea that government can prescribe what they should look like is nonsense from the wilder shores of Guardian commentary.
If the Conservative Party is taking that view on, it will soon be impossible to tell it and Labour apart.
Lookalikes United
What would a Conservative government look like? Depressingly, the evidence suggests it would look remarkably like the one we have now.
Boris Johnson’s first act as Mayor was to ban people from drinking alcohol on trains and buses. It is fine to turn up drunk at a station or bus stop – he would have to scrap the whole night bus network if he was going to challenge that – but you can’t have a can of beer open after work. Worthy of New Labour at its finest.
Then Boris floated the idea of Saturday "respect" schools. These would employ a "magnificently untrendy bootcamp style of discipline" and make children march and learn their manners . Just the sort of nonsense Alastair Campbell used to throw the Daily Mail to keep it sweet.
New Labour cliches were also spouted from the Tory benches during Monday’s debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Iain Duncan Smith wanted to keep the provision of an earlier Act that clinics must take into account "the need for a father" when considering applicants for IVF treatment.
"I am aware of no gay couple who have been refused treatment," said Duncan Smith. Yet he wanted to keep that wording (the new bill talks of "the need for supportive parenting") as – wait for it – "a signal".
The official Conservative line came from Andrew Lansley. He wanted the bill to refer to "the need for supportive parenting and a father or a male role model". There has been no more cherished figure in the New Labour years than the role model, but how could such a law possibly be enforced?
What exactly is "a male role model"? Are all males role models? Or do you have to be heterosexual? Play rugby? Smoke a pipe? Doctors have enough on their hands without being forced to ponder questions like that.
Tolstoy wrote that "Happy families are all alike". But old beardie was wrong: happy families take all sorts of different forms. The idea that government can prescribe what they should look like is nonsense from the wilder shores of Guardian commentary.
If the Conservative Party is taking that view on, it will soon be impossible to tell it and Labour apart.
Labels: House Points
Friday, May 02, 2008
House Points: A ban on junk food advertising?
My column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Unhealthy food talk
On Friday all sensible Conservatives were away working in the local elections and Boris Johnson was busy in London. Which left just the real Tory Party at Westminster. And you can forget all that stuff about letting sunshine win the day and hugging huskies, because nothing has really changed.
The first piece of business was a private member’s bill, promoted by Labour’s Nigel Griffiths, to ban television advertisements for unhealthy food before the 9 p.m. watershed. Griffiths had an impressive range of organisations - Diabetes UK, the British Medical Association, Cancer Research UK - lined up behind him.
For the Lib Dems, Martin Horwood was an enthusiastic supporter while Don Foster clearly had doubts.
And, yes, this is the sort of bill that does divide parties. What was notable about Friday was not that there were Conservative MPs opposing Griffiths but how weak their arguments were.
Take Nigel Evans, whose many radio appearances have played a small but honourable part in establishing the Tories in the public mind as the nasty party. "Does the hon. Gentleman really want to go down in history as the man who killed Ronald McDonald?" he asked, pleased with his own cleverness.
But does anyone in Britain like Ronald McDonald? Whatever their views on junk food, whatever their views on McDonald’s, there is not a person in the country who would not rejoice if that gruesome clown were found hanging from one of his golden arches.
Other Tories were concerned with the effect a ban would have on the funding of children’s television or announced that the National Farmers Union is against the bill. And others urged the House to safeguard the advertising industry. That industry, you understand, is worth billions, but oddly its products have absolutely no effect on the behaviour of the children who are exposed to them.
So what is the Conservative answer to child obesity? Again and again they urged parental responsibility. And parental responsibility is a wonderful thing. But the thought that those parents are entitled to get together and use the institutions of a democratic society to make it a little easier to exercise that responsibility still seems beyond the sort of Tory MP who finds himself at a loose end in London on Fridays.
Unhealthy food talk
On Friday all sensible Conservatives were away working in the local elections and Boris Johnson was busy in London. Which left just the real Tory Party at Westminster. And you can forget all that stuff about letting sunshine win the day and hugging huskies, because nothing has really changed.
The first piece of business was a private member’s bill, promoted by Labour’s Nigel Griffiths, to ban television advertisements for unhealthy food before the 9 p.m. watershed. Griffiths had an impressive range of organisations - Diabetes UK, the British Medical Association, Cancer Research UK - lined up behind him.
For the Lib Dems, Martin Horwood was an enthusiastic supporter while Don Foster clearly had doubts.
And, yes, this is the sort of bill that does divide parties. What was notable about Friday was not that there were Conservative MPs opposing Griffiths but how weak their arguments were.
Take Nigel Evans, whose many radio appearances have played a small but honourable part in establishing the Tories in the public mind as the nasty party. "Does the hon. Gentleman really want to go down in history as the man who killed Ronald McDonald?" he asked, pleased with his own cleverness.
But does anyone in Britain like Ronald McDonald? Whatever their views on junk food, whatever their views on McDonald’s, there is not a person in the country who would not rejoice if that gruesome clown were found hanging from one of his golden arches.
Other Tories were concerned with the effect a ban would have on the funding of children’s television or announced that the National Farmers Union is against the bill. And others urged the House to safeguard the advertising industry. That industry, you understand, is worth billions, but oddly its products have absolutely no effect on the behaviour of the children who are exposed to them.
So what is the Conservative answer to child obesity? Again and again they urged parental responsibility. And parental responsibility is a wonderful thing. But the thought that those parents are entitled to get together and use the institutions of a democratic society to make it a little easier to exercise that responsibility still seems beyond the sort of Tory MP who finds himself at a loose end in London on Fridays.
Labels: children, Health, House Points
Friday, April 25, 2008
House Points: Vince Cable and Jeremy Browne
My column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Fairy tales
Vince Cable was right, of course, and the Labour backbenchers were wrong. Little Red Riding Hood was eaten by the wolf. True, a hunter comes along to cut her from the beast’s stomach afterwards, but there is no doubt she was wolfed down.
And that misunderstanding is typical of Labour’s travails these days: they have no narrative.
Jeremy Browne put it well in his speech on the second reading of the Finance Bill on Monday:
Over this time to Vince Cable:
But Labour’s real trouble - more serious even than bad luck or not knowing their fairy tales - is that the economy has turned against them.
Some will try to pin the this on Gordon Brown, but the truth may be more chastening. When the economy is going well politicians - and bank directors, come to that - praise themselves for their foresight and wisdom. When it turn bad, the politicians blame world conditions and the bankers appeal for government aid.
If you think they are much more in control of things than that, you really do believe in fairy tales.
Fairy tales
Vince Cable was right, of course, and the Labour backbenchers were wrong. Little Red Riding Hood was eaten by the wolf. True, a hunter comes along to cut her from the beast’s stomach afterwards, but there is no doubt she was wolfed down.
And that misunderstanding is typical of Labour’s travails these days: they have no narrative.
Jeremy Browne put it well in his speech on the second reading of the Finance Bill on Monday:
Many people, including those on the Labour Benches, when they heard this year’s Budget, will have been entitled to ask, "Is that it? Is that what it was all for? Is this what our great party has become?" It was the thinnest, most unambitious, managerial Budget that I can remember.Part of that thin, unambitious managerialism was the abolition of the 10p tax band. Another of Labour’s problems is that their luck has run out. This tax rise for the poor was debated on the same day that Alistair Darling announced a £50bn package to help out the banks.
Over this time to Vince Cable:
British banks have, over the past few years, lent too much, too quickly and too carelessly. The correct course of action, which the markets now anticipate, is that the banks should make a rights issue to their shareholders to raise money to offset the losses that they have to own up to.The problem is that chief executives do not want to go to the markets because they face the sack, so they rattle the begging bowl to the Government and hope that the Government will help them out, which they are doing.
But Labour’s real trouble - more serious even than bad luck or not knowing their fairy tales - is that the economy has turned against them.
Some will try to pin the this on Gordon Brown, but the truth may be more chastening. When the economy is going well politicians - and bank directors, come to that - praise themselves for their foresight and wisdom. When it turn bad, the politicians blame world conditions and the bankers appeal for government aid.
If you think they are much more in control of things than that, you really do believe in fairy tales.
Labels: House Points, Jeremy Browne, Vince Cable
Friday, April 18, 2008
House Points: Why Labour scrapped the 10p tax band
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Taxing times
David Blunkett has condemned the government's’s decision to scrap the 10 per cent income tax band and called on it to ease the impact on the low-paid. He has also accused the Treasury of getting its sums wrong when it told everyone that only a small number of people would be affected.
Estimates now suggest that anything up to five million low-paid workers will be hit. So how has a Labour government - a Labour government – got itself into this mess?
My researches suggest there are three reasons. The first is that the change allowed them to discomfort David Cameron during Gordon Brown’s last budget speech. Who can forget the grins on the government front bench as the chancellor announced that the basic rate of income tax was coming down to 20 per cent?
Remember too the jubilation behind him. I bet those Labour MPs now wish they had paid more attention to the way that tax cut was being funded.
The second reason is that Labour long ago gave up defending payments to adults, but they think the public will still support the welfare state if it is sold to them as ‘ending child poverty’. For everyone loves children. Even the Daily Mail loves children. At any rate, it loves very young children with fair hair. And if you don’t love children, maybe keeping their parents out of poverty will lessen the chance that, high on glue and SunnyD, they will twoc your new motor.
As for the childless poor, I am afraid they are just not appealing or dangerous enough.
And the third reason? There is no worse sin in Labour eyes than cynicism, and cynicism is the abiding sin of the older generation. We have heard so many promises before - and then seen them broken - that we find it difficult to take politicians at their own high estimation. In truth, there is little to be hoped of anyone born before Year Zero - 1994, that is, when Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party.
But the children! Brought up by Sure Start and enthused by the 2012 Olympics and the Millennium Dome, who knows what they could achieve?
So that is why millions of poor workers are now paying more in tax.
Taxing times
David Blunkett has condemned the government's’s decision to scrap the 10 per cent income tax band and called on it to ease the impact on the low-paid. He has also accused the Treasury of getting its sums wrong when it told everyone that only a small number of people would be affected.
Estimates now suggest that anything up to five million low-paid workers will be hit. So how has a Labour government - a Labour government – got itself into this mess?
My researches suggest there are three reasons. The first is that the change allowed them to discomfort David Cameron during Gordon Brown’s last budget speech. Who can forget the grins on the government front bench as the chancellor announced that the basic rate of income tax was coming down to 20 per cent?
Remember too the jubilation behind him. I bet those Labour MPs now wish they had paid more attention to the way that tax cut was being funded.
The second reason is that Labour long ago gave up defending payments to adults, but they think the public will still support the welfare state if it is sold to them as ‘ending child poverty’. For everyone loves children. Even the Daily Mail loves children. At any rate, it loves very young children with fair hair. And if you don’t love children, maybe keeping their parents out of poverty will lessen the chance that, high on glue and SunnyD, they will twoc your new motor.
As for the childless poor, I am afraid they are just not appealing or dangerous enough.
And the third reason? There is no worse sin in Labour eyes than cynicism, and cynicism is the abiding sin of the older generation. We have heard so many promises before - and then seen them broken - that we find it difficult to take politicians at their own high estimation. In truth, there is little to be hoped of anyone born before Year Zero - 1994, that is, when Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party.
But the children! Brought up by Sure Start and enthused by the 2012 Olympics and the Millennium Dome, who knows what they could achieve?
So that is why millions of poor workers are now paying more in tax.
Labels: House Points
Friday, April 11, 2008
House Points: Anne Moffat says "bog off"
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Labour's losing it
I know what’s wrong with the Labour Party these days. It’s called Anne Moffat and sits in the House of Commons for East Lothian.
Let me explain. Last Thursday Norman Baker was asking the government to support Lewes District Council's offer to make a financial contribution to keep local post offices open.
At which point Moffat piped up: "He's a horror - tell him to bog off!" If you don't believe me, look in Hansard.
We Lib Dems find Norman endearing. He is sound on everything from Tibet to the reopening of the Uckfield to Lewes railway line. I appreciate other parties may not like him so much, but it was his question that forced Peter Mandelson's second resignation from the cabinet. That should make Labour MPs warm to him.
But it has not worked with Anne Moffat. Leave aside her crude language: just look at her bizarre politics.
You get yourself elected as a Labour MP because you care about public services. Then your government begins a cull of post offices. Shouldn't you be speaking up against it?
Or maybe you are a realist. You recognise that, in a world of texting and e-mail, it is not possible to have a post office in every village and on every suburban high street. But then shouldn't you be in favour of local councils keeping them open?
It is easy to accuse people of sentimentality about sub post offices. We all say we want them, but how many of us actually use them? Let me tell you why they matter.
There was a shop around the corner from my mother's house. The old people from the nearby sheltered accommodation used to go there to collect their pensions and buy a few treats. Then the post office counter closed and the shop closed with it. Now those old people have nowhere to go.
The result for them has been diminished lives and poorer health. And we are all paying the cost of that.
With issues like post office closures and the abolition of the 10 per cent tax band, this government has clearly lost touch with its natural voters. As far as Labour is concerned, as Anne Moffat would put it, they can bog off.
Labour's losing it
I know what’s wrong with the Labour Party these days. It’s called Anne Moffat and sits in the House of Commons for East Lothian.
Let me explain. Last Thursday Norman Baker was asking the government to support Lewes District Council's offer to make a financial contribution to keep local post offices open.
At which point Moffat piped up: "He's a horror - tell him to bog off!" If you don't believe me, look in Hansard.
We Lib Dems find Norman endearing. He is sound on everything from Tibet to the reopening of the Uckfield to Lewes railway line. I appreciate other parties may not like him so much, but it was his question that forced Peter Mandelson's second resignation from the cabinet. That should make Labour MPs warm to him.
But it has not worked with Anne Moffat. Leave aside her crude language: just look at her bizarre politics.
You get yourself elected as a Labour MP because you care about public services. Then your government begins a cull of post offices. Shouldn't you be speaking up against it?
Or maybe you are a realist. You recognise that, in a world of texting and e-mail, it is not possible to have a post office in every village and on every suburban high street. But then shouldn't you be in favour of local councils keeping them open?
It is easy to accuse people of sentimentality about sub post offices. We all say we want them, but how many of us actually use them? Let me tell you why they matter.
There was a shop around the corner from my mother's house. The old people from the nearby sheltered accommodation used to go there to collect their pensions and buy a few treats. Then the post office counter closed and the shop closed with it. Now those old people have nowhere to go.
The result for them has been diminished lives and poorer health. And we are all paying the cost of that.
With issues like post office closures and the abolition of the 10 per cent tax band, this government has clearly lost touch with its natural voters. As far as Labour is concerned, as Anne Moffat would put it, they can bog off.
Labels: House Points, Norman Baker
Friday, April 04, 2008
House Points: Heathrow Terminal 5
Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News.
Flights of fancy
At Heathrow flights were cancelled, travellers were stranded, checking in was suspended and 19,000 bags were separated from their owners. The Sunday papers reported that Department for Transport inspectors had managed to bypass security checks on nine occasions during trials of Terminal 5’s new systems and that its alarm system was not working properly.
At Westminster, not surprisingly, there was an urgent question on all this. But where was the transport secretary?
Ruth Kelly - for it is she - was far away in Durham, launching Labour’s campaign for the North East council elections. Quite by coincidence, she also announced a £340m scheme to improve the A1 in North Yorkshire.
Or it may have been embarrassment that kept her away. She is on record as saying that the new Terminal 5 "exhausts superlatives." At its launch she said it "sends out a message that together we are working to make Heathrow a world-class airport again."
Though that was no more laughable than the claim by Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, that the building is "an extremely sophisticated baggage system with a terminal built around it."
Whatever the reason for Kelly’s absence, it fell to Jim Fitzpatrick to answer the question, though he did his best to avoid mentioning security at all. And he emphasised that the Terminal 5 project, which Ruth Kelly was once so keen to be associated with, is a wholly private sector affair.
Not that this will necessarily get the government of the hook. In his best Private Fraser mode ("We‘re all doomed"), Vince Cable reminded Fitzpatrick that the British Airport Authority (Heathrow’s owner) has been bought by a Spanish building group that has been widely reported as having problems refinancing its debts.
Norman Baker spoke up for the railways, contrasting the fiasco at Heathrow with the success of the new St Pancras. And he is right: the queues for domestic flights are a condemnation of the way the rail network is run.
These days fares are so prohibitive that few people can just turn up first thing in the morning and buy a train ticket. You have to book in advance and, many people reason, in that case you may as well fly.
If you see Ruth Kelly, do tell her this.
Flights of fancy
At Heathrow flights were cancelled, travellers were stranded, checking in was suspended and 19,000 bags were separated from their owners. The Sunday papers reported that Department for Transport inspectors had managed to bypass security checks on nine occasions during trials of Terminal 5’s new systems and that its alarm system was not working properly.
At Westminster, not surprisingly, there was an urgent question on all this. But where was the transport secretary?
Ruth Kelly - for it is she - was far away in Durham, launching Labour’s campaign for the North East council elections. Quite by coincidence, she also announced a £340m scheme to improve the A1 in North Yorkshire.
Or it may have been embarrassment that kept her away. She is on record as saying that the new Terminal 5 "exhausts superlatives." At its launch she said it "sends out a message that together we are working to make Heathrow a world-class airport again."
Though that was no more laughable than the claim by Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, that the building is "an extremely sophisticated baggage system with a terminal built around it."
Whatever the reason for Kelly’s absence, it fell to Jim Fitzpatrick to answer the question, though he did his best to avoid mentioning security at all. And he emphasised that the Terminal 5 project, which Ruth Kelly was once so keen to be associated with, is a wholly private sector affair.
Not that this will necessarily get the government of the hook. In his best Private Fraser mode ("We‘re all doomed"), Vince Cable reminded Fitzpatrick that the British Airport Authority (Heathrow’s owner) has been bought by a Spanish building group that has been widely reported as having problems refinancing its debts.
Norman Baker spoke up for the railways, contrasting the fiasco at Heathrow with the success of the new St Pancras. And he is right: the queues for domestic flights are a condemnation of the way the rail network is run.
These days fares are so prohibitive that few people can just turn up first thing in the morning and buy a train ticket. You have to book in advance and, many people reason, in that case you may as well fly.
If you see Ruth Kelly, do tell her this.
Labels: Environment, House Points, Railways
Friday, March 28, 2008
House Points: William Hague and Iraq
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Turning Tories
There should be a public inquiry, of course. Not an inquiry into the Iraq war, but an inquiry into William Hague.
It could look at the effects of allowing children to take an interest in politics at too early an age and also at the effects of teenage binge drinking -- they can be almost as damaging.
But what it should really look at is Hague’s conduct over Iraq. When war was declared in 2003 he was all Churchillian cadences. Like almost all his fellow Conservatives, he was determined to prove himself even more pro-American than Tony Blair was. (Several knights of the shires ruptured themselves in the attempt.)
As Charles Kennedy has written: "The Tories were derisive of those of us arguing the alternative case; I recall being labelled "Charlie Chamberlain" both inside and outside Parliament."
But on Tuesday Hague led calls for privy councillors to conduct an inquiry into the decision to go to war. How does he face himself in the mirror when he shaves his scalp every morning?
Labour’s reasons for not holding an inquiry were unconvincing. They tried two arguments. The first was to concede that one will be appropriate at some point, but not while "important operations" are going on in Iraq. The second was to claim there have already been four inquiries. The contradiction between them did not trouble David Milliband. Perhaps he had not noticed it?
Besides, it is increasingly hard to see British troops in Basra as engaged in important operations. Any action there now is taken by the Iraqi armed forces and Iraqi police. The British presence is dictated by a political wish to please the Americans rather than military demands.
Earlier, when asked about demonstrations over Tibet, Milliband talked of the need for free passage of the Olympic torch through Britain.
The tradition of a world tour for the torch dates back as far as 2004, while our expectation that there will be a grand opening ceremony for the Olympics comes from the Berlin Games of 1936. There the it was designed by Hitler's architect Albert Speer, who had previously created similar effects for the 1934 Nuremberg rally.
You can see why the Games appeal so much to the dictators in Beijing.
Turning Tories
There should be a public inquiry, of course. Not an inquiry into the Iraq war, but an inquiry into William Hague.
It could look at the effects of allowing children to take an interest in politics at too early an age and also at the effects of teenage binge drinking -- they can be almost as damaging.
But what it should really look at is Hague’s conduct over Iraq. When war was declared in 2003 he was all Churchillian cadences. Like almost all his fellow Conservatives, he was determined to prove himself even more pro-American than Tony Blair was. (Several knights of the shires ruptured themselves in the attempt.)
As Charles Kennedy has written: "The Tories were derisive of those of us arguing the alternative case; I recall being labelled "Charlie Chamberlain" both inside and outside Parliament."
But on Tuesday Hague led calls for privy councillors to conduct an inquiry into the decision to go to war. How does he face himself in the mirror when he shaves his scalp every morning?
Labour’s reasons for not holding an inquiry were unconvincing. They tried two arguments. The first was to concede that one will be appropriate at some point, but not while "important operations" are going on in Iraq. The second was to claim there have already been four inquiries. The contradiction between them did not trouble David Milliband. Perhaps he had not noticed it?
Besides, it is increasingly hard to see British troops in Basra as engaged in important operations. Any action there now is taken by the Iraqi armed forces and Iraqi police. The British presence is dictated by a political wish to please the Americans rather than military demands.
Earlier, when asked about demonstrations over Tibet, Milliband talked of the need for free passage of the Olympic torch through Britain.
The tradition of a world tour for the torch dates back as far as 2004, while our expectation that there will be a grand opening ceremony for the Olympics comes from the Berlin Games of 1936. There the it was designed by Hitler's architect Albert Speer, who had previously created similar effects for the 1934 Nuremberg rally.
You can see why the Games appeal so much to the dictators in Beijing.
Labels: House Points, Iraq, Olympics, William Hague
Friday, March 21, 2008
House Points: Moura Budberg and Percy Harris
Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. You can find out more about Moura Budberg and Percy Harris on this blog.
Family stories
The banking system is collapsing around our ears. At times like this I find history a great consolation - particularly the family history of Liberal Democrat MPs.
I am indebted to Nick Clegg’s great great aunt Moura Budberg. This formidable lady knew all the leading Bolsheviks and was the lover of both Maxim Gorky and H. G. Wells. She was portrayed in the 1934 film British Agent, directed by Michael Curtiz who went on to make Casablanca.
But when she became a society hostess in London after World War II, Moura was thought to be a Soviet agent. The Moscow Embassy warned that she was a very dangerous woman who had once given Stalin an accordion. But MI5 should have listened to her: she told one of its agents that Anthony Blunt was a Communist years before he was exposed.
Moura died in 1974, late enough to have dandled the infant Nick on her knee. I am in her debt because, after writing about her for the New Statesman website last year, I was offered a regular column.
Readers of The Times will know another family story. Matthew Taylor was adopted as a baby and a few years ago decided to trace his birth mother. She turned out to be the granddaughter of a Liberal MP.
Sir Percy Harris was returned for Harborough - the constituency where I live - at a by-election in 1916. There was a wartime truce between the parties, but he still had to beat a strong Independent backed by the Daily Mail.
Although he was on the social reform wing of the party, Percy remained loyal to Asquith because he did not trust Lloyd George’s scheming. As a result he did not receive the Coupon at the 1918 general election and Harborough, which had been Liberal since 1891, was lost to the Tories.
In 1922 Percy was elected for Bethnal Green South West and was to keep the seat until 1945, serving as chief whip for many years. Even after 1945, he sat on London County Council. Percy Harris died in 1952, but his son Jack - Matthew’s grandfather - is alive in New Zealand aged 102.
So make room on the window ledge. There are many more stories to tell.
Family stories
The banking system is collapsing around our ears. At times like this I find history a great consolation - particularly the family history of Liberal Democrat MPs.
I am indebted to Nick Clegg’s great great aunt Moura Budberg. This formidable lady knew all the leading Bolsheviks and was the lover of both Maxim Gorky and H. G. Wells. She was portrayed in the 1934 film British Agent, directed by Michael Curtiz who went on to make Casablanca.
But when she became a society hostess in London after World War II, Moura was thought to be a Soviet agent. The Moscow Embassy warned that she was a very dangerous woman who had once given Stalin an accordion. But MI5 should have listened to her: she told one of its agents that Anthony Blunt was a Communist years before he was exposed.
Moura died in 1974, late enough to have dandled the infant Nick on her knee. I am in her debt because, after writing about her for the New Statesman website last year, I was offered a regular column.
Readers of The Times will know another family story. Matthew Taylor was adopted as a baby and a few years ago decided to trace his birth mother. She turned out to be the granddaughter of a Liberal MP.
Sir Percy Harris was returned for Harborough - the constituency where I live - at a by-election in 1916. There was a wartime truce between the parties, but he still had to beat a strong Independent backed by the Daily Mail.
Although he was on the social reform wing of the party, Percy remained loyal to Asquith because he did not trust Lloyd George’s scheming. As a result he did not receive the Coupon at the 1918 general election and Harborough, which had been Liberal since 1891, was lost to the Tories.
In 1922 Percy was elected for Bethnal Green South West and was to keep the seat until 1945, serving as chief whip for many years. Even after 1945, he sat on London County Council. Percy Harris died in 1952, but his son Jack - Matthew’s grandfather - is alive in New Zealand aged 102.
So make room on the window ledge. There are many more stories to tell.
Labels: House Points, Matthew Taylor, Moura Budberg, Nick Clegg
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Not House Points: China, Tibet and the 2012 London Olympics
There is no House Points column in Liberal Democrat News this week.
I have been struggling with bronchitis for a fortnight and a few days ago was contemplating the grind of writing a column. It suddenly occurred to me that the editor had the Lib Dem Spring Conference to report and would probably be glad of the extra space. That proved to be the case when I phoned her, so I decided not to be a martyr.
What you would have got was another rant about the Olympics. I would have made my usual points: that if you want to revitalise sport in Britain you would be better of giving a chunk of the Olympic budget direct to community sports clubs; and that it is absurd to believe that modern Britons are insufficiently active because there is not enough sport on television.
But I would also have talked about the way that the prospect of hosting the 2012 London Games is stifling British government criticism of repressive regimes. In particular, it would be natural for us to use the 2008 Peking Olympics as a way of highlighting our concerns about China's actions in Tibet. But we are terrified of doing that in case they threaten a boycott of London in 2012 as retaliation.
Now visit the Free Tibet Campaign.
I have been struggling with bronchitis for a fortnight and a few days ago was contemplating the grind of writing a column. It suddenly occurred to me that the editor had the Lib Dem Spring Conference to report and would probably be glad of the extra space. That proved to be the case when I phoned her, so I decided not to be a martyr.
What you would have got was another rant about the Olympics. I would have made my usual points: that if you want to revitalise sport in Britain you would be better of giving a chunk of the Olympic budget direct to community sports clubs; and that it is absurd to believe that modern Britons are insufficiently active because there is not enough sport on television.
But I would also have talked about the way that the prospect of hosting the 2012 London Games is stifling British government criticism of repressive regimes. In particular, it would be natural for us to use the 2008 Peking Olympics as a way of highlighting our concerns about China's actions in Tibet. But we are terrified of doing that in case they threaten a boycott of London in 2012 as retaliation.
Now visit the Free Tibet Campaign.
Labels: House Points, Olympics
Friday, March 07, 2008
House Points: A DNA database?
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
DNA madness
Sarah Teather called an adjournment debate on Friday about the growth of the national DNA database. The UK now has the largest in the world. It stores 4.5 million profiles - about five per cent. of the population.
It includes profiles of half a million people who have never been convicted, charged or cautioned. It includes the profiles of children under 10 and - most worryingly to Sarah - those of three-quarters of young black men.
Sarah said: "At the moment, 27 per cent. of the entire black population, 42 per cent. of the male black population, 77 per cent. of young black men … are on the database, compared with just 6 per cent. of the white population."
And she quoted research to refute the lazy assumption that this is because black people commit more offences. They do not.
The other day Polly Toynbee said that if everyone goes on the database it will be "fair". It’s a little like dealing with miscarriages of justice by locking us all up,
But there are Liberal Democrats who favour a national database. Andrew George had a letter in the Observer last Sunday. He said legislators should create a non-compulsory service operated by academia and overseen by the judiciary. And he asked "Whose liberty are we protecting? The perpetrators' or the victims‘?"
A voluntary approach sounds very Liberal - perhaps we could finance it with jumble sales? -- but to get the people you really want on the database it will have to be compulsory. Besides, as the law stands, once people have submitted their DNA - say to help with a major investigation -- they can never revoke consent.
And think what a compulsory database will mean. Parents cooing over their newborn baby will be asked: "Do you mind if we take a sample now? Just in case he grows up to be a rapist of murderer, of course."
Perhaps the real problem is the way we see society as divided between perpetrators and victims. The more stringent the measures government brings in, the less secure we feel as a result.
We should remember that we are all citizens and that government exists to serve the people, not the other way round.
DNA madness
Sarah Teather called an adjournment debate on Friday about the growth of the national DNA database. The UK now has the largest in the world. It stores 4.5 million profiles - about five per cent. of the population.
It includes profiles of half a million people who have never been convicted, charged or cautioned. It includes the profiles of children under 10 and - most worryingly to Sarah - those of three-quarters of young black men.
Sarah said: "At the moment, 27 per cent. of the entire black population, 42 per cent. of the male black population, 77 per cent. of young black men … are on the database, compared with just 6 per cent. of the white population."
And she quoted research to refute the lazy assumption that this is because black people commit more offences. They do not.
The other day Polly Toynbee said that if everyone goes on the database it will be "fair". It’s a little like dealing with miscarriages of justice by locking us all up,
But there are Liberal Democrats who favour a national database. Andrew George had a letter in the Observer last Sunday. He said legislators should create a non-compulsory service operated by academia and overseen by the judiciary. And he asked "Whose liberty are we protecting? The perpetrators' or the victims‘?"
A voluntary approach sounds very Liberal - perhaps we could finance it with jumble sales? -- but to get the people you really want on the database it will have to be compulsory. Besides, as the law stands, once people have submitted their DNA - say to help with a major investigation -- they can never revoke consent.
And think what a compulsory database will mean. Parents cooing over their newborn baby will be asked: "Do you mind if we take a sample now? Just in case he grows up to be a rapist of murderer, of course."
Perhaps the real problem is the way we see society as divided between perpetrators and victims. The more stringent the measures government brings in, the less secure we feel as a result.
We should remember that we are all citizens and that government exists to serve the people, not the other way round.
Labels: House Points
Friday, February 29, 2008
House Points: Mr Speaker Martin
My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Mr Speaker Martin
It’s true. Much of the whispering campaign against the Speaker is based on nothing more than snobbery. ‘Gorbals Mick’ is a silly and insulting nickname, not least because Michael Martin comes from a quite different part of Glasgow.
But then you suspect that Britain north of Potters Bar is a foreign country to the sketchwriter of the Daily Mail. And if you had been forced to go through life called Quentin, you would have a deep bitterness about class too.
More than that, no civilised person thinks less of a man because he comes from a humble background. Quite the reverse. Someone from a poor family who gets on in Britain has probably had to be twice as good as the competition. Sad to say, that is more certain today than it was 40 years ago.
But hold on. Martin is not the first Speaker from such a background. And it was never an issue with George Thomas or Betty Boothroyd. Bernard Wetherall was positively loved for his humble beginnings in his father’s tailoring business. So Martin's problems go deeper than his origins.
The first of them is that Labour backbenchers broke the modern convention that the position should alternate between the Labour and Conservative parties to install him. In 2000 there was a strong feeling amongst them that a house with a large Labour majority should have a Labour Speaker. Such a partisan launch to his career was never going to make things easy for him when the time came to rule on contentious questions.
Then there is his background – not his class background but his political background. It is fair to say that the West of Scotland Labour Party rarely represents the intellectual flower of the Scottish nation. The skills that enable you to fight your way to the top of that particularly greasy pole may not have much wider appeal.
And Martin’s background as a shop steward, which did so much to endear him to his Labour colleagues, may not be helpful when MPs privileges and ingenuity with expense claims are coming under question.
Still, Michael Martin did show one deft touch this week. He managed to avoid being in the chair when Dangerous Ed Davey had himself thrown out of the chamber.
Mr Speaker Martin
It’s true. Much of the whispering campaign against the Speaker is based on nothing more than snobbery. ‘Gorbals Mick’ is a silly and insulting nickname, not least because Michael Martin comes from a quite different part of Glasgow.
But then you suspect that Britain north of Potters Bar is a foreign country to the sketchwriter of the Daily Mail. And if you had been forced to go through life called Quentin, you would have a deep bitterness about class too.
More than that, no civilised person thinks less of a man because he comes from a humble background. Quite the reverse. Someone from a poor family who gets on in Britain has probably had to be twice as good as the competition. Sad to say, that is more certain today than it was 40 years ago.
But hold on. Martin is not the first Speaker from such a background. And it was never an issue with George Thomas or Betty Boothroyd. Bernard Wetherall was positively loved for his humble beginnings in his father’s tailoring business. So Martin's problems go deeper than his origins.
The first of them is that Labour backbenchers broke the modern convention that the position should alternate between the Labour and Conservative parties to install him. In 2000 there was a strong feeling amongst them that a house with a large Labour majority should have a Labour Speaker. Such a partisan launch to his career was never going to make things easy for him when the time came to rule on contentious questions.
Then there is his background – not his class background but his political background. It is fair to say that the West of Scotland Labour Party rarely represents the intellectual flower of the Scottish nation. The skills that enable you to fight your way to the top of that particularly greasy pole may not have much wider appeal.
And Martin’s background as a shop steward, which did so much to endear him to his Labour colleagues, may not be helpful when MPs privileges and ingenuity with expense claims are coming under question.
Still, Michael Martin did show one deft touch this week. He managed to avoid being in the chair when Dangerous Ed Davey had himself thrown out of the chamber.
Labels: House Points
Friday, February 22, 2008
House Points: The nationalisation of everyday life
This is my House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.
Back to the Future
Remember Life on Mars? Sam Tyler had an accident and woke up in 1973. ‘Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on a different planet.’
With the government rushing through a bill to nationalise Northern Rock, we have all been living on that planet this week. Turn on the television and you expect to see Z Cars, Crossroads or Nationwide. Turn on the radio and its Alvin Stardust or the Bay City Rollers. And for dinner? Let’s show our sophistication and enjoy a Vesta packet curry.
In our eagerness so crow “Vince Cable told you so,” we should not forget that many problems will remain with Northern Rock after it has been taken over by government. Vince himself has pointed out most of them.
No one knows how many bad loans the Rock has made, and it looks as though the safest of them have been hived off into a separate offshore company. It has been lending people more than the value of their houses, so some Northern Rock loans came with negative equity built in. And how will voters react when a government-owned bank starts laying off its staff and foreclosing mortgages?
Despite all this “back to the seventies” shtick, it’s not as if nationalisation ever really went away. Labour may have given up its belief that a centrally planned economy is more ethical and more efficient than the free market. But the socialists have not given up: they have simply transferred their interventionist ambitions to other fields. What we have seen is something close to the nationalisation of everyday life.
So we have seen government initiatives on a bewildering range of subjects. Everything from smoking and drinking to video games and children’s packed lunches. Individually there is something to be said for most of them, but taken en masse they tend to undermine our faith in our own autonomy, neighbourliness and parents’ authority over their children.
All of which, of course, makes the problems worse and necessitates more government intervention…
Let the government concentrate on running a medium-sized bank competently. Meanwhile the rest of us will get on with running own lives.
Back to the Future
Remember Life on Mars? Sam Tyler had an accident and woke up in 1973. ‘Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on a different planet.’
With the government rushing through a bill to nationalise Northern Rock, we have all been living on that planet this week. Turn on the television and you expect to see Z Cars, Crossroads or Nationwide. Turn on the radio and its Alvin Stardust or the Bay City Rollers. And for dinner? Let’s show our sophistication and enjoy a Vesta packet curry.
In our eagerness so crow “Vince Cable told you so,” we should not forget that many problems will remain with Northern Rock after it has been taken over by government. Vince himself has pointed out most of them.
No one knows how many bad loans the Rock has made, and it looks as though the safest of them have been hived off into a separate offshore company. It has been lending people more than the value of their houses, so some Northern Rock loans came with negative equity built in. And how will voters react when a government-owned bank starts laying off its staff and foreclosing mortgages?
Despite all this “back to the seventies” shtick, it’s not as if nationalisation ever really went away. Labour may have given up its belief that a centrally planned economy is more ethical and more efficient than the free market. But the socialists have not given up: they have simply transferred their interventionist ambitions to other fields. What we have seen is something close to the nationalisation of everyday life.
So we have seen government initiatives on a bewildering range of subjects. Everything from smoking and drinking to video games and children’s packed lunches. Individually there is something to be said for most of them, but taken en masse they tend to undermine our faith in our own autonomy, neighbourliness and parents’ authority over their children.
All of which, of course, makes the problems worse and necessitates more government intervention…
Let the government concentrate on running a medium-sized bank competently. Meanwhile the rest of us will get on with running own lives.
Labels: House Points, Vince Cable
