Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone

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The death of a monarch who has reigned for 70 years is bound to lead to a solemn time. And it was inevitable that the Liberal Democrat Conference would be cancelled once the date of the Queen's funeral was announced, as I have already argued.

That said, I find the argument put forward by Sarah Olney on Lib Dem Voice - that holding our conference would somehow imperil the peaceful succession of Charles III - bizarre.

And this enthusiasm for cancelling events to display our grief - or perhaps to avoid criticism - can go too far.

One example is the Last Night of the Proms. Yes, a traditional Last Night would have struck the wrong note, but surely it would have been possible to put together a programme of music that would have expressed the national feeling?

Another example is the cancellation of children's football. Taking part in a minute's silence before the game would have given the young players a memory that might stay with them for the rest of their lives. 

And, besides the fun of playing, they would not have given up all the benefits football brings from exercise to a bit of male attention in lives that can lack it.

Ours is now a safety-first society, and that has its costs.

Andrea Leadsom campaign manager's childlessness jibe against Sarah Teather

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Tim Loughton is Andrea Leadsom's campaign manager.

In September 2013 the Telegraph quoted a speech of his to Conservative activists:

"The person who was actually in charge of family policy amongst the ministerial team at the DfE was Sarah Teather. Which was a bit difficult because she didn't really believe in family. 

"She certainly didn't produce one of her own. So it became a bit of a family-free zone. I think that was a huge disappointment."

Loughton later told the BBC that he would apologise to Teather.

Jo Swinson had it right in her quote in the Telegraph story:

"Using someone’s lack of children as an insult is shameful, crass and, frankly, disgusting. It reflects far more on him than on Sarah."

All in all, a remarkable coincidence.

Sarah Teather joins the Jesuits

From the Jesuits in Britain website:

Sarah Teather has been appointed as the Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in the UK (JRS UK). Formerly the Member of Parliament for the London constituency of Brent Central, Sarah joined the International Advocacy team of JRS in June 2015. 

As an advocacy advisor, she has visited JRS projects all over the world, including Lebanon, South Sudan, Uganda, Macedonia and the southern coast of Italy where so many attempt dangerous crossings to Europe over the Mediterranean Sea

Congratulations to Sarah on her new job. I blogged about her religion and likely future career last year.

Ignatius of Loyola is 524.

Why did Lib Dem MPs back Chris Grayling on judicial review?

Ian Dunt writes about last night's Commons vote on judicial review:

Judicial review sounds boring but it is one of the most democratic legal mechanisms available to the British citizen. It allows us to challenge illegal government decisions, to fight government irrationality and to challenge the decisions made by authorities. In the words of one peer, it is "the British defence of freedom" and the means by which we avoid "elected dictatorship". 

Chris Grayling has lost several judicial review cases this year, for the simple reason that he keeps acting illegally and irrationally. So he has decided to try and eradicate it. That's not what it's called, of course. It’s called 'reform'. But his reform will make it impossible for anyone but the very rich to use it.

Grayling's proposals were mauled in the Lords, with Liberal Democrat peers playing a major role.

Yet last night Lib Dem MPs, with one exception, voted to reverse the Lords' amendments and restore Grayling's original proposals.

Dunt is damning about this:

Apart from Sarah Teather, who has shown herself to be the beating heart of the Liberal Democrat soul this parliament and is consequently leaving it at the earliest opportunity, no other Lib Dem MP rebelled.

No-one else. Of all the Lib Dem MPs who liked to get on their soap box about liberalism, or how they are the only party which still believes in civil liberties, or which opposed the authoritarian tendencies of Labour – no-one apart from Teather had the courage of their convictions.

This seems a bizarre decision by the Liberal Democrat leadership. Does anyone know why it was taken?

And does anyone know to whom Nick Clegg is now trying to appeal?

Andrew George and Michael Moore take top two places in ballot for private members bills

The Parliament website has the results of today's ballot for private members bills. The top two places in the draw were taken by Liberal Democrat MPs: Andrew George was first and Michael Moore second.

Altogether there were five Lib Dems among the twenty names drawn. Sarah Teather was at no. 7, John Hemming at 16 and Martin Horwood at 20.

As the website says, the ballot presents an opportunity to be one of the first MPs to introduce a private members bill in this parliamentary session and may mean guaranteed debating time for the bill on a Friday sitting of the House.

Sarah Teather criticises Nick Clegg over welfare

Huffington Post has a report on Sarah Teather's criticism of Nick Clegg on Newsnight on Friday.

The Liberal Democrat MP for Brent Central appeared as part of a debate on welfare and the church in politics more generally. You can watch the whole segment on the BBC iPlayer - that link should take you to the start of it.

One of the reasons for this item was the criticism by Vincent Nicholls, the Archbishop of Liverpool,  of the government's welfare policies last week. He said the welfare system had gone "seriously wrong" when thousands were relying on food handouts.

In reply Nick Clegg had said "I think to say that the safety net has been removed altogether is an exaggeration, is not right." He then went on to channel Tony Blair:

"So, look, we're trying to get the balance right. The country's gone through an incredibly difficult time; there are people who, of course, face very difficult circumstances, but I think the way to move forward is to make sure there's always an incentive for people to work when they can do so."

On Newsnight Sarah talked of "rather a patronising response from my leader" that was "not very helpful and not, in my view, very well informed either".

She went on to say:

"If I think about the experience of a lot of my constituents I'm afraid I'm seeing far too many people who are made destitute and put into severe poverty by the benefit changes. 

"For example I had a woman where the whole of the last trimester of her pregnancy she had no money whatsoever.

"I had another case where somebody was sanctioned for failing to turn up to an appointment when she was having surgery for cancer. 

"So I'm afraid the Archbishop's criticism this week really chimes with my own experience."

MPs with no political ambition left can be dangerous. They may speak the truth.

Sarah Teather and her magic carpet

Today's Guardian has an interview with Sarah Teather by Rowena Mason.

I don't agree with Mason's contention that Sarah is "a strong voice on the left of the Lib Dems". Until she announced her decision to leave politics, as I have argued before, she was determinedly loyal to the leadership.

And we have heard little from her since she made that announcement, in part, perhaps, because her failure to support equal marriage alienated much of the party from her.

But there is still much of interest in this interview on both a personal and a political level.

I have always felt that those who believe in God and those who do not should find it difficult to talk to one another because they see world so differently.

Usually this is not the case, but something of the sort was true of Sarah's contribution to Liberal Democrats do God. Intensely personal, it spun off to a plane far removed from the pot holes and council agendas that concern most Liberal Democrat activists.

Partly out of respect and partly out of puzzlement, I steered clear of Sarah's essay in my review. I was reminded of John Lennon's comment on George Harrison when the Beatles embraced Indian mysticism: "The way George is going, he’ll be flying a magic carpet by the time he’s forty."

And the Guardian interview confirms the centrality of religion to Sarah's life. Her decision to step down as an MP was taken after a month-long at a house of prayer run by the Jesuits.

Back in the everyday world, Sarah makes an important observations on politics in Britain today:

Ministers had become caught up in a "cycle of democratic self-harm" in which they spent too much time "flapping around trying to be relevant" and responding to imaginary problems in the hope of pleasing the public, she said. "We get ourselves into our own little spiral. We end up inventing problems to pretend we're relevant, and then try to fix the problems we've just invented. The EU migration stuff is a classic example. 

"The public know it's guff, so their trust in politicians goes down. And then our anxiety about not being relevant goes up, so we kind of get into a cycle of democratic self-harm, so we get progressively more frenzied about chasing wilder and wilder straw men and the public get more and more cynical. I'm not convinced that's the best way of demonstrating we're in touch."

In fact, in the online version at least, she makes this points twice in the same words because of bad editing. Instead, it would have been useful to hear her expand on this point:

She also has some slightly wider criticisms of the way politics has converged on to the same populist ground.

I wish Sarah well in future and suspect she will re-emerge with an important job in the charity sector one day. Whatever its motivation, a decision to walk away from party politics voluntarily is rarely the sign of a bad person.

Lembit Opik wants to be the new Lib Dem candidate in Brent Central

The conclusion of a - how shall I put it? - remarkable article by Lembit Opik on Huffington Post:

So, this is the central question for Brent Central: if the local party agrees with me it's time to move on from Clegg and the 'Orange Book' - and if they concur that their best hope of holding Brent Central is a 'left leaning truly liberal' agenda and a 'grass roots campaign,' they now have the chance to select someone who feels the same.

The Observer tells only half the story on Sarah Teather

I could never quite make Sarah Teather out. When I first came across her on the party's federal policy committee she was a Kennedy loyalist, agreeing with the official line on every question. But she later became one of the first MPs to turn against him.

Then she became very close to Nick Clegg. At the first hustings of the 2006 leadership campaign Nick would not let Ming Campbell, the candidate he was promoting, out of his sight and Sarah would not let Nick out of hers.

Nick Clegg soured the relationship first by sacking her as a minister. Now this evening comes news that Sarah Teather is to leave parliament at the next election.

In an interview with the Observer she says that she cannot support Coalition policies on immigration and social security - though she was less vocal about her opposition when she was a minister.

She tells Toby Helm:

For periods over the past year, Teather thought she might be able to operate alone as a rebel within but, this summer, she took four weeks off, switched off her phone and just thought hard about the future. A fortnight ago, she finally concluded that she hadn't the energy or the will to go on without support, and she felt there was not enough there.

But that tells only half the story.

There are plenty of people in the party who agree with Sarah on immigration and social security. The reason she feels isolated is that she failed to support equal marriage, with the result that many who are her natural allies no longer trust her.

And Toby Helm does not mention that in his article.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Why isn't Sarah Teather a knight?

Thursday

Do you know Sarah Teather? She is a charming young woman, even though I had some sharp things to say about her reaction to the Ofsted report on the Bonkers’ Home for Well-Behaved Orphans.

Like many of the knights I saw off yesterday, she is a former minister, yet she received no gong when given the bum’s rush by Clegg and his 12-year-old advisers.

I am racking my brains to work out why this should be the case.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

• Too many knights
• Escape from Liberal Youth
• On the knight bus

Sarah Teather goes rogue

Yesterday's Guardian had an interview with the former Liberal Democrat for children and families minister Sarah Teather in which she was extremely critical of Coalition immigration policy:

"What alarms me is that the immigration proposals feel as if they're hewn from the same rock as welfare earlier in the year, where a lot of that again was about setting up political dividing lines, and trying to create and define an enemy. 

"It’s got to a stage where it's almost unacceptable to say anything else, and it bothers me that there is a consensus among the three party leaders that they are all making, well not quite the same speech – there are differences, significant differences – but there’s a consensus. It's stifling the rest of the debate, making people afraid to speak. If you get to a stage where there is no alternative voice, eventually democracy’s just going to break down."

Good on Sarah Teather, as Stephen Tall says. But this interview will also be of interest to Lib Dem kremlinologists.

Because what struck me when I first me Sarah on the party's federal policy committee was that she was instinctively loyal to the leadership - this was still in Charles Kennedy's days.

And at the first hustings in the 2006 leadership campaign she and Nick Clegg went everywhere together, apparently both unwilling to let Ming Campbell out of their sight - young cardinals bigging up an elderly candidate for pope.

That Nick Clegg has lost the support of someone like Sarah reinforces my fear that Clegg loyalists are a diminishing group in the parliamentary party.

She may also be wondering why sacked male ministers get knighthood and she got nothing.

Sarah Teather attacks welfare cuts and demonisation of the poor

Sarah Teather is interviewed by Toby Helm, the paper's political editor, in tomorrow's Observer:

She accuses parts of government and the press of a deliberate campaign to "demonise" those on benefits and of failing to understand that those in need of state help are just as human as they are. With vivid outrage she describes the language and caricatures that have been peddled. 

"Whenever there is any hint of opposition they wheel out a caricature of a family, usually a very large family, probably black, most likely recent immigrants, without much English, lots of children, apparently chaotic, living in a desirable neighbourhood that middle-class people would like to occupy. That is the caricature and of course it is a partial spinning of the truth and it allows the demonisation to take place. 

"I would really urge particularly Conservative colleagues but people in all parties to be careful. I don't think we can afford to preside over a society where there is a gradual eroding of sympathy for people at the bottom end of the income spectrum and a rapid erosion of sympathy for people on benefits." 

She returns to the theme of morality and politics, saying: "I think deliberately to stoke up envy and division between people in order to gain popularity at the expense of children's lives is immoral. It has no good intent. 

"There are all sorts of things you have to do when times are tight that have negative consequences but you do them for good purposes. To do something for negative purposes that also has negative consequences – that is immoral."

The Conservative primary for 2015 has already begun

Yesterday's Independent on Sunday told us that:

Senior Tories are already discussing holding an "open, televised" contest for the next leader of the Conservative Party in an attempt to prevent a Gordon Brown-style coronation of George Osborne, it emerged yesterday.

The paper went on to say that this open contest is being planned for when David Cameron steps down rather than as a plot against him, but even this reflects poorly on his authority after only two years as prime minister.

As the paper also said, that contest has already begun. Michael Gove's plan to bring back O levels is best understood in the light of it - so the more interesting question is not whether Nick Clegg and Sarah Teather knew of his plans but whether David Cameron knew of them.

And Cameron's own speech on social security can also be seen as a move in that game. It is almost as though he feels obliged to campaign for the Conservative nomination in 2015.

The trouble for the Conservatives is that in campaigning for the support of their own activists, their leaders may put off the more liberal voters they need to win over if they are to win a majority next time.

Jeffrey M. Stonecash describes how this process operates across the Atlantic in his New Directions in American Political Parties:

The primary electorate is nearly always more ideologically extreme than the general electorate, with Democratic primary voters more liberal and Republican primary voters more conservative than the full electorate. Each member must therefore appeal to a more extreme constituency for nomination and then a more moderate one for election. 

This dual pull - to the center for reelection and away  from the center for nomination - is a common and repeated tension. Even in the general election, the candidate is often pulled one way to appeal to her party’s 'base' (which is often even more extreme than the primary electorate) and the other way to appeal to the swing voters more in the center.

The decline in membership of all political parties adds to the danger for the Conservatives. Often it is the odd and the driven who remain involved while the moderate and sensible who drift away. (This, of course, does not hold true of my fellow Liberal Democrats.) Thus the electorate to whom leading Tories have to appeal is becoming progressively more extreme.

Remember, too, Calder's Fourth Law of Politics: The more extreme a person's view, the more certain he or she will be that the majority of voters share them.

One way out of this problem for the Conservatives was suggested in the Coalition Agreement between them and the Liberal Democrats:

We will fund 200 all-postal primaries over this Parliament, targeted at seats which have not changed hands for many years. These funds will be allocated to all political parties with seats in Parliament that they take up, in proportion to their share of the total vote in the last general election.

The primary electorate may be more extreme than the general electorate, but it will certainly be more representative of the concerns of the electorate as a whole than the small group that selects Tory candidates at the moment.

Why have we heard no more of this idea?

Who has won my Boris Johnson finger puppet quiz?

Good evening from the Ballroom at Bonkers Hall. It is used for numerous functions throughout the year - that's a lot of balls - but surely none as glamorous as tonight's ceremony?

The cream of Rutland society is mingling with the great and good of the Liberal Democrats. On the stairs, the elves of Rockingham Forest are attempting to share a joke with Sarah Teather. Through the French windows I can see Meadowcroft chasing stray guests off his lawn with a broom.

In a few minutes the winner of the quiz will be drawn from the correct entries received. Lord Bonkers has decided to ask Vince Cable to make the draw: someone suggested asking Jeremy Hunt, but his Lordship replied that he wanted someone he trusted to be impartial.

But first the answers to the questions:

1. Which magazine did Boris Johnson edit between 1999 and 2005? - The Spectator
2. Which Westminster constituency did he sit for between 2001 and 2008? - Henley
3. What did Johnson call "an inverted pyramid of piffle"? - Accusations of an affair with Petronella Wyatt
4. Which city did he describe as "too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs"? - Portmouth
5. Which London Borough of Camden primary school did both Boris Johnson and the Miliband brothers attend? - Primrose Hill

Now Vince Cable is rummaging among the correct emails that have been tipped into Lord Bonkers' second-best top hat. And the winner he has picked is...

Jim Kelleher

Congratulations to him and thanks to everyone who entered.

Nick Clegg's family policy: Whoever you vote for the Government gets in

A common critique of education and family policy during the Blair and Brown years was that it was too interventionist - too many targets, too many boxes to tick, academic at too early an age. But any hope that the Coalition would reverse this trend has long since died.

The review of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum presided over by Sarah Teather, for instance, did see a reduction from 69 to 17 of the number of targets for five year olds. But a wide range of voices criticised its failure to address the "'schoolification' of early childhood, with its over-assessment and excessive monitoring". And that review also brought in new 'progress assessments' for two-year-olds.

I recently argued that the Pupil Premium has declined from being a radical scheme that would give popular schools an incentive to admit pupils from poor families to one which is intended to keep those pupils exactly where they but fund them a little more generously. You might say we have moved from locating the problem in poor schools to locating it in poor children.

Then a couple of days ago came news that Nick Clegg (in quite which capacity the Guardian does not make clear) is to set targets for schools to narrow the performance gap between disadvantaged children and other pupils.

Not only that:

Each school will also be expected, in its annual online report from September, to set out broadly how it is spending the pupil premium money, and what it intends to do with the money next year.

Until recently it seemed that Liberal Democrat and Conservative politicians shared the view that schools knew best how to themselves. Now the Pupil Premium is being used as a way of giving government more control. It seems the man in Whitehall knows best after all.

And today came Nick's interview in the Independent:

"Every parent wants their child to do better than they did, and every parent wants their child to fulfil their potential," he said. State intervention to teach children as young as two will form the centrepiece of his "obsession" which will see childcare made the coalition's highest priority social policy.

What strikes me most is the implication that doing the best for your children means allowing the state a greater role in their upbringing. As with Nick's enthusiasm for summer schools funded by the Pupil Premium, you don't get the feeling that poorer families are going to get much say in the matter.

To me the essence of Liberal radicalism is Thomas Rainsborough's observation "really I think that the poorest he that is in England has a life to live as the greatest he". Not so long ago, we radicals wanted the workers to run their own industries. Today we seem reluctant to trust them with their own children.

In this area of policy is seems, more and more, that whoever you vote for the Government gets in.

To end on a happier note, Rainsborough has a street named after him in Market Harborough.

Autotune My Valentine: To Sarah Teather MP

We have seen Lembit miming, but here is a song about a Lib Dem MP for Valentine's Day.

Liberal Democrat ministers: Spoilt for choice

At work today I was writing a news story based on a Department of Health press release about the £32m being made available to fund psychological therapy for children and young people.

Three ministers were quoted, but I needed just one for my story.

Which to choose? There was the deputy prime minister, a health minister and the children's minister.

In other words, Nick Clegg, Paul Burstow and Sarah Teather.

There never were such times for any Liberal or Liberal Democrat alive today. Let's make sure we appreciate being in government - though you can see why some Tories complain that the Liberal Democrats are being allowed to associate themselves with all the warm and fluffy things the Coalition is doing.

Since you ask, I chose Paul Burstow.

Duncan Hames and Simon Wright become PPSs

News reaches me from Cowley Street that two Liberal Democrat MPs have been appointed as parliamentry private secretaries.

Duncan Hames (Chippenham) has been appointed PPS to the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Chris Huhne. And Simon Wright (Norwich South) has been appointed PPS to the Children and Families Minister, Sarah Teather.

Congratulations to both.

Sarah Teather and the early years curriculum

One of the most characteristic innovations of the last Labour government was the introduction of a national curriculum for children aged 0-5. It was even more characteristic that it should have 69 targets for them to meet.

So it is good to see that Sarah Teather, as children's minister, is proposing to slim this curriculum down. You can read more about this on the Department for Education website.

However, a reader was less than impressed by Sarah's interview on the Today programme the other day and sent me the link so I could listen to it.

I see what he means. For instance, I do not find Sarah's argument that his curriculum has been in place since 2008 at all clinching, given what I though of the government in 2008. Jim Naughtie's incredulity is nearer to my own view of the matter.

While Sarah's assertion that "the evidence say that if parents are involved in how their child is developing they do better" makes a parent sound like just one of many different kinds of professional involved in the child's life. It suggests that Sarah has spent more time in the past year talking to professionals than parents.

This impression is strengthened by the phrase that really caught my readers attention. Sarah referred to the  importance of ensuring that "young people [are]  really prepared to enter school".

Three- or four-year-olds called "young people"? There is something to be said for the old term "children" at such an age. Again, parents seem to have been downgraded here.

And these four-year-olds want to be careful. If they fail to meet the demands of their national curriculum they may become youths, at least in the Leicester Mercury.

William Hague to address next month's Lib Dem Conference

Or so tomorrow's Daily Mail (I know, I know) reckons:

Tory sources suggest Mr Hague will give a 'witty' address, rather than focusing heavily on policy.

A source said: "It is potentially a rather tense occasion that could be difficult to handle. But William is brilliant at piercing that sort of tension with humour."

Yes, the Mail has more sources than [fill in the name of your favourite celebrity chef here, though it doesn't quite work.]

Oh, and:

LibDem Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander and education minister Sarah Teather are expected to attend the Tory conference in October, but will have low-key roles, such as acting as chairmen of a fringe meeting.

Later. A note reaches me from Cowley Street:

William Hague is not part of the conference agenda and I can confirm that he has not been asked to speak at the Liberal Democrat conference. No Conservative ministers have ever been approached to speak at our conference.

Fringe events are still being finalised, and it is of course possible that an independent group may have invited Mr Hague to speak at their Fringe event. But this is no different to any other year and it is common for MPs of all parties to attend these events.

Given that we are part of a coalition government with the Conservatives, it would be a good idea if one of their senior members did address our Conference. Too many Liberal Democrats seem apologetic or depressed about the fact that we are in government.