Lord Bonkers' Diary: Diane Abbott's ‘Coppers for Coppers’ scheme

Lord Bonkers occasionally complains of overzealous policing on Boat Race night, but for the most part he is a staunch supporter of the boys in blue.

Thursday

I meet PC McNally on his beat, as he helps an old lady across the village high street – it not being the apple scrumping season, this is how he spends most of his time at present. (Incidentally, the walls around my orchard are at a sporting height to allow a fair contest between the aforementioned constable and the local urchinry.)

Poor McNally is a far from laughing policeman as he tells me that Diane Abbott has launched Labour’s new ‘Coppers for Coppers’ scheme. “They’re going to pay us just £30 a year,” he tells me with a sob in his voice. “I’ll need a new bicycle soon and even a second-hand truncheon costs a packet.”

I reassure him that there is no possibility of Labour winning the election with Corbyn and ‘Semtex’ McDonnell at the helm, leaving him in a happier frame of mind. Incidentally, while we are talking, the old lady re-crosses the road under her own steam and then scuttles away when PC McNally catches sight of her.

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

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

• At the top of my hawking tower
• A hard border
• Freddie and Fiona at the New New European
• "Not as strong and stable as she thought"

Lenny Harper on how Jersey is governed

Christopher Hitchens once described Ian Smith's Rhodesia as "Surrey with the lunatic fringe on top". You could say much the same about Jersey - a tax haven where people can be imprisoned for whistleblowing.

And if you don't believe me, listen to Lenny Harper. He is not a tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorist but a hard-bitten cop who served in Belfast, South London and Glasgow before he tangled with the Jersey authorities.

The Coalition, in the shape of Tom McNally, has had the chance to do something about Jersey but has declined to take it.

This video came to me via The People's Voice and Voice for Children.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Nick Clegg unveils his winning tactic

Wednesday

Down to Brighton at the Spring Conference of the Liberal Democrats the other day, I ran into Clegg. “How do you propose winning this vote on secret courts?” I asked him. “The party is dead set against them – rightly so, I might add,” I added.

“Oh that’s easy,” he returned. “I am going to get Tom McNally to insult everybody.”

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

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Monday: Digging up the Bonkers' Arms car park
• Tuesday: Why Welsh education is the finest in the world

John Hemming accuses Jersey authorities of complacency over child abuse allegations

From The Big Issue in the North:

An MP has accused the government of “complacency” over child abuse allegations on Jersey. 

Birmingham Yardley MP John Hemming backs Jersey Parliament members Shona and Trevor Pitman, who want the government to “ensure good governance by investigating evidence of the breakdown of law within the island’s justice system”. 

The Jersey child abuse scandal first surfaced in 2007 when social worker Simon Bellwood was sacked after complaining that children as young as 11 were routinely locked up for 24 hours in solitary confinement at the Greenfields secure unit. International attention followed when the ensuing wider police investigation moved into Haut de la Garenne, a children’s home from 1900 to 1986.

The article ends: "Lord McNally did not respond to a request for comment."

Time for the Lib Dem leadership to come clean on secret courts

At the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference Nick Clegg's advisers decided the best way to win party members over on the question of secret courts was to send Tom McNally out to insult them.

It did not give you a great deal of confidence in Nick Clegg's advisers.

Fortunately, they soon changed their approach and first Ming Campbell and then Tom McNally wrote reasoned articles for Lib Dem Voice putting the leadership's case.

Today David Howarth, MP for Cambridge before the last election, replied to Tom McNally. If it were a boxing contest the referee would have stopped it long before David got to the end.

I do urge you to read David Howarth's article yourself as it makes the case against secret courts so forcefully. Academia's gain is certainly Westminster's loss.

The arguments the leadership has deployed in favour of secret courts are so weak - not just Tom McNally's speech in Brighton but also Nick Clegg's treatment of the subject at his question-and-answer session there - that one suspects we are not being told the real reason.

Is it that Nick does not feel confident enough to turn down the advice of the intelligence establishment? Is it that the American government is threatening not to share intelligence with us unless we change our legal procedures?

Whatever the reason, I think it would be much better for the atmosphere within the Liberal Democrats if our leaders came clean and told us their real reason for supporting secret courts.

Secret courts: Tom McNally in Wonderland

The Liberal Democrat leadership does not seem to have made much of an attempt to defend secret courts. Alex's Archives covers Nick Clegg's performance at his question and answer session in Brighton:

we saw pretty much every tool deployed from the box marked “evasion tactics for politicians who don’t wish to engage”.

In the secret courts vote itself, Tom McNally seems to have acted as the voice of the party establishment.

According to the Guardian:

McNally, a justice minister, indicated he was unlikely to lead a rebellion but would instead seek further concessions. He said it was to the credit of the party that it was so troubled by the issue of secret courts, but said the bill's critics lived in an Alice in Wonderland world.

This argument that party leaders and ministers have a unique connection with reality, while activists are by nature unworldly, has always seemed strange to me. Surely it is activists, with their jobs, mortgages and journeys to work who understand how most voters live?

And I don't recall any Lib Dem grandees insulting party members when they were asking them to go to Eastleigh or donate money a fortnight ago.

But the parallel with Alice in Wonderland is useful here:

"Let the jury consider their verdict," the King said, for about the twentieth time that day. 

"No, no!" said the Queen. "Sentence first - verdict afterwards." 

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Alice loudly. "The idea of having the sentence first!" 

"Hold your tongue!" said the Queen, turning purple. 

"I won't!" said Alice. 

"Off with her head!" the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.

"Sentence first - verdict afterwards" may well be what we get from secret courts. Take this BBC News report from 2006 (thanks to Love and Garbage on Twitter for the link):

A judge has criticised the Home Office over contradictory MI5 intelligence in secret hearings involving two terrorism suspects, it has emerged. 

The error came to light only because one barrister acted in both Special Immigration Appeals Commission cases. 

Mr Justice Newman said the "administration of justice" had been put at risk in the cases of Algerian Abu Doha and a suspect known as MK.

If anyone has been taking tea with the Mad Hatter, it is Tom McNally himself.

Tom McNally says Rutland County Council's legal action against its own members is doomed

From the Leicester Mercury:

A debate in the House of Lords has disputed the advice that Rutland County Council has received from Bevan Brittan in connection with the actions of the Rutland Anti-Corruption Group. 

At the Grand Committee Meeting of the House of Lords on Thursday, 17 January 2013, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally) said: 

"My officials have explored the issue with officials at the Department for Communities and Local Government, which is responsible for the 2011 Act. The Government are in no doubt that if a case were brought, the courts would still find that local authorities cannot bring action in defamation."

Read more in Hansard.

Jersey comes to Brighton

TheJerseyWay posts two BBC Radio Jersey interviews that are worthy of attention.

The American investigative journalist Leah McGrath Goodman talks about her continuing struggle with British and Jersey authorities to be allowed to work on the island again:



And then Jersey assistant chief minister Senator Sir Philip Bailhache reveals that he is attending the Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton.

As well as engaging in "casual discussions" he wants to meet Tom McNally, the minister responsible for the Crown dependencies, and John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP who recently raised his concerns about the governance of Jersey in the House of Commons.

In this interview he accuses John of abusing his position as an MP, so that should be an interesting meeting.

Meanwhile, if you meet Sir Philip you may want to ask him how Jersey's status as a tax haven can be squared with the Liberal Democrats' belief in fair taxation.