I have been known to grumble that, despite the presence of Lib Dem cabinet members, the Scottish Executive often seems even keener on the more nannyish aspects of New Labour than its counterpart in London does.
Alex C. at Land of the Nearly Free, by setting out the professional backgrounds of the Labour ministers at Holyrood, gives us a clue as to why this is the case. He finds a preponderance of former teachers and social workers.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Friday, July 22, 2005
Floon! The whole thing collapsed
Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News.
Not as planned
Ted Heath was awkward to the last. This week I had intended to write about the tunnel collapse at Gerrards Cross, reporting a debate called by the local MP.
You may know the story. Struggling to find a site there, Tesco hit upon the idea of roofing over a railway cutting and building their new store on top of it. The council opposed the plan, but the office of the deputy prime minister waved it through.
A Tesco spokeswoman said brightly: “We can see no reason why the store should not be open by the summer.” Then a couple of weeks ago: Floon! The whole thing collapsed. The Almighty has more respect for local planning authorities than John Prescott does.
But when Ted Heath died this debate was shelved so that everyone could say nice things about him instead.
My clearest memory of Heath is his swansong. As father of the house he presided over the painful process that saw Michael Martin elected as the new speaker. Many people suggested saner methods, but he would not hear of them and so the day ground on.
You suspected that somewhere beneath that bovine stubbornness he was slyly enjoying himself. There were echoes of Charles Ryder’s father in Brideshead Revisited or of Evelyn Waugh himself.
Ted Heath’s heyday is now a foreign country. Union militancy, striking miners – working miners, come to that – and the three-day week. Commentators asked whether Britain was governable and retired colonels drilled private armies in case the balloon went up.
Heath’s claim to immortality as the man who took Britain into the Common Market must be seen in this light. He had distinguished himself in a European war and the argument that it must never happen again had real authority when he expressed it.
But for lesser figures it was the West German economic miracle that was the attraction. They hoped a little of its stardust would brush off on us and offer a way out of the mess of the early 1970s.
Now that miracle is tarnished and it is Britain that sees itself as the model to be followed. Yet you wonder how attractive an economy dominated by a few giant supermarkets appears to others. Which brings us back to Gerrards Cross.
Not as planned
Ted Heath was awkward to the last. This week I had intended to write about the tunnel collapse at Gerrards Cross, reporting a debate called by the local MP.
You may know the story. Struggling to find a site there, Tesco hit upon the idea of roofing over a railway cutting and building their new store on top of it. The council opposed the plan, but the office of the deputy prime minister waved it through.
A Tesco spokeswoman said brightly: “We can see no reason why the store should not be open by the summer.” Then a couple of weeks ago: Floon! The whole thing collapsed. The Almighty has more respect for local planning authorities than John Prescott does.
But when Ted Heath died this debate was shelved so that everyone could say nice things about him instead.
My clearest memory of Heath is his swansong. As father of the house he presided over the painful process that saw Michael Martin elected as the new speaker. Many people suggested saner methods, but he would not hear of them and so the day ground on.
You suspected that somewhere beneath that bovine stubbornness he was slyly enjoying himself. There were echoes of Charles Ryder’s father in Brideshead Revisited or of Evelyn Waugh himself.
Ted Heath’s heyday is now a foreign country. Union militancy, striking miners – working miners, come to that – and the three-day week. Commentators asked whether Britain was governable and retired colonels drilled private armies in case the balloon went up.
Heath’s claim to immortality as the man who took Britain into the Common Market must be seen in this light. He had distinguished himself in a European war and the argument that it must never happen again had real authority when he expressed it.
But for lesser figures it was the West German economic miracle that was the attraction. They hoped a little of its stardust would brush off on us and offer a way out of the mess of the early 1970s.
Now that miracle is tarnished and it is Britain that sees itself as the model to be followed. Yet you wonder how attractive an economy dominated by a few giant supermarkets appears to others. Which brings us back to Gerrards Cross.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
First Church of Christ the Pedant
Through my door comes a leaflet from the Kettering Christadelphians. It says:
God and his son Jesus Christ hold the answer to ALL lifes (sic) problems.I am going to found an Apostrophic Church to put a stop to things like this. I am not sure what it will look like yet, but here is a picture of the decrepit former Apostolic Chapel at Pontesbury Hill in Shropshire
The best Cornish/Dutch wicketkeeper ever
A good cricket trivia question is to ask who the England wicketkeeper was last time we won the Ashes. Remember, it was on Mike Gatting's tour of Australia in 1986-7.
The answer is Jack Richards, the Cornishman who played for Surrey. Not a lot of people know that or even remember Richards' name.
He left the game early and today lives in Antwerp while working in Rotterdam. I have just heard him interviewed on BBC Radio Five Live, and he now has a unique Cornish/Dutch accent.
The answer is Jack Richards, the Cornishman who played for Surrey. Not a lot of people know that or even remember Richards' name.
He left the game early and today lives in Antwerp while working in Rotterdam. I have just heard him interviewed on BBC Radio Five Live, and he now has a unique Cornish/Dutch accent.
Blair: Going nowhere fast
politicalbetting.com reports that Ladbrokes have begun taking bets on whether Tony Blair fight and win the next General Election and stay at Number 10. The odds offered are 16/1, and even though such a bet necessarily involves leaving your money with the bookies for anything up to five years, it may well be worth a punt.
There is a lot of wishful thinking about Blair's detractors' belief that he is bound to quietly make way for Gordon Brown in a year or two. The prospect of being prime minister when the Olympics come to London must be an enticing one for Blair. He has a love of playing the world statesman and a weakness for prestige projects. Remember "The Millennium Dome will be the first line of the next Labour manifesto"?
At the same time, terrorism and the international situation are likley to offer him every pretext he could want for announcing that it would be unwise for him to step down.
But surely Mr Blair has given his solemn word that he will not lead Labour into another election?
You're new to this politics lark, aren't you?
There is a lot of wishful thinking about Blair's detractors' belief that he is bound to quietly make way for Gordon Brown in a year or two. The prospect of being prime minister when the Olympics come to London must be an enticing one for Blair. He has a love of playing the world statesman and a weakness for prestige projects. Remember "The Millennium Dome will be the first line of the next Labour manifesto"?
At the same time, terrorism and the international situation are likley to offer him every pretext he could want for announcing that it would be unwise for him to step down.
But surely Mr Blair has given his solemn word that he will not lead Labour into another election?
You're new to this politics lark, aren't you?
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Basil D’Oliveira: Cricket and Conspiracy
There is a marvellous review of Peter Oborne's book on the Crooked Timber website. It's so good that you hardly feel a need to read the book.
Here is a heart-warming chunk of it:
Here is a heart-warming chunk of it:
The book has villains: not just those mentioned, but others in the cricket establishment. But it has heroes too.
The committee at Middleton Cricket Club, where D’Oliveira started, and the people of Middleton themselves, seem to have treated him and his wife with grace and kindness.
John Arlott championed his cause, gave kindly advice, lent money, and was the all-round good chap that was John Arlott. Illingworth extracted a fase [false?] promise that he could take Dolly on tour, and then snookered the selectors into honouring the promise. Tom Graveney was brilliant.
The late lamented David Sheppard led the crusade within the MCC against the selectors; perhaps more courageously Mike Brearley, still only in his 20’s, insisted on seconding Sheppard’s motion condemning the selectors for bowing to political pressure despite the risk to his career (this goes some way to explaining why, despite playing for Middlesex, he was overlooked by the selectors for so long).
It is astonishing to find that so many of one’s childhood heroes were, well, heroes (I started expecting Kenneth Horne or Jon Pertwee to turn up).
Oh, and, there’s also D’Oliveira, who comes across as human, flawed, but, when it really mattered, unflinchingly principled.
Monday, July 18, 2005
So farewell then Ted Heath
How distant Ted Heath's years as prime minister now seem.
I was rather young at the time, but I remember it as an era of crisis. There were terrorist outrages by the IRA - both in Ireland and on the mainland - and also explosions caused by Britain's forgotten, amateur answer to the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Angry Brigade.
On the economic side there was union militancy, the miners' strike, power cuts and the three-day week. My strongest memory of the period is of doing homework by candlelight, though that may be a later invention as, thinking about it, I was never a great one for doing homework.
It is against this background that Heath's claim to political greatness - his taking of Britain into the Common Market, as it was then called - must be understood.
Heath came from the generation that fought in the Second World War. So in his mouth the argument that the nations of Europe must be brought together so that they can never again countenance going to war amongst themselves had real authority. When we hear it today from younger politicians it sounds insincere - a last throw at making the European cause still sound noble and visionary.
In any case, what really brought Britain into Europe was the turmoil outlined above. Though people wrote articles in the early 1970s asking if Britain was still governable, the political classes retained a deep confidence in their right and their ability to rule.
The economy was a different matter, and there were deep fears about Britain's economic decline. At the same time, Britain had seen the economic miracle that had taken place in West Germany since the War. Though many Liberals and Social Democrats looked with envy on Germany's more rational democratic and industrial institutions, Britain's chief hope in joining the Common Market was that a little of this economic stardust would brush off on us.
Equally, it is the decline of German economy that has taken the shine off the European project and robbed its supporters of their best arguments. Until a few years ago, for instance, supporters of the single currency assured us that disaster awaited Britain if we failed to become members. Indeed, this was practically the only thing Matthew Taylor said during his tenure of the Lib Dem economic portfolio.
Today, without these arguments we can see that European politics is just as low and mean as any other kind. Co-operation on foreign policy remains immensely desirable, but there can be no assurance that we have uncomplicated common interests just because we are all European. (We are all British, but that is little help in deciding how the country should be run.) Indeed these days we cannot even agree where the boundaries of Europe are.
So farewell then Ted Heath, and farewell to a certain kind of pro-Europeanism. It always owed more to despair at 1970s Britain than it did to love for the European ideal.
I was rather young at the time, but I remember it as an era of crisis. There were terrorist outrages by the IRA - both in Ireland and on the mainland - and also explosions caused by Britain's forgotten, amateur answer to the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Angry Brigade.
On the economic side there was union militancy, the miners' strike, power cuts and the three-day week. My strongest memory of the period is of doing homework by candlelight, though that may be a later invention as, thinking about it, I was never a great one for doing homework.
It is against this background that Heath's claim to political greatness - his taking of Britain into the Common Market, as it was then called - must be understood.
Heath came from the generation that fought in the Second World War. So in his mouth the argument that the nations of Europe must be brought together so that they can never again countenance going to war amongst themselves had real authority. When we hear it today from younger politicians it sounds insincere - a last throw at making the European cause still sound noble and visionary.
In any case, what really brought Britain into Europe was the turmoil outlined above. Though people wrote articles in the early 1970s asking if Britain was still governable, the political classes retained a deep confidence in their right and their ability to rule.
The economy was a different matter, and there were deep fears about Britain's economic decline. At the same time, Britain had seen the economic miracle that had taken place in West Germany since the War. Though many Liberals and Social Democrats looked with envy on Germany's more rational democratic and industrial institutions, Britain's chief hope in joining the Common Market was that a little of this economic stardust would brush off on us.
Equally, it is the decline of German economy that has taken the shine off the European project and robbed its supporters of their best arguments. Until a few years ago, for instance, supporters of the single currency assured us that disaster awaited Britain if we failed to become members. Indeed, this was practically the only thing Matthew Taylor said during his tenure of the Lib Dem economic portfolio.
Today, without these arguments we can see that European politics is just as low and mean as any other kind. Co-operation on foreign policy remains immensely desirable, but there can be no assurance that we have uncomplicated common interests just because we are all European. (We are all British, but that is little help in deciding how the country should be run.) Indeed these days we cannot even agree where the boundaries of Europe are.
So farewell then Ted Heath, and farewell to a certain kind of pro-Europeanism. It always owed more to despair at 1970s Britain than it did to love for the European ideal.
Harry Potter and the Telephone Canvassing
Despite my misgivings about the Rowling oeuvre, it would be churlish not to note this Evening Standard report.
One of the Liberal Democrat councillors for the Middle Park and Sutcliffe ward of Greenwich Borough Council is called Harry Potter.
One of the Liberal Democrat councillors for the Middle Park and Sutcliffe ward of Greenwich Borough Council is called Harry Potter.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
It makes you proud to be British
I'm talking about Tim Worstall's latest Britblog Roundup, of course.
Hain: Fear the Lib Dems
Peter Hain offers his analysis of the result of May's general election in Progress magazine:
Thanks to Labour Watch for the tip.Worryingly, the trends underlying the 2005 results indicate that the Lib Dems could now pose a direct threat to a significant number of Labour MPs. And unless we take that threat seriously, our chances of a fourth successive majority could be significantly diminished.
In the past, the Conservatives were seen as more vulnerable to a Lib Dem challenge because Tories held a higher proportion of the seats in which the Lib Dems took second place. But that assumption no longer holds water. Since 2001, the number of Labour seats in which the Lib Dems are second has more than doubled from 50 to 106. And of the 98 marginal seats that the Lib Dems could take on a 10 per cent swing, there is now virtually an even split - 49 Tory, 46 Labour. Furthermore, in seats marginal to the Lib Dems, the Tories grabbed a swing of one per cent back from them. In contrast, Labour suffered a hefty swing of nine per cent in the Lib Dems' favour.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Stealing our souls
Child-safety fears bar pupils from public buses says The Scotsman. But if you read the story beneath it is the public who are being banned from buses that some children use to get to school in Aberdeenshire.
The local authority feels it has been forced into the move:
There was a report in the UK Press Gazette a few weeks ago:
John Byford was quoted as saying:
And this in a society which is in love with CCTV and has been described as the most watched in the world. This caste of mind, which requires us to trust the government without question while being endlessly suspicious of our neighbours, is precisely what typifies a totalitarian state.
The ban also goes beyond a threat to the documentary record of beach life. It poses a threat to the way photography has been seen as a democratic art. In contrast to portraiture in oils, which required time and a leisured subject, photography could take place in a moment and in the street - a view typified by the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Indeed it is fair to say that there has been a connection between photographing children and political radicalism, even if there could be something condescending about the way working-class children were presented. Think of the urchins who regularly turned up in Picture Post and of the way the child - even the child's body - was used as a symbol of improved health and education in the new welfare state.
Only today I bought a copy of Jonathan Coe's biography of the experimental left-wing novelist B. S. Johnson, which has the wonderful title Like a Fiery Elephant. I found that Johnson collaborated with the photographer Julia Trevelyan Oman on a book called Street Children, which was published in 1964. And a few years later the saintly anarchist Colin Ward wrote the heavily illustrated The Child in the City.
Of course, photographing children has always been controversial. The great pioneer of the art, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, took a famous picture of a group of boys bathing naked in Whitby harbour. He exhibited at the exhibition of the Royal Photographical Society of Great Britain in 1887 under the title "The Water Rats".
Reactions were mixed. The Prince of Wales - the future Edward VII - ordered a huge enlargement to be made to hang in Marlborough House. Whereas the local clergy condemned Sutcliffe "for showing this print to the corruption of the other sex".
At one time we would have sided with the prince in the name of art. But in 2005 it is the clergy's side of the dispute that is winning.
The local authority feels it has been forced into the move:
"A number of parents indicated that they would not allow their children to travel on services which are open to the general public, despite there being no evidence of any problems on the services which have operated successfully in this way for 20 years."There has been one sane reaction to this nonsense. Judith Gilliespie, the policy director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council says:
But I'm afraid we do live our lives like that now."People have got this whole protection of kids thing out of proportion. The legislation only applies when people are in child-care situations - it doesn't apply to all contact between adults and children.
"Kids have got to be part of our lives, but the more you separate children, the more difficult it is for them to cope when they are old enough to interact with adults. It's almost as if these parents are regarding members of their own communities as undesirables, but we can't live our lives like that."
There was a report in the UK Press Gazette a few weeks ago:
No parents wants someone in a dirty mac taking photographs of their children, but here even the inadvertent appearance of a child in the background of a shot is seen as a problem. As North East Lincolnshire Council inevitably said: "We regret any inconvenience caused to bona fide photographers, but the safety and welfare of visitors has to be our first priority."A freelance photographer has found himself in hot water - for taking unauthorised photographs on Cleethorpes beach.
John Byford - who sells to newspapers, magazines, agencies and consumer businesses - went to the north-east Lincolnshire resort to take stock pictures of a two-day seafront kite festival.
But he was forbidden from doing so by event organisers in case children were inadvertently included in any of his shots.
John Byford was quoted as saying:
It is a sad reflection, but it goes further than he fears. This policy does not only treat every photographer as a potential paedophile. It treats every subsequent viewer of the photograph as a potential paedophile."To treat every photographer as a potential paedophile struck me as a sad reflection on modern society.
"At this rate, there will be no photographic record of British beach life in the first half of the 21st century."
And this in a society which is in love with CCTV and has been described as the most watched in the world. This caste of mind, which requires us to trust the government without question while being endlessly suspicious of our neighbours, is precisely what typifies a totalitarian state.
The ban also goes beyond a threat to the documentary record of beach life. It poses a threat to the way photography has been seen as a democratic art. In contrast to portraiture in oils, which required time and a leisured subject, photography could take place in a moment and in the street - a view typified by the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Indeed it is fair to say that there has been a connection between photographing children and political radicalism, even if there could be something condescending about the way working-class children were presented. Think of the urchins who regularly turned up in Picture Post and of the way the child - even the child's body - was used as a symbol of improved health and education in the new welfare state.
Only today I bought a copy of Jonathan Coe's biography of the experimental left-wing novelist B. S. Johnson, which has the wonderful title Like a Fiery Elephant. I found that Johnson collaborated with the photographer Julia Trevelyan Oman on a book called Street Children, which was published in 1964. And a few years later the saintly anarchist Colin Ward wrote the heavily illustrated The Child in the City.
Of course, photographing children has always been controversial. The great pioneer of the art, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, took a famous picture of a group of boys bathing naked in Whitby harbour. He exhibited at the exhibition of the Royal Photographical Society of Great Britain in 1887 under the title "The Water Rats".
Reactions were mixed. The Prince of Wales - the future Edward VII - ordered a huge enlargement to be made to hang in Marlborough House. Whereas the local clergy condemned Sutcliffe "for showing this print to the corruption of the other sex".
At one time we would have sided with the prince in the name of art. But in 2005 it is the clergy's side of the dispute that is winning.
Shropshire animals: There's more
First it was a rabbit bent on GBH and a goat and snails interfering with Her Majesty's mail.
Now it's worse:
Now it's worse:
Fire crews from Wellington and Shrewsbury were called to an address in Walton, near High Ercall, yesterday just after 4 p.m., following reports that a fire had broken out in a kitchen ...
A spokesperson from Shropshire Fire and Rescue said today the blaze had been started after a dog had jumped up and turned on the cooker.
"The dog basically jumped up and switched on the ignition," he said.
The leader of the pack
Well done Lembit Öpik for defending an unpopular minority:
It just shows you should read the Bridgnorth Journal more often.Biking MP Lembit Opik has accused the police of ‘a heavy-handed approach that simply alienates communities’ by shutting down a Worfield pub.
The leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats has sent a hard-hitting letter to Home Office minister Hazel Blears.
Magistrates allowed the Wheel Inn to re-open last week, under strict conditions, after the police temporarily closed it down after about 2,000 motorcyclists descended on it.
Mr Opik, who rides a Suzuki GS 1000 and has vowed to visit the Wheel for a Wednesday night bikers’ gathering, said he had questioned the police approach with the Home Office, in deploying cars, bikes, a helicopter and surveillance van, before serving landlady Gloria Goodson with an order closing the pub for 24 hours.
London casualties: We were the last to know
Spiked has an article by Dominic Standish which shows how slow the British media were to report that the London bombings had caused fatal casualties.
He writes:
Such pressure may also explain why the BBC News website clung to the "power surge" theory for so long. On Thursday morning I was getting impatient with it and turning to other sites for the news. And this despite the fact that, because my own journey to work in Leicester on Midland Mainline had been delayed by "power supply problems in the Kentish Town area", I was more inclined than most to believe this explanation at first. The BBC's performance had the flavour of prearranged euphemism.
As Standish concludes:
He writes:
Standish discusses how far the performance of the British media was affected by government news management. Most interestingly, he refers to a report from the Guardian which quotes the ITV News editor-in-chief, David Mannion, as saying that he had been called by a Home Office PR demanding that a newsflash saying that at least 20 people had died be taken down.At 12.38 Italian time (11.38 UK time), Italy's leading news agency, ANSA, ran a story on its website reporting comments by the Italian interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, that at least 50 people had died in the London blasts. At the same time, I was watching TV news reports, mainly BBC World and Sky News, which reported possible deaths, especially following the explosion on the bus.
Although BBC television news did briefly mention Pisanu's comments, up until 3 p.m. that day the leading reports on the explosions only referred to possible deaths. Indeed, the British police refused to confirm that two people had died during a news conference broadcast on BBC World at lunchtime. By 14.20 Italian time, there was a debate on Italian state radio (RAI) about Pisanu's comments, and why the 50 deaths were not being confirmed or denied in Britain.
Such pressure may also explain why the BBC News website clung to the "power surge" theory for so long. On Thursday morning I was getting impatient with it and turning to other sites for the news. And this despite the fact that, because my own journey to work in Leicester on Midland Mainline had been delayed by "power supply problems in the Kentish Town area", I was more inclined than most to believe this explanation at first. The BBC's performance had the flavour of prearranged euphemism.
As Standish concludes:
In an address to the nation on the evening of 7 July, UK prime minister Tony Blair praised the "stoicism and resilience" of Londoners. But it could be that his government didn't trust Londoners with information about the scale of the tragedy on 7 July. Did the government fear that Londoners would panic, as might be indicated by the lunchtime police news conference on 7 July that stressed the need to stay calm while refusing to confirm deaths? Or was it because the authorities feared that there would be a reaction against London's Muslims?Meanwhile, those with a taste for conspiracy theories should read The Antagonist.
Friday, July 15, 2005
The latest from Shropshire
The week after the week before
Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News.
Pause for Thought
It has been the week after the week before. On Monday the Commons heard prime ministerial statements on the G8 summit and the London bombings. Then his opponents were unusually complimentary.
Michael Howard paid tribute to the “calm, resolute and statesmanlike” way the government had responded to the bombings. Charles Kennedy said Tony Blair was “to be congratulated on what was, for the best and happiest of reasons as well as for the most dreadful, an extraordinary week”.
Blair was certainly doing his best to sound statesmanlike. He did not use his choking-back-the-tears voice that leaves you wishing there were a grown up in charge. Instead it was his slow delivery. with. very. long. pauses.
I once heard a tape of a Blair speech in this style with all the pauses edited out. It still made sense. If anything it sounded better. But his approach seemed fitting on Monday even if it was odd to hear the prime minister talking about “our way of life”.
If anything has defined the New Labour project over the years it has been an impatience with the British way of life. Tradition is suspect and everyone and everything has to be modernised.
This attempt at modernisation went on after Blair’s statements with the third reading of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Or the Muslim Voters (Reclaiming for Labour) Bill as it should be called.
This is one of those proposed laws that gets less impressive the more it is examined. In countries where such legislation has been enacted, it is chiefly used by warring religious groups to take each other to court.
To avoid this the government now says the attorney general will have to approve every prosecution. “Pass this law and we promise not to use it very often” is an argument no legislature should fall for. Ours has.
Monday also saw questions on culture, media and sport. And it was clear what the next seven years are going to be like. Already getting the 2012 Olympics has become a government achievement. And the games will be used as an argument in support of every backbench obsession, no matter how loopy.
We are going to pay a heavy price for the fun of upsetting M. Chirac.
Pause for Thought
It has been the week after the week before. On Monday the Commons heard prime ministerial statements on the G8 summit and the London bombings. Then his opponents were unusually complimentary.
Michael Howard paid tribute to the “calm, resolute and statesmanlike” way the government had responded to the bombings. Charles Kennedy said Tony Blair was “to be congratulated on what was, for the best and happiest of reasons as well as for the most dreadful, an extraordinary week”.
Blair was certainly doing his best to sound statesmanlike. He did not use his choking-back-the-tears voice that leaves you wishing there were a grown up in charge. Instead it was his slow delivery. with. very. long. pauses.
I once heard a tape of a Blair speech in this style with all the pauses edited out. It still made sense. If anything it sounded better. But his approach seemed fitting on Monday even if it was odd to hear the prime minister talking about “our way of life”.
If anything has defined the New Labour project over the years it has been an impatience with the British way of life. Tradition is suspect and everyone and everything has to be modernised.
This attempt at modernisation went on after Blair’s statements with the third reading of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Or the Muslim Voters (Reclaiming for Labour) Bill as it should be called.
This is one of those proposed laws that gets less impressive the more it is examined. In countries where such legislation has been enacted, it is chiefly used by warring religious groups to take each other to court.
To avoid this the government now says the attorney general will have to approve every prosecution. “Pass this law and we promise not to use it very often” is an argument no legislature should fall for. Ours has.
Monday also saw questions on culture, media and sport. And it was clear what the next seven years are going to be like. Already getting the 2012 Olympics has become a government achievement. And the games will be used as an argument in support of every backbench obsession, no matter how loopy.
We are going to pay a heavy price for the fun of upsetting M. Chirac.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Harry Potter and the Stupid Rector
I am not a great admirer of the Harry Potter books. Whenever I open one a cliche flies out at me, and I have been known to give adults reading them on trains a hard stare.
Nor do I admire J. K. Rowling, or at least her advisers, for seeking and winning an extraordinarily restrictive injunction against the few Canadians who innocently bought Harry Potter and the Load of Old Bollocks, or whatever it is called, ahead of the official publication day.
But all this is insignificant when set against this:
Remarkably, The Holt does not appear to be a Church school but an ordinary county primary. What a shame Mr Martin did not, respectfully and politely, tell the rector what to do with his letter.
Nor do I admire J. K. Rowling, or at least her advisers, for seeking and winning an extraordinarily restrictive injunction against the few Canadians who innocently bought Harry Potter and the Load of Old Bollocks, or whatever it is called, ahead of the official publication day.
But all this is insignificant when set against this:
Martin goes on to say that he made his decision after he received a letter from the rector that suggested he was "seeking to lead our children into areas of evil".A primary school cancelled a Harry Potter day over complaints it could lead children into "areas of evil".
Pupils from The Holt Primary School in Skellingthorpe, Lincs, were planning to dress up as witches and wizards.
But the event - to mark the launch of the new JK Rowling book - was scrapped after parents and a local rector expressed concerns about witchcraft.
Headteacher Paul Martin said the rector claimed he was seeking "to lead our children into areas of evil".
Remarkably, The Holt does not appear to be a Church school but an ordinary county primary. What a shame Mr Martin did not, respectfully and politely, tell the rector what to do with his letter.
London bombings latest
First a press release reported on Harry's Place:
On a more serious note, the Canadian Globe & Mail is reporting:The Stop the War Coalition would like to make it absolutely clear that the Jamaican born Lindsey Germaine identified in a New York Times report today as the possible fifth suspect in the London bombings is entirely unconnected with Lindsey German, the London born convenor, of the Stop the War Coalition.
Any suggestion of any connection between these two individuals is both false and libellous.
The transformation of four young British men into terrorists appears to have taken place at a government-funded storefront youth centre in Leeds that, according to youth workers, was a hub of radical Islamist activity.
The centre was sealed off and searched by police yesterday after three of its workers said in an interview on the street outside that at least two of the suicide bombers had been "very regular" visitors at all hours to the Hamara Youth Access Point, and a third had been seen there occasionally.
"It had become so radical and so hateful that I asked if I could stop working there," said one of the workers, who along with two others described the storefront drop-in centre as a hub of radical Muslim politics and a hotbed of Islamic organizing, routinely hosting mysterious figures to speak about extremist politics.
I found this link via a comment to the posting on Harry's Place. The Guardian has the story too.
Stephen Byers: This is news?
Byers admits untruth on Railtrack
On other pages:
Pope: My Catholic shame
Shit in woods case: Biffo's shock confession
On other pages:
Pope: My Catholic shame
Shit in woods case: Biffo's shock confession
Shropshire: Is no letter safe?
On Tuesday it was a goat. Now it is snails.
The Shropshire Star has the details:
The Shropshire Star has the details:
I do not think I have ever been to Wrentnall, but there is a nice picture of its former Baptist and Primitive Methodist chapel here - with not a snail in sight.Hungry snails have been munching on people's letters after finding their way into the village post box at Wrentnall, between Pontesbury and Ratlinghope.
Villagers say they can only post their letters immediately before a collection, so the creatures do not have time to chew their important correspondence to shreds.
No comments
I have been having problems with Blogger this evening and the result is a few changes to the template. In particular, I have lost my Haloscan comments and do not seem able to reinstall them. Haloscan does have an automatic install facility for Blogger, but it crashes every time I try to use it.
Apologies to those whose comments have been lost. I think I will stick with Blogger's own comments system from now on.
Apologies to those whose comments have been lost. I think I will stick with Blogger's own comments system from now on.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Stand down the counsellors
There was a letter in The Times this morning demanding that all everyone caught in the bombings in London last week, "including those involved indirectly and even people who experienced 'near misses'," should be offered counselling.
A few years ago there was a widespread belief that this sort of psychological first aid could prevent the development of serious post-traumatic symptoms. The trouble is that as the evidence base grew it became clear that this mass therapising was useless and could even be counter-productive.
Certainly, many people found the process intrusive. I knew a woman whose husband worked for a building society and was caught in an armed hold-up of one of its branches. She said that the general view among the staff was that the counselling was more upsetting than the original incident.
An article on the Spiked website gives a more informed view of what should be done for the psychological welfare of people who were caught in last Thursday's events. It is written by Simon Wessely, who is professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and director of the King's Centre for Military Health Research.
He says:
A few years ago there was a widespread belief that this sort of psychological first aid could prevent the development of serious post-traumatic symptoms. The trouble is that as the evidence base grew it became clear that this mass therapising was useless and could even be counter-productive.
Certainly, many people found the process intrusive. I knew a woman whose husband worked for a building society and was caught in an armed hold-up of one of its branches. She said that the general view among the staff was that the counselling was more upsetting than the original incident.
An article on the Spiked website gives a more informed view of what should be done for the psychological welfare of people who were caught in last Thursday's events. It is written by Simon Wessely, who is professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and director of the King's Centre for Military Health Research.
He says:
what people need in these first few days is the support of their family and friends, as well as practical assistance with information, finance, travel and, sadly for many, the business of organising funerals. The best immediate mental health interventions are practical, not emotional.
Many of those who are now in distress and despair will heal with time. But we know that some will not, and that some will develop serious psychological illnesses such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. The only way to prevent those disorders from developing was by not getting on the doomed trains - but such disorders can be treated. The Camden and Islington Mental Health Trust has been designated to organise help for individuals, and to ensure that those who do need proper psychological treatment in the coming months will receive it. But now is not the time, and counselling is not the answer.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Shropshire on the screen
BBC Radio Leicester has moved to new studios in the city - a huge improvement on the two floors of a run-down office block that they used to occupy.
One of the facilities at the new building, besides a cafe and free internet access, is a shop selling BBC archive recordings. I went there on Saturday and bought a DVD of the 1985 dramatisation of Tom Sharpe's novel Blott on the Landscape.
It was filmed in Ludlow, partly around the, er, striking Victorian Market Hall (which was demolished shortly afterwards with the general approval of the people of the town) and at nearby Stanage Hall.
The original novel was also set around Ludlow. The landscape Sharpe had in mind was the Downton Gorge, which would make Downton Castle the model for the book's Handyman Hall.
Sharpe discovered the area when his school, Lancing College, was evacuated to Downton Castle during the Second World War. Among his fellow pupils were the actor George Baker and Robin Saville, the son of the children's writer Malcolm Saville, who told me how Sharpe came across the area.
Incidentally, Malcolm Saville also used Downton Castle as the setting for one of his books. In his case it was The Secret of the Gorge from 1958, where the Castle appeared as Bringewood Manor.
The two outstanding performances in Blott on the Landscape are by David Suchet and Geraldine James, but two other cast members will attract the interest of the Shropshire-loving film buff.
For George Cole and Esmond Knight both also appeared in the Powell and Pressburger film Gone to Earth, which was made in 1950. This was based on the novel by the Shropshire novelist Mary Webb, who enjoyed a huge vogue shortly after her death in the 1930s but reads like the ripest melodrama today. She is best remembered as one of the writers whom Stella Gibbons was parodying in Cold Comfort Farm.
The film is equally melodramatic, but it still looks ravishing: it is hard to imagine anything more beautiful than the Shropshire hills shot in Technicolor. There is a wonderful collection of stills and photographs connected with the film here.
Gone to Earth was George Cole's first adult role, just as Blott on the Landscape was one of Esmond Knight's last appearances. There is a site dedicated to Esmond Knight's remarkable career here, but I can't find a George Cole site.
Still, with a good search engine the world wide web is your lobster.
One of the facilities at the new building, besides a cafe and free internet access, is a shop selling BBC archive recordings. I went there on Saturday and bought a DVD of the 1985 dramatisation of Tom Sharpe's novel Blott on the Landscape.
It was filmed in Ludlow, partly around the, er, striking Victorian Market Hall (which was demolished shortly afterwards with the general approval of the people of the town) and at nearby Stanage Hall.
The original novel was also set around Ludlow. The landscape Sharpe had in mind was the Downton Gorge, which would make Downton Castle the model for the book's Handyman Hall.
Sharpe discovered the area when his school, Lancing College, was evacuated to Downton Castle during the Second World War. Among his fellow pupils were the actor George Baker and Robin Saville, the son of the children's writer Malcolm Saville, who told me how Sharpe came across the area.
Incidentally, Malcolm Saville also used Downton Castle as the setting for one of his books. In his case it was The Secret of the Gorge from 1958, where the Castle appeared as Bringewood Manor.
The two outstanding performances in Blott on the Landscape are by David Suchet and Geraldine James, but two other cast members will attract the interest of the Shropshire-loving film buff.
For George Cole and Esmond Knight both also appeared in the Powell and Pressburger film Gone to Earth, which was made in 1950. This was based on the novel by the Shropshire novelist Mary Webb, who enjoyed a huge vogue shortly after her death in the 1930s but reads like the ripest melodrama today. She is best remembered as one of the writers whom Stella Gibbons was parodying in Cold Comfort Farm.
The film is equally melodramatic, but it still looks ravishing: it is hard to imagine anything more beautiful than the Shropshire hills shot in Technicolor. There is a wonderful collection of stills and photographs connected with the film here.
Gone to Earth was George Cole's first adult role, just as Blott on the Landscape was one of Esmond Knight's last appearances. There is a site dedicated to Esmond Knight's remarkable career here, but I can't find a George Cole site.
Still, with a good search engine the world wide web is your lobster.
Life in Blair's Britain
In Burton upon Trent an unborn child has been threatened with an ASBO.
Meanwhile at Woodhouse Eaves in Leicestershire's Charnwood Forest, a 104-year-old woman has been served with a noise abatement order.
Meanwhile at Woodhouse Eaves in Leicestershire's Charnwood Forest, a 104-year-old woman has been served with a noise abatement order.
Monday, July 11, 2005
Lord Bonkers speaks to the nation
Lord Bonkers latest diary has just been posted to his website:
For more on the July 2005 issue of Liberator see Simon Titley's Liberal Dissenter.High summer in Rutland: hamwee calls to hamwee, and wheway to wheway, across the broad valley of the Welland; Meadowcroft quite disappears amidst his foxgloves and hollyhocks, and I fancy I can hear the faint music of the elves of Rockingham Forest on the honeysuckle-scented breeze.
Strolling down to the Bonkers’ Arms, I am accosted by the occupants of an expensive motor that draws up beside me. “We’re looking for a ghastly little place called York. Do you know it?” drawls one voice. “Is one nearly there yet?” and “He must be the village idiot. How sweet!” add others.
Did you know that each European cow is subsidised to the tune of $3 a day? As a Liberal I insist that this money is paid directly to the beasts themselves, and that has made a great difference to the rural economy in these parts with many cows now owning their owns sheds, running small businesses and enjoying holidays abroad.
The Power of Nightmares revisited
One of this blog's favourite television programmes was Adam Curtis's The Power of Nightmares. We wrote about it here, here, here and, indeed, here.
And one of our favourite journalists is Nick Cohen who, last Sunday, attacked the series by implication:
What interests me is his apparent dismissal of Curtis's thesis in The Power of Nightmares as a claim that the terrorist threat was invented by Blair. This is surely unfair. Curtis is well aware of the threat of terrorism: his programmes were made after 9/11, so how could be not be?
What I take Curtis to be saying is that the myth lies in the belief that al-Qaeda is a structured organisation run by Bin Laden. One American clip Curtis showed imagined holed up in a luxury HQ - complete with hydroelectric power - in the caves of Tora Bora like a Bond villain.
The best summing up of the position we are now in came in an article in Saturday's Guardian by John Gray - another of this blog's heroes, even if we did once accuse him of being off with the fairies.
Gray wrote:
And one of our favourite journalists is Nick Cohen who, last Sunday, attacked the series by implication:
The argument that "we've got it coming" is silly, though it is legitimate to ask whether our intervention in Iraq has made terrorism in Britain more likely. And also to ask, if it has made it more likely, whether that is a price worth paying. If I understand Cohen's position correctly, he answers yes to both questions.In my world of liberal London, social success at the dinner table belonged to the man who could simultaneously maintain that we've got it coming but that nothing was going to come; that indiscriminate murder would be Tony Blair's fault but there wouldn't be indiscriminate murder because 'the threat' was a phantom menace invented by Blair to scare the cowed electorate into supporting him.
I'd say the "power of nightmares" side of that oxymoronic argument is too bloodied to be worth discussing this weekend...
What interests me is his apparent dismissal of Curtis's thesis in The Power of Nightmares as a claim that the terrorist threat was invented by Blair. This is surely unfair. Curtis is well aware of the threat of terrorism: his programmes were made after 9/11, so how could be not be?
What I take Curtis to be saying is that the myth lies in the belief that al-Qaeda is a structured organisation run by Bin Laden. One American clip Curtis showed imagined holed up in a luxury HQ - complete with hydroelectric power - in the caves of Tora Bora like a Bond villain.
The best summing up of the position we are now in came in an article in Saturday's Guardian by John Gray - another of this blog's heroes, even if we did once accuse him of being off with the fairies.
Gray wrote:
He was also surely right when he added:No longer the semi-centralised organisation it was before the destruction of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has mutated into a brand name that covers an amorphous network of groups that are linked together mainly by their adherence to an apocalyptic version of Islamist ideology...
It is a network that seems to be replicating itself in Europe and other advanced industrial regions, and if it turns out that the London bombings were al-Qaeda-related, the group that committed them could prove to be largely homegrown.
In terms of its apocalyptic mindset, al-Qaeda is not unique, nor is it peculiarly Islamic. It is the most recent expression of a tradition of terrorism which has deep roots in Western religious beliefs and in modern revolutionary politics. The idea that violence can be used to remake the world has a powerful appeal, and if al-Qaeda is distinctive, it is in the ruthlessness with which it implements this belief.In many ways the loose organisation of al-Qaeda makes it harder to deal with, whether you seek a military victory or to negotiate with it. But it is better to understand the enemy we face than to caricature those who do not share your view of it.
Where the Lions went wrong
I can't help thinking that Sir Clive Woodward missed a trick by not playing Alastair Campbell in the last test.
He would have brought some much needed aggression to the pack, and his selection would have meant that at least one Scottish player got a cap.
Late news: Campbell sent off after All Black winger makes unkind comment about Robert Maxwell.
He would have brought some much needed aggression to the pack, and his selection would have meant that at least one Scottish player got a cap.
Late news: Campbell sent off after All Black winger makes unkind comment about Robert Maxwell.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Bring it out here, Tompkins
There were many stories in the papers last week that have been forgotten after Thursday's events. One of the sillier ones was The Times' claim that "One schoolboy in 10 has carried some kind of gun in the last year".
The story itself has disappeared behind the Times' firewall ("The undiscover'd country from whose bourn/No traveller returns"), but there is a neat dissection of it on The Law West of Ealing Broadway:
The story itself has disappeared behind the Times' firewall ("The undiscover'd country from whose bourn/No traveller returns"), but there is a neat dissection of it on The Law West of Ealing Broadway:
The headline suggested that up to a million kids have gone about tooled up, and the reality is that a few hundred, or even a couple of thousand teenage boys have claimed to be dead hard - probably even more claimed to have shagged Billie Piper.
Friday, July 08, 2005
The Great Harborough Cheesecake Scandal
Here is today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. You can find more details of that estimable organ here.
Making a cake of it
This week all right-thinking people are up in arms about the Market Harborough cheesecake. But first we have to deal with something less important: the Conservative Party.
On Monday they initiated two debates, and used the first to attack us over local income tax. As Phil Woolas suggested, the title of the debate should have been “The Cheadle by-election’ as that was what the Tories really had in mind.
But they must have been disappointed with the outcome. Their main speakers – Caroline Spelman and Sir John Butterfill – were poor, and not just because Butterfill™ sounds like a synthetic cake mix. If the 2005 Tory intake is as impressive as they claim, the sooner they get some of them on the front bench the better.
Worse for them, the Tories have lost all credibility on local taxation. They fought the last election on a blend of inertia and cowardice: committed to keeping the council tax but promising to cancel the revaluation of properties. As far as you can tell, this is still their policy. And it leaves them sounding less like a potential government than ever.
The Tories’ second debate was on regulation. Norman Lamb quoted a select committee report as saying the challenges UK industry faces also include “skills and training, R&D and technology transfer, the supply of capital for investment, and narrowing the productivity gap with our competitors”
Yet this time we supported the Tories, which showed the right instinct. For a party which stands for freedom, we Lib Dems can be terribly keen on new controls. I don’t have a copy of our last manifesto to hand, but I seem to recall we came out in favour of microchipping goldfish.
Had Norman known about The Great Harborough Cheesecake Scandal he might have made an even more telling point.
Here in the lush Welland valley we have been enjoying this delicacy – a pastry case filled with curds and sultanas – since the 19th century. But no longer.
Leicestershire trading standards has told a local baker that, under the the Food Labelling Regulations of 1996, it can no longer be called a cheesecake. A fine of £5000 was mentioned.
So as we tuck into our newly christened Harborough curdcakes, we remember who was in power in 1996.
Making a cake of it
This week all right-thinking people are up in arms about the Market Harborough cheesecake. But first we have to deal with something less important: the Conservative Party.
On Monday they initiated two debates, and used the first to attack us over local income tax. As Phil Woolas suggested, the title of the debate should have been “The Cheadle by-election’ as that was what the Tories really had in mind.
But they must have been disappointed with the outcome. Their main speakers – Caroline Spelman and Sir John Butterfill – were poor, and not just because Butterfill™ sounds like a synthetic cake mix. If the 2005 Tory intake is as impressive as they claim, the sooner they get some of them on the front bench the better.
Worse for them, the Tories have lost all credibility on local taxation. They fought the last election on a blend of inertia and cowardice: committed to keeping the council tax but promising to cancel the revaluation of properties. As far as you can tell, this is still their policy. And it leaves them sounding less like a potential government than ever.
The Tories’ second debate was on regulation. Norman Lamb quoted a select committee report as saying the challenges UK industry faces also include “skills and training, R&D and technology transfer, the supply of capital for investment, and narrowing the productivity gap with our competitors”
Yet this time we supported the Tories, which showed the right instinct. For a party which stands for freedom, we Lib Dems can be terribly keen on new controls. I don’t have a copy of our last manifesto to hand, but I seem to recall we came out in favour of microchipping goldfish.
Had Norman known about The Great Harborough Cheesecake Scandal he might have made an even more telling point.
Here in the lush Welland valley we have been enjoying this delicacy – a pastry case filled with curds and sultanas – since the 19th century. But no longer.
Leicestershire trading standards has told a local baker that, under the the Food Labelling Regulations of 1996, it can no longer be called a cheesecake. A fine of £5000 was mentioned.
So as we tuck into our newly christened Harborough curdcakes, we remember who was in power in 1996.
London bombings: Why everyone is right
This is not one of those "If I had caught my usual train..." posts, but I was in Tavistock Square on Monday. I remember pointing out the blue plaque for Charles Dickens on the front of BMA House. Tonight I saw it again on the television news.
I lived in London for a couple of years in the 1980s, working for some of the time in the big department stores at the height of an IRA bombing campaign. When there was a bomb warning - and they were almost daily events - we each searched our own little part of the building and then carried on with business as usual.
This gave me some modest understanding of what London must have been like in the Second World War, and I am sure it is the spirit that the city will show after the terrorist outrages yesterday.
Whether the bombs will change British politics is hard to say. The striking thing about the reaction so far is that everyone sees them as a vindication of his own position. Those who support President Bush's War on Terrorism and those who opposed the invasion of Iraq are both more sure than ever that they are right.
But then events often have that effect on people. So we should not be too surprised when a right-wing American site suggests that "one of the operatives involved in this morning's bombings in London was recently released from the prison at Guantanamo". Even though this is surely a case of wishful thinking on its part.
And so, I suspect, is the claim by the Australian High Commissioner in London that the bombs are the work of a "group of anti-globalisation protesters or anarchists" and designed to disrupt the G8 summit. Perhaps they don't teach the geography of the motherland in Australian schools any more?
Meanwhile two contributors to Fox News sounded positively gleeful that all this nonsense about Africa and global warming has been put in its place:
Thanks also to A Logical Voice and Sideline SquawkBox for leads.
I lived in London for a couple of years in the 1980s, working for some of the time in the big department stores at the height of an IRA bombing campaign. When there was a bomb warning - and they were almost daily events - we each searched our own little part of the building and then carried on with business as usual.
This gave me some modest understanding of what London must have been like in the Second World War, and I am sure it is the spirit that the city will show after the terrorist outrages yesterday.
Whether the bombs will change British politics is hard to say. The striking thing about the reaction so far is that everyone sees them as a vindication of his own position. Those who support President Bush's War on Terrorism and those who opposed the invasion of Iraq are both more sure than ever that they are right.
But then events often have that effect on people. So we should not be too surprised when a right-wing American site suggests that "one of the operatives involved in this morning's bombings in London was recently released from the prison at Guantanamo". Even though this is surely a case of wishful thinking on its part.
And so, I suspect, is the claim by the Australian High Commissioner in London that the bombs are the work of a "group of anti-globalisation protesters or anarchists" and designed to disrupt the G8 summit. Perhaps they don't teach the geography of the motherland in Australian schools any more?
Meanwhile two contributors to Fox News sounded positively gleeful that all this nonsense about Africa and global warming has been put in its place:
I think that works to our advantage, in the Western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened.Read the full exchange on the Antagonist's blog.
Thanks also to A Logical Voice and Sideline SquawkBox for leads.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Simon Jenkins is mad as hell
Over the past three weeks Simon Jenkins has been presenting a series of talks on BBC Radio 4 under the title "Mad as Hell". You can find audio files and transcripts of them here.
He argues that government in Britain is too pervasive and, in particular, too centralised. More than that, he argues, that much of the blame for this lies with Mrs Thatcher. Far from rolling back the frontiers of the State, she pushed them forward.
As he said in the first of his three talks:
Unfortunately, the policies in this report have been largely set aside in favour of conventional calls for more spending and more public sector staff. Such policies may well be needed, but without the sort of reform Jenkins and Huhne call for, it is hard to see them having the desired effect.
Chris Huhne's report has fallen so far out of favour that there seems no longer to be a copy on the Liberal Democrats' website. But you can find a Word version on Huhne's own site here. It is well worth reading.
He argues that government in Britain is too pervasive and, in particular, too centralised. More than that, he argues, that much of the blame for this lies with Mrs Thatcher. Far from rolling back the frontiers of the State, she pushed them forward.
As he said in the first of his three talks:
To rid Britain of socialism Thatcher claimed to need more power. It was the same claim socialism had made for its creation. Thatcher came to need more Treasury control, more quangos, more regulators, less insubordination, less lower tier democracy. She might claim that she only needed the power so as later to return it to the people (those in power always say that). But she took it, and we let her.Jenkins is also very good on the way political debate is conducted in Britain today.
And:If the state refuses to wither away, their must be a cause.
One reason is vividly illustrated each morning by the BBC's Today programme, unofficial tribune of the political scrutiny. It is often accused of left-wing bias. I have never agreed with that. But then its bias is far more powerful, towards interventionism as opposed to devolution. It may anti-the government but it is fiercely pro-government. And in this it is no different from most of the media, indeed most of Britain's political community. Day after day its interviewers intone the same mantra. What are you doing, secretary of state, about the crime rate, hospital waiting list, traffic jams, trains, schools, litter, hooligans? Something must be done. Come on minister, what are you doing? Why aren't you spending more?
In response I have never heard a minister dare to say that anything is none of his business.
This analysis has much in common with the approach taken by Chris Huhne and the group which produced the Liberal Democrat report Quality, Innovation, Choice in 2002. It displayed the Lib Dem obsession with regional government, when voters' loyalty is to cities and counties, but otherwise its heart was entirely in the right place.The major premise of political debate is that more must always be spent and be done. When a dog bites a child, the Home Office must look into dog licences. When salmonella is found in an egg, all eggs are suspect. If a man falls into a pond, all ponds must be fenced.
Worse, nothing must be different anywhere. Told that cancer cures are higher in Shropshire than in Surrey the media erupts. Told that speeding fines are lower in Dorset than in Durham we need to know why. Why is literacy lower in Liverpool than Ludlow or rivers cleaner in Cornwall than Cumbria? Why is the minister doing nothing about it? The target culture duly elides into the post-code lottery. We can't bear anything to be variable. It is unfair.
Unfortunately, the policies in this report have been largely set aside in favour of conventional calls for more spending and more public sector staff. Such policies may well be needed, but without the sort of reform Jenkins and Huhne call for, it is hard to see them having the desired effect.
Chris Huhne's report has fallen so far out of favour that there seems no longer to be a copy on the Liberal Democrats' website. But you can find a Word version on Huhne's own site here. It is well worth reading.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Why London must gain the Olympics
It's not because they will make us money. I fully expect the games to be a financial disaster and to cost us zillions.
It's not because they will improve transport in London. If things are wrong they need to be put right now because people are suffering, not because they may inconvenience the Polish women's water volleyball team one day.
It's not because they will galvanise the nation's youth. If watching sport on television made you active our youngsters would be the fittest in the world, rather than out of their skulls on Sunny D and Turkey Twizzlers.
No, the reason we must win the games is that we have to put one over on the French in general and Jacques Chirac in particular.
It's not because they will improve transport in London. If things are wrong they need to be put right now because people are suffering, not because they may inconvenience the Polish women's water volleyball team one day.
It's not because they will galvanise the nation's youth. If watching sport on television made you active our youngsters would be the fittest in the world, rather than out of their skulls on Sunny D and Turkey Twizzlers.
No, the reason we must win the games is that we have to put one over on the French in general and Jacques Chirac in particular.
Is Bono the new Kathy Kirby?
Simon Hoggart's Commons sketch in the Guardian today is good on the absurdities of today's celebrity politics. Writing about the heyday of anti-nuclear protest in the early 1960s, he asks:
Can you imagine the CND folk saying: "I think we can get Billy Fury and Kathy Kirby for the Trafalgar Square gig! And maybe we can bring Vince Eager back from panto in Ipswich!"A pedant writes: Shouldn't there be a question mark in there somewhere?
Monday, July 04, 2005
The wrong kind of supermarket
In January the Guardian carried an article by Martin Wainwright about Tesco's controversial new store in Gerrards Cross. The plans, opposed by the parish council, the district council and the county council, but accepted by John Prescott, involve roofing over a railway cutting to provide extra space.
Wainwright quoted a Tesco spokeswoman, Katherine Edwards, as saying:
Wainwright quoted a Tesco spokeswoman, Katherine Edwards, as saying:
"We can see no reason why the further expansion should not go through and the store should be open by the summer."Er, how about this?
More from Liam Fox
Liam Fox's call for a reconsideration of single-sex schools got a lot of media attention over the weekend - and has caused some debate in the comments on this blog.
However, his article in the Observer on Sunday was more interesting. In particular, this quotation:
I feel another outing for one of my favourite quotations coming on. As John Gray has written:
However, his article in the Observer on Sunday was more interesting. In particular, this quotation:
The 1980s forces which generated economic revival also significantly increased social and geographical mobility. This markedly reduced the role of the extended family and the security it represented.
Britain has lost some of the building blocks of a strong and stable society. The decline in secure family life, of good order in our schools and of good behaviour on our streets is creating an environment in which many people live in a state of anxiety and too many young people are excluded from normal life.Here, at last, is a leading Conservative showing some sign of realising that there is a contradiction inherent in his party's philosophy. Modern Tories support the free market, yet that market tends to subvert the traditional values they cherish.
I feel another outing for one of my favourite quotations coming on. As John Gray has written:
The self-destruction of British conservatism by New Right ideology and policies is best interpreted as an exemplification of a central neo-liberal theme - the importance of unintended consequences in social, economic and political life.Now read on.
The best of the blogs
Tim Worstall has posted another of his selections of the best in British blogging.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Post of the Day
This prestigious award goes to the blog Freedom and Whisky for this (even though it displays rather oddly in my browser):
Walking back from photographing yesterday's march in Edinburgh I was approached by an elderly gentleman wearing a Scottish Socialist Party badge. He asked if I would like to purchase a postcard of Che. I asked him why on earth would I want to buy a photo of a mass murderer who shot small boys. I enjoyed this confrontation so much that I had to go and celebrate with a beer.
David Dimbleby: All is forgiven
Well, not all, but last week's edition of A Picture of Britain did include an early film of the composer George Butterworth dancing a jig. It was worryingly reminiscent of Monty Python's fish slapping dance, but still a little piece of history I had not seen before.
Not that Old Iron Bladder got everything right. He misquoted A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, which is a heinous sin as far as this blog is concerned.
Not that Old Iron Bladder got everything right. He misquoted A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, which is a heinous sin as far as this blog is concerned.
Is that a Taser in your pocket?
The politics.co.uk site reports:
The controversial Taser stun gun is a "dangerous weapon" which should not yet be issued to all frontline police officers, Home Office minister Hazel Blears has said.
Her comments follow a recent survey by the Police Federation, which claims that 80 per cent of its members are in favour of rolling out the use of the stun guns.
Somehow I find that "yet" less than reassuring.
And you will play Ophelia, Tompkins
Liam Fox has called for a reconsideration of the case for single-sex schools. Already two Lib Dems - Chris Ward and Peter Black - have made fun of the idea. But I wonder if they have blogged too soon.
The evidence suggests that, paradoxically, coeducational schooling tends to reinforce gender stereotypes rather than break them down.
As this campaigning American site says:
The evidence suggests that, paradoxically, coeducational schooling tends to reinforce gender stereotypes rather than break them down.
As this campaigning American site says:
Girls in all-girls schools are more likely to study subjects such as advanced math, computer science, and physics. Boys in all-boys schools are more than twice as likely to study subjects such as foreign languages, art, music, and drama. Those boys might not get better grades in those subjects than comparable boys get in more gender-typical subjects. Studies which focus only on grades and test scores won't detect any difference in outcome.So while you may not agree with Fox's idea, it is hard to see why it should be treated with such contempt. We Lib Dems should be welcoming diversity and experiment in education. Too often we act as a conduit for the voice of the professional establishment.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
The leaves of Southwell
Today I have been to Southwell in Nottinghamshire to visit the Minster, which is one of England's finest cathedrals and certainly the least well known. It stands in a spacious little town that has connections with Lord Byron.
Lord Bonkers writes: In those days many people had connections with Lord Byron.
One of the great things about the East Midlands is how little the region is known. If Southwell were in the Cotswolds it would be crawling with tourists. Here the town caters for visitors but is not swamped by them. The result is that Southwell is a dignified place without being self-important.
The stone carvings in the Chapter House are the glory of the Minster. As its website says:
He makes great claims for the leaves' importance, concluding:
Lord Bonkers writes: In those days many people had connections with Lord Byron.
One of the great things about the East Midlands is how little the region is known. If Southwell were in the Cotswolds it would be crawling with tourists. Here the town caters for visitors but is not swamped by them. The result is that Southwell is a dignified place without being self-important.
The stone carvings in the Chapter House are the glory of the Minster. As its website says:
The carvings known as "The Leaves of Southwell" are world renowned. There are images of animals - goats, hares, birds and fabulous creatures - and human heads in portrait and caricature, combining superstition and fable with religious beliefs. There are also many different types of leaf, all of which would have been found in Sherwood Forest.In 1945 Nikolaus Pevsner wrote a short book entitled The Leaves of Southwell. It was published as a King Penguin, with photographs by F. L. Attenborough, the principal of University College, Leicester, and father of Sir Dickie and Sir David.
There are also carvings of ten "Green Men" who have branches of leaves growing from their mouths or who have heads formed of leaves. The origins of the Green Men are obscure. They are found in mythology long before Christianity came to Britain and are linked to rites of fertility, Spring and new birth. If the Green Men represented new birth and new life then they could, perhaps, also represent the resurrection in the Christian context.
He makes great claims for the leaves' importance, concluding:
Could these leaves of the English countryside, with all their freshness, move us so deeply if they were not carved in that spirit which filled the saints and poets and thinkers of the thirteenth century, the spirit of religious respect for the loveliness of created nature? The inexhaustible delight in live form that can be touched with worshipping fingers and felt with all senses is ennobled ... by the conviction that so much beauty can exist only because God is an every man and beast, in every herb and stone. The Renaissance in the South two hundred years later was perhaps once again capable of such worship of beauty, but no firm faith was left to strengthen it.I have come to the conclusion that, much as I love church music and church architecture, they do not mean that Christianity is true. But I am nearer to believing at Southwell than anywhere else.
Seen in this light, the leaves of Southwell assume a significance as one of the purest symbols surviving in Britain of Western thought, our thought, in its loftiest mood.
Friday, July 01, 2005
The long road rightwards
Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News. While I was writing it Hoey became one of the 20 Labour MPs to vote against the government's identity card bill. So I need not be embarrassed by my liking for her.
A load of Hoey
Kate Hoey used to be that rare thing, a Trotskyite PE teacher. (“Touch all four walls and expound the principles of Permanent Revolution. Go!”)
Then, like many ultra-leftists, she realised things would go more smoothly if she recanted her early beliefs. So much so that in 1989 Labour HQ imposed her on Vauxhall as a moderate candidate.
Hoey later enjoyed a short spell as sports minister, and today is installed as a maverick backbencher. Calling someone a “maverick” at Westminster is often a polite way of saying they are self-indulgent and unreliable – it would be invidious to mention Clare Short in this context – but it is hard not to admire the sheer unfashionability of Hoey’s enthusiasms.
On Ireland she is a passionate Unionist. She supported Lembit Öpik’s Middle Way on hunting. And, valuably, she defended shooting as a sport in the face of the ban on handguns.
Another of her concerns is Zimbabwe, which she has twice visited incognito. On Monday she raised it in a question after Charles Clarke’s statement and later on in an adjournment debate she initiated.
Clarke repeated Tony Blair’s incredible line from his morning press conference. There have been “no substantiated reports of mistreatment” of anyone returned to Zimbabwe. Reading between the lines, the government message seemed to be that we should not worry too much about these people. The important thing is that Britain does not appear a soft touch to migrants.
It was in the adjournment debate that Hoey had her say. She reported Morgan Tsvangirai description of Mugabe’s policies as “Pol Pot in slow motion”.
She said people are “dying in order to get the message out of Zimbabwe, and to try to raise any international outrage”. And perhaps it easier for someone who is still, just about, of the left to accuse Western leaders as “choking on … a misplaced post-colonial guilt”.
Not every young socialist who takes the long road rightwards arrives in the same place as Hoey. Chris Mullin, once the sea-green incorruptible of the Bennites, found himself reduced to helping Clarke by suggesting “many Zimbabweans who came here as economic refugees turned into political refugees retrospectively”.
No young backbencher desperate for his first job as a bag-carrier could have been more crass or anxious to please.
A load of Hoey
Kate Hoey used to be that rare thing, a Trotskyite PE teacher. (“Touch all four walls and expound the principles of Permanent Revolution. Go!”)
Then, like many ultra-leftists, she realised things would go more smoothly if she recanted her early beliefs. So much so that in 1989 Labour HQ imposed her on Vauxhall as a moderate candidate.
Hoey later enjoyed a short spell as sports minister, and today is installed as a maverick backbencher. Calling someone a “maverick” at Westminster is often a polite way of saying they are self-indulgent and unreliable – it would be invidious to mention Clare Short in this context – but it is hard not to admire the sheer unfashionability of Hoey’s enthusiasms.
On Ireland she is a passionate Unionist. She supported Lembit Öpik’s Middle Way on hunting. And, valuably, she defended shooting as a sport in the face of the ban on handguns.
Another of her concerns is Zimbabwe, which she has twice visited incognito. On Monday she raised it in a question after Charles Clarke’s statement and later on in an adjournment debate she initiated.
Clarke repeated Tony Blair’s incredible line from his morning press conference. There have been “no substantiated reports of mistreatment” of anyone returned to Zimbabwe. Reading between the lines, the government message seemed to be that we should not worry too much about these people. The important thing is that Britain does not appear a soft touch to migrants.
It was in the adjournment debate that Hoey had her say. She reported Morgan Tsvangirai description of Mugabe’s policies as “Pol Pot in slow motion”.
She said people are “dying in order to get the message out of Zimbabwe, and to try to raise any international outrage”. And perhaps it easier for someone who is still, just about, of the left to accuse Western leaders as “choking on … a misplaced post-colonial guilt”.
Not every young socialist who takes the long road rightwards arrives in the same place as Hoey. Chris Mullin, once the sea-green incorruptible of the Bennites, found himself reduced to helping Clarke by suggesting “many Zimbabweans who came here as economic refugees turned into political refugees retrospectively”.
No young backbencher desperate for his first job as a bag-carrier could have been more crass or anxious to please.
Bring your llama to the drama
If you live in Shropshire, own a llama and would like it to follow a career in show business then this story from the Shropshire Star is for you.
If you don't, then it may be of less interest.
If you don't, then it may be of less interest.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Henry Root meets Karl Popper
I do love the internet. A bit of searching reveals a 1985 article by Rafe Champion that uses the wisdom of Henry Root as a starting point for an examination of Karl Popper's philosophy.
Let me explain. After the success of his letters, Root was moved to publish Henry Root's World of Knowledge. Rafe Champion points out that many academic philosophers share his misunderstanding of Popper's philosophy.
Root wrote:
True scientific theories can be refuted by observation, whereas pseudo-scientific theories - Popper saw Marxism and Freudianism as the worst offenders - are compatible with any state of affairs and therefore explain nothing.
For more on Popper see this website or the excellent short book by Bryan Magee.
Let me explain. After the success of his letters, Root was moved to publish Henry Root's World of Knowledge. Rafe Champion points out that many academic philosophers share his misunderstanding of Popper's philosophy.
Root wrote:
POPPER, Sir Karl (b 1902); Member of the Vienna Circle. "That which is unfalsifiable is meaningless." Did he solve the problem of induction? The argument still rages. See Swans.As Champion says, Popper never saw falsifiability as a criterion of meaning. It was a way of differentiating what was science from what was not.
True scientific theories can be refuted by observation, whereas pseudo-scientific theories - Popper saw Marxism and Freudianism as the worst offenders - are compatible with any state of affairs and therefore explain nothing.
For more on Popper see this website or the excellent short book by Bryan Magee.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Around the Lib Dem blogs
A few highlights from the past couple of days...
John Hemming points out that Labour's identity card bill appears to make it an offence to shave off your beard without informing the government. The maximum penalty is a fine of £1,000.
As John says:
Yesterday Peter Black declared a Be Nice to Lembit Öpik Day. I am sorry to have missed it, but perhaps we could celebrate it on 28 June every year.
Peter quotes with approval an article of Lembit's from the Western Mail. In it, the MP for Montgomery talks about the difficulties that someone with an unusual name might face if it were incorrectly entered on the national identity database.
He is right, of course. However, I would say that every time I have mentioned Lembit in print I have been careful to add those little dots over the Ö in his surname - which is more than the Western Mail's website is able to do.
Yet when my name was added to the list of those supporting Lembit when he stood for President of the Lib Dems, Jonathan was misspelt.
Finally, welcome back to Simon Titley, who writes about smoking bans on Liberal Dissenter. I share his unease about them, but what really fascinates me is what they reveal about the Liberal Democrat caste of mind.
If we Lib Dems are asked what we believe in - and what differentiates us from Labour in particular - we say that we stand for individual liberty. Yet whenever an issue like this emerges, the vast majority of Lib Dems seem unhesitatingly to take the side of those who want to ban from people doing things of which they disapprove.
I suppose the conclusion is that the Lib Dems do not believe in freedom as much as they like to think. This is a shame and has worrying implications for the coherence of the party's policies and philosophy.
John Hemming points out that Labour's identity card bill appears to make it an offence to shave off your beard without informing the government. The maximum penalty is a fine of £1,000.
As John says:
it is very clear that the legislation has been written for the convenience of the government and not the private individuals. Furthermore it will not be criminals who will first register for these cards hence it will be an expensive and unnecessary burden on private individuals whilst not making any difference to those breaking the law.And if the government has no intention of enforcing this provision, why is it including it in the legislation?
Yesterday Peter Black declared a Be Nice to Lembit Öpik Day. I am sorry to have missed it, but perhaps we could celebrate it on 28 June every year.
Peter quotes with approval an article of Lembit's from the Western Mail. In it, the MP for Montgomery talks about the difficulties that someone with an unusual name might face if it were incorrectly entered on the national identity database.
He is right, of course. However, I would say that every time I have mentioned Lembit in print I have been careful to add those little dots over the Ö in his surname - which is more than the Western Mail's website is able to do.
Yet when my name was added to the list of those supporting Lembit when he stood for President of the Lib Dems, Jonathan was misspelt.
Finally, welcome back to Simon Titley, who writes about smoking bans on Liberal Dissenter. I share his unease about them, but what really fascinates me is what they reveal about the Liberal Democrat caste of mind.
If we Lib Dems are asked what we believe in - and what differentiates us from Labour in particular - we say that we stand for individual liberty. Yet whenever an issue like this emerges, the vast majority of Lib Dems seem unhesitatingly to take the side of those who want to ban from people doing things of which they disapprove.
I suppose the conclusion is that the Lib Dems do not believe in freedom as much as they like to think. This is a shame and has worrying implications for the coherence of the party's policies and philosophy.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
"The Ladykillers" locations
A couple of people have linked to my recent post on the St Pancras area and commented in particular on the connection with the Ealing Comedy The Ladykillers.
I have now found a website full of photographs of those locations then and now - or at least then and before the works for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link started.
I have now found a website full of photographs of those locations then and now - or at least then and before the works for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link started.
Disgusted of Market Harborough
They've gone too far this time:
Read more in the excellent Harborough Mail while I take to the barricades. I wonder if they have this trouble with Bombay duck?Killjoy officials have said a town bakery can no longer use the famous title Harborough Cheesecake.
The delicacy has been made in the town since the 19th century but now Leicestershire Trading Standards has said the name is misleading and cannot be used.
Jim Knights (55), manager of Wesses Bakery in The Square, received a letter saying the title broke Food Labelling Regulations. The maximum fine for a breach is £5,000.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Introducing Professor Strange
In my role as columnist of last resort for Clinical Psychology Forum, I have now written three pieces in the guise of the elderly academic Professor Strange.
I have just added the third of them to Lord Bonkers' website, and they now have a page each. The columns are:
The secret that never was (October 2003)
Victorians, modesty and tablelegs (February 2004)
Trainspotting, autism and what it means to be normal (July 2005)
I have just added the third of them to Lord Bonkers' website, and they now have a page each. The columns are:
The secret that never was (October 2003)
Victorians, modesty and tablelegs (February 2004)
Trainspotting, autism and what it means to be normal (July 2005)
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Henry Root RIP
William Donaldson, the creator of Henry Root Letters, died last week.
For those too young to remember, the Guardian obituary by Christopher Hawtree describes them well:
And no writer could wish for a better epitaph than this, which comes from a note added to the obituary by Richard Milbank of his publishers Weidenfeld & Nicolson:
For those too young to remember, the Guardian obituary by Christopher Hawtree describes them well:
The Henry Root Letters (1980) was a collection of correspondence between the supposedly retired wet-fish merchant, Root, whose clever if unhinged jottings to the great and the good, often enclosing small sums of money, elicited some wonderfully revealing responses. They were, of course, penned by Donaldson.From the obituary it is clear that there was a great deal more to Donaldson than Henry Root. He was joint producer of Beyond the Fringe, making much more out of it than the four performers, and enjoyed romances with the actress Sarah Miles and the singer Carly Simon.
And no writer could wish for a better epitaph than this, which comes from a note added to the obituary by Richard Milbank of his publishers Weidenfeld & Nicolson:
Willie's conduct as a writer, while always playful, somewhat belied his image of a chaotic and irregular life. He was respectful of deadlines, receptive to editorial suggestion and meticulously correct in matters of style and presentation.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
North of St Pancras
The area to the north of King's Cross and St Pancras stations is being changed out of all recognition. The developers' website declares that "King's Cross presents one of the most exciting and significant development and regeneration opportunities within London, the UK and Europe."
So it is no wonder that this profile of a nightclub owner says he has:
One of those buildings is the German Gymnasium, which I have long known about but not consciously seen until last Wednesday. I had always imagined this 19th century institution as the haunt of Victorian men with striped combinations and waxed moustaches who lifted rounded dumbbells with ease. Perhaps weedy youths were sent there to toughen them up. ("A spell at the German Gymnasium would do that boy good.")
It turns out that the Gymnasium is next to the new station at St Pancras which Midland Mainline trains are using at the moment. It has been cleaned and restored (though I believe the original entrance has been demolished) and now houses the developers' exhibition. For a photograph of the place in a state of romantic decay click here, and for a more sober account of its history see the bottom of this page.
The history of the area goes back long before the 19th century. Iain Sinclair's visionary book Lights Out for the Territory leads on to an even more visionary work: the poem Vale Royal by Aidan Dun. (It was published, in Rutland naturally, in 1995.)
Dun mines this history to offer:
So it is no wonder that this profile of a nightclub owner says he has:
wasted no time in renting out the offices to the type of professionals who will change the landscape from the tapestry of hauliers, scaffolders and car mechanics redolent of a bygone era, when cheap rents were to be had in the Goods Yard and neighbouring arches.Yet that landscape, which can be seen in the Ealing film The Ladykillers, contains - or contained - an extraordinary range of historic buildings. There is a list of what has been lost, saved or moved by the developers here.
One of those buildings is the German Gymnasium, which I have long known about but not consciously seen until last Wednesday. I had always imagined this 19th century institution as the haunt of Victorian men with striped combinations and waxed moustaches who lifted rounded dumbbells with ease. Perhaps weedy youths were sent there to toughen them up. ("A spell at the German Gymnasium would do that boy good.")
It turns out that the Gymnasium is next to the new station at St Pancras which Midland Mainline trains are using at the moment. It has been cleaned and restored (though I believe the original entrance has been demolished) and now houses the developers' exhibition. For a photograph of the place in a state of romantic decay click here, and for a more sober account of its history see the bottom of this page.
The history of the area goes back long before the 19th century. Iain Sinclair's visionary book Lights Out for the Territory leads on to an even more visionary work: the poem Vale Royal by Aidan Dun. (It was published, in Rutland naturally, in 1995.)
Dun mines this history to offer:
A song to explain the Golden QuatrainThose without an interest in mystical geography or off-piste industrial archaeology can still find much to enjoy in the area. Not drugs and prostitution, but Old St Pancras Church, Camley Street Natural Park and the London Canal Museum.
and the mystical geography of Kings Cross,
a song for all navigators of the night-sea crossing...
Commons debate on electoral integrity
I suggested the other day that I might post something on last Wednesday's debate, so here are some highlights. The links below will take you to the relevant column in Hansard, but I shall reproduce the most relevant extracts here too. The whole debate is worth reading - it begins here - in a way that the great occasions in the Commons seldom are.
First an intervention from Eric Pickles and reply by Oliver Heald that, taken together, are both amusing and informative:
Next comes Roger Godsiff on the realities of polling day in an inner-city constituency:
Finally, a diatribe against the list system from Peter Bottomley:
The Conservatives today are torn between their hatred of PR and their outrage that they polled more votes than Labour in England but won many fewer seats - as a result, as Bridget Prentice pointed out, Oliver Heald's speech contained ringing denunciations of both PR and First Past the Post.
In the debate Tory MPs attempted to square this circle by blaming the unfair drawing of parliamentary constituencies for this odd result, but they did not convince. I do believe, however, that their sense of grievance may encourage them to explore English Nationalism. This idea which may well attract wider political interest in the near future as devolution to Scotland and Wales has given rise to all sorts of anomalies over the funding of services and the power of MPs, and there appears to be little enthusiasm for devolution to the English regions, which some present as a way of resolving these.
For the Liberal Democrats, David Heath made a good speech and is an impressive Commons performer these days. He is helped to sound authoritative on Home Office matters because he resembles the best sort of village policeman. It was also notable that John Hemming had not allowed is current travails to prevent him being in the House for this debate on one of his pet issues.
We cannot end without a reference to our old friend Siôn Simon. He still needs a haircut and he still compulsively strokes his chin. ("If you don't leave that alone," said Nanny, "it will drop off one of these days".) It was not possible to judge whether he still has that silly way of speaking as, though he jumped up and down throughout the more substantial speeches, no one would give way to him.
He did make one contribution, and I reproduce it in full here:
First an intervention from Eric Pickles and reply by Oliver Heald that, taken together, are both amusing and informative:
Mr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con): Does my hon. Friend accept that false entries on the electoral register are not made simply to influence membership here or on councils or to entertain tabloid journalists but that registration is a prerequisite of establishing a credit rating? The problem is on a much wider scale than electoral fraud.
Mr. Heald: That is true. Examples of individuals who were not entitled to vote came up during the election campaign, but they had tried to register not in order to vote but to apply for credit. I do not mind if they want a platinum card, but I mind that the risk exists.
Recently, The People - that great organ - conducted an analysis of the electoral roll. It uncovered names such as Donald Duck and Jesus H. Christ. Perhaps they are genuine, but I suspect that the entries at a student address in Southampton, including Hooty McBoob and Gailord Focker, while not evidence of sinister malpractice, are not. One does suspect, however, that these people do not exist.According to Heald the name Gus Troobev (an anagram of "bogus voter") also appears a worrying number of times around the country.
Next comes Roger Godsiff on the realities of polling day in an inner-city constituency:
What happens on election day in a constituency such as mine is not how elections used to be fought. Traditionally, at the polling station there would be a representative of each of the parties, the number taker, and there would be a great deal of conviviality and sharing of information.
That does not exist in areas such as mine. On election day groups of people congregate at the entrance to polling stations. They hand out leaflets and talk to people, particularly in areas where English is not the first language and where the number on the ballot paper is even more important than the name. They give out a great deal of misinformation.
During the day the numbers at each polling station build up so that by early evening, as happened in my constituency at the recent election, there are 50 or 60 people at the gates.
The police are there and struggle to prevent violence breaking out. In the background there is the cacophony of cars parked outside the polling station with recorded messages from the candidates on a repetitive reel, so that goes on throughout the day,
All the traditional conventions that most of us may remember, whereby a loudspeaker was not allowed anywhere near a polling station and there was no campaigning on polling day, have gone by the board. Somebody who wants to vote from the early evening onwards has to go through a cacophony of sound, intimidation, harassment and misinformation, and that is only to get into the polling station.
It is no good turning round and saying, "Well, the police have powers to deal with that." As we have learned in the west midlands, the police do not have such powers. New legislation is needed to prevent campaigning within a certain area around a polling station, because the police do not have a hope at the moment.I have a seen a little of this in Leicester elections, and the problem Godsiff identifies is a serious one. I have acquired from somewhere the idea that the returning officer has almost unlimited powers over "the precincts of the polling station" - and the power to define where those precincts begin - but it seems that this is not, or is no longer, the case.
Finally, a diatribe against the list system from Peter Bottomley:
If we want to start talking about electoral systems, let us have a proper debate on getting rid of the worst scandal in our system at the moment - the closed list system for the European Assembly elections. If the electorate cannot pick out someone they particularly want and get them elected or pick out someone they particularly do not want and get them disappointed, we shall have a system that is not democracy.Bottomley is right, and the blame for the list system lies with Jack Straw. Obliged to introduce some form of Proportional Representation (PR) for the European elections, he chose the worst possible form in an attempt to discredit the whole concept and make it less likely that it will be used more widely.
The Conservatives today are torn between their hatred of PR and their outrage that they polled more votes than Labour in England but won many fewer seats - as a result, as Bridget Prentice pointed out, Oliver Heald's speech contained ringing denunciations of both PR and First Past the Post.
In the debate Tory MPs attempted to square this circle by blaming the unfair drawing of parliamentary constituencies for this odd result, but they did not convince. I do believe, however, that their sense of grievance may encourage them to explore English Nationalism. This idea which may well attract wider political interest in the near future as devolution to Scotland and Wales has given rise to all sorts of anomalies over the funding of services and the power of MPs, and there appears to be little enthusiasm for devolution to the English regions, which some present as a way of resolving these.
For the Liberal Democrats, David Heath made a good speech and is an impressive Commons performer these days. He is helped to sound authoritative on Home Office matters because he resembles the best sort of village policeman. It was also notable that John Hemming had not allowed is current travails to prevent him being in the House for this debate on one of his pet issues.
We cannot end without a reference to our old friend Siôn Simon. He still needs a haircut and he still compulsively strokes his chin. ("If you don't leave that alone," said Nanny, "it will drop off one of these days".) It was not possible to judge whether he still has that silly way of speaking as, though he jumped up and down throughout the more substantial speeches, no one would give way to him.
He did make one contribution, and I reproduce it in full here:
Mr. Simon: My city of Birmingham has been repeatedly traduced by Opposition Members borrowing cheap soundbites from a headline-hungry judge-
Hon. Members: Withdraw!
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that temperance and moderation in parliamentary language are important.
Peter Bottomley: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is there any way in which the remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon) can be struck from the record? They are in themselves publicity seeking.
Madam Deputy Speaker: I remind the hon. Gentleman that all Members take responsibility for anything that they say in the House.
Mr. Heald: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is not it out of order to make an insulting remark about a judge?
Several hon. Members rose-
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I shall respond to the hon. Gentleman's point of order. Criticism of a judge during a debate is out of order; it would have to be done by means of a substantive motion.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Doris Snood from Pontefract
Today's House Points from Liberal Democrat News. I have used the Duke of Wellington quotation before and, though I do try hard to believe in government action, will no doubt use it again.
Keep it simple
The good news: if this government does bring in national identity cards it will do it so inefficiently that no one will be able to keep tabs on you. The bad news: you may well be sent a card saying you are Doris Snood from Pontefract and spend the rest of your life trying to prove you are not.
If you don’t believe me, look at Monday’s work and pensions questions.
Adam Afriyie said he was alarmed. He had been to an Age Concern lunch in his constituency and found that none of the people he spoke to were claiming their full pension credit.
He was right to be alarmed, but he should not have been surprised. David Amess reported that 1.5 million people who should take up the benefit don’t do so.
Then Tony Baldry said more than £1 billion of council tax benefit goes unclaimed. And Lindsay Hoyle said that though extra money is available to carers, many do not claim their entitlement.
But maybe the people who don’t claim benefit are the lucky ones. Danny Alexander raised the sufferings of nearly two million families who have been overpaid through the tax credit system and are now having the money clawed back.
This is a huge scandal, as reports later in the week from the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Citizens Advice Bureaux emphasised. HM Revenue & Customs has admitted that of £13.5bn paid in tax credits last year, £1.9bn consisted of overpayments.
Finally, a minister revealed a talent for understatement – “the problems with the Child Support Agency are well known to all of us in the chamber” – in reminding the House of an even worse problem.
We Liberal Democrats are not going to abandon our belief in government action, but the scale of the problems raised on Monday showed the mess results when grandiose schemes go wrong.
So we need to get away from Gordon Brown’s model of government – we should not aspire to be hunched over the ledgers in the small hours, trying to manage every aspect of national life. Instead, simplicity and modesty should be our goals.
And, just occasionally, we should remember the crustiest Tory of them all, the Duke of Wellington: “Reform, sir? Reform? Aren’t things bad enough already?”
Keep it simple
The good news: if this government does bring in national identity cards it will do it so inefficiently that no one will be able to keep tabs on you. The bad news: you may well be sent a card saying you are Doris Snood from Pontefract and spend the rest of your life trying to prove you are not.
If you don’t believe me, look at Monday’s work and pensions questions.
Adam Afriyie said he was alarmed. He had been to an Age Concern lunch in his constituency and found that none of the people he spoke to were claiming their full pension credit.
He was right to be alarmed, but he should not have been surprised. David Amess reported that 1.5 million people who should take up the benefit don’t do so.
Then Tony Baldry said more than £1 billion of council tax benefit goes unclaimed. And Lindsay Hoyle said that though extra money is available to carers, many do not claim their entitlement.
But maybe the people who don’t claim benefit are the lucky ones. Danny Alexander raised the sufferings of nearly two million families who have been overpaid through the tax credit system and are now having the money clawed back.
This is a huge scandal, as reports later in the week from the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Citizens Advice Bureaux emphasised. HM Revenue & Customs has admitted that of £13.5bn paid in tax credits last year, £1.9bn consisted of overpayments.
Finally, a minister revealed a talent for understatement – “the problems with the Child Support Agency are well known to all of us in the chamber” – in reminding the House of an even worse problem.
We Liberal Democrats are not going to abandon our belief in government action, but the scale of the problems raised on Monday showed the mess results when grandiose schemes go wrong.
So we need to get away from Gordon Brown’s model of government – we should not aspire to be hunched over the ledgers in the small hours, trying to manage every aspect of national life. Instead, simplicity and modesty should be our goals.
And, just occasionally, we should remember the crustiest Tory of them all, the Duke of Wellington: “Reform, sir? Reform? Aren’t things bad enough already?”
Thursday, June 23, 2005
It's called irony, Tompkins
The other day I noted the ironies implicit in our current disapproval of youngsters who wear caps. Now an English schoolboy has got into trouble for wearing shorts.
O tempora, o mores.
O tempora, o mores.
Last Tsar found alive
I can exclusively reveal that Nicholas II, Tsar of all the Russias, was not murdered at Ekaterinburg in 1918.
His moustache and beard, as you would expect, now have a lot of grey in them, and he wears a lawyer's wig in an attempt at disguise. But it was definitely him sitting at the Clerk's Table in the Commons yesterday.
He is not the first famous person I have seen resurface in unlikely circumstances. Hitler ran a second-hand bookshop in Bedford during the 1980s while General Franco worked on Leicester railway station for many years.
His moustache and beard, as you would expect, now have a lot of grey in them, and he wears a lawyer's wig in an attempt at disguise. But it was definitely him sitting at the Clerk's Table in the Commons yesterday.
He is not the first famous person I have seen resurface in unlikely circumstances. Hitler ran a second-hand bookshop in Bedford during the 1980s while General Franco worked on Leicester railway station for many years.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
What goes on inside Harriet Harman's head?
I was in Westminster today and looked in at the Commons Press Gallery. There was an Opposition debate on "Electoral integrity and democratic accountability", and it was of a surprisingly high quality. I may write about it when I have the Hansard transcript in front of me.
There is one thing that probably won't appear in Hansard, though. It was something of a surprise to see Harriet Harman on the Government front bench. In fact it was something of a surprise to learn she was still alive, so dark is the eclipse of her career these days. She was once rated extraordinarily highly by the Guardian-reading classes.
Anyway, Harman is a good-natured woman and happy to engage in chat and banter across the floor of the House. When Clive Betts suggested that one way to ensure the electoral register is accurate would be to link it with the national identity database there were groans from the other side. At which she brightly suggested: "That's the best argument in favour of a national identity card."
In case you have forgotten, Harman was legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties (the organisation now called Liberty) between 1978 and 1982.
I often wonder how people who change their beliefs so fundamentally justify it to themselves. What goes on inside their heads? Don't we all try to construct a narrative that makes are decisions principled and consistent?
Maybe Harman now regards her NCCL years as a bit of youthful nonsense. Or maybe she tells herself that the she hasn't changed but the world around her has. I have never heard her - or Patricia Hewitt, for that matter - offer an explanation of their conversion to authoritarian government.
We condemn someone like Eric Hobsbawm for not giving up his Communism after the Soviet tanks went into Hungary in 1956. Yet this refusal to change your views when developments show you are wrong seems more understandable, more human, than changing them fundamentally and then pretending that nothing has happened.
There is one thing that probably won't appear in Hansard, though. It was something of a surprise to see Harriet Harman on the Government front bench. In fact it was something of a surprise to learn she was still alive, so dark is the eclipse of her career these days. She was once rated extraordinarily highly by the Guardian-reading classes.
Anyway, Harman is a good-natured woman and happy to engage in chat and banter across the floor of the House. When Clive Betts suggested that one way to ensure the electoral register is accurate would be to link it with the national identity database there were groans from the other side. At which she brightly suggested: "That's the best argument in favour of a national identity card."
In case you have forgotten, Harman was legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties (the organisation now called Liberty) between 1978 and 1982.
I often wonder how people who change their beliefs so fundamentally justify it to themselves. What goes on inside their heads? Don't we all try to construct a narrative that makes are decisions principled and consistent?
Maybe Harman now regards her NCCL years as a bit of youthful nonsense. Or maybe she tells herself that the she hasn't changed but the world around her has. I have never heard her - or Patricia Hewitt, for that matter - offer an explanation of their conversion to authoritarian government.
We condemn someone like Eric Hobsbawm for not giving up his Communism after the Soviet tanks went into Hungary in 1956. Yet this refusal to change your views when developments show you are wrong seems more understandable, more human, than changing them fundamentally and then pretending that nothing has happened.
The Beast of Bridgnorth
A Shropshire family enjoying the summer sunshine were stopped in their tracks when they saw a huge black cat prowling in the field behind their house.It's in the Shropshire Star, so it must be true. More here.
The bitter taste of the CAP
It is worth looking at a couple of pieces in this morning's Independent before they disappear behind its firewall for ever.
The front page story by Maxine Frith and a comment piece by Penny Fowler from Oxfam both look at the EU sugar subsidy regime. Because this is the Independent, the comment piece is a lot less polemical than the front page.
From Maxine Frith's report:
Meanwhile, what is the EU doing for world poverty? The Expatica website reports:
Fair-minded of Maputo writes: Isn't that a rather jejune juxtaposition? The European Commission is publishing proposals to reform EU sugar subsidy regime today, you know, after a World Trade Organisation ruling earlier this year that it is illegal.
True, but the Independent quotes Oxfam as saying that the proposals:
The front page story by Maxine Frith and a comment piece by Penny Fowler from Oxfam both look at the EU sugar subsidy regime. Because this is the Independent, the comment piece is a lot less polemical than the front page.
From Maxine Frith's report:
This is great fun, but the policy would be just as wrong if John Fellowes were not the fourth Lord anything. I do hope the Indy recognises that.John Fellowes, the fourth Lord de Ramsey, receives more than £500,000 a year in CAP subsidies for various crops grown on his three farms in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire.
In addition, a minimum pricing system run by the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] guarantees that sugar made from his beet is bought for at least three times more than world prices.
Thousands of miles away, Inacio Albano, 25, cuts sugar cane until his hands bleed at a mill in Marremeo, north-east Mozambique but is just thankful to have a job in a country where more than two-thirds of the population live on less than £1 a day.
Meanwhile, what is the EU doing for world poverty? The Expatica website reports:
I am sure that was a great help.As part of the global call to combat poverty, the European Commission's headquarters in Brussels - the Berlaymont building - was "wrapped" in a white band for Africa on Thursday ...
The effect of a large white band around the EC building was created by closing the shutters on the windows of floors five and six from 10.30 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Fair-minded of Maputo writes: Isn't that a rather jejune juxtaposition? The European Commission is publishing proposals to reform EU sugar subsidy regime today, you know, after a World Trade Organisation ruling earlier this year that it is illegal.
True, but the Independent quotes Oxfam as saying that the proposals:
will not go far enough and will continue to benefit some of the richest farmers in the world at the expense of the poorest. Critics of the system, including the National Farmers' Union, say the system of inflated price guarantees, generous export refunds and high import tariffs surrounding sugar production is the most graphic example of how the ... CAP distorts trade and makes it impossible for African farmers to compete on the international stage.I remember years ago hearing John Pardoe on Desert Island Discs saying that good Cornish radicals used to refuse to take tea in their sugar as a protest against the slave trade. Perhaps we should follow their example?
Monday, June 20, 2005
Spooky goings on in Wem
Sunday, June 19, 2005
If...
I have posted a short review of the BFI Classics volume on this film to Lord Bonkers' site. It originally appeared in Liberator magazine.
Fans of If... may also be interested in my House Points column from 12 April 2002 (you will need to scroll down to find it):
Fans of If... may also be interested in my House Points column from 12 April 2002 (you will need to scroll down to find it):
The headmaster character continues to fascinate. Some of his lines are strangely familiar. Take: "Britain is a powerhouse of ideas, experiment, imagination. On everything from pop music to pig breeding, from atom power stations to mini skirts. That is the challenge we have got to meet." Or: "Changes are happening so fast that even as I speak these words are out of date."
That's right. New Labour and the Third Way were born here.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
More on Scarthin Books
A couple of reviews from this page of the Guardian site give the flavour of the place:
Scarthin Books, The Promenade, Scarthin, Cromford, Derbyshire DE4 3QF; Tel: 01629 823272.
Scarthin Books, in the old Arkwright village of Cromford, is for retrieving those rainy afternoons when visiting the Peak District. Advertising itself "for the majority of minorities", there is on first acquaintance no apparent order - yet the brilliant staff can pinpoint the book you are after. Stuffed with old and new books, I used to worry that the weight of the books stacked floor to ceiling would crash through to the floor below until I realised that the books below, stacked from ceiling to floor, would never let this happen. The tea is served in pots, the coffee is freshly ground and homemade homity pie can stretch the quick morning visit till late afternoon. Last week I watched a dog enter, unsuccessfully search the shop for its owner, and leave. It seemed quite natural and proper. While I know these things would never happen in Waterstone's, this is the perfect chaos of Scarthin books.
Charles Monkhouse
Only choice for me. Tucked between stone houses and an old chapel, it's more like a home than a shop (it doubled as the owner's home for years). It houses the most wonderfully and quirkily eclectic books - new and second-hand - anyone could want, it's the local forum for alternative thought, and the cafe serves brilliant organic meals, coffee and cakes. And the staff are great! I can never return from a day in the Peak District without calling in at Scarthin to recharge the batteries.
Andrew Cooper
A day out in Derbyshire
I did a little research in Derby this morning and then went to Cromford for the afternoon.
The village is well worth a visit: Arkwright's Mill, the Cromford Canal and the excellent Scarthin Books complete with teashop. All highly recommended.
The village is well worth a visit: Arkwright's Mill, the Cromford Canal and the excellent Scarthin Books complete with teashop. All highly recommended.
I won't say my mother-in-law's fat
The Equalities Board of Newcastle City Council, says the Guardian, has recommended that the authority bans from its venues "acts contrary to the council's visions, values and social inclusion agenda, and which conflict with its community leadership role".
Typical Labour PC nonsense you say with a shrug and turn over the page. Except that Newcastle upon Tyne is not a Labour council. It was won by the Liberal Democrats last May. You may remember Charles Kennedy hurrying there to be filmed congratulating the new council leader.
The recommendation arises from a call by Unison for Roy "Chubby" Brown to be banned from playing the City Hall. The Guardian says he has been appearing their for 20 years.
What I find objectionable here is the idea that every performance that takes place on council premises must be in accord with the authority's visions, values, social inclusion agenda and community leadership role. That sounds like the sort of policy that obtained in Eastern Europe before the Berlin Wall came down.
It is even suggested by the Guardian that the council may require comedians to sign contracts agreeing not to tell jokes that might offend minorities.
The paper quotes a Conservative MEP criticising the proposal. And he is right.
Some of the brighter young Tories have worked out that Blair's illiberalism is an area of vulnerability that opposition parties can exploit. We should not leave the field clear for a Conservative revival by apeing Labour's most authoritarian tendencies where we get into power.
Typical Labour PC nonsense you say with a shrug and turn over the page. Except that Newcastle upon Tyne is not a Labour council. It was won by the Liberal Democrats last May. You may remember Charles Kennedy hurrying there to be filmed congratulating the new council leader.
The recommendation arises from a call by Unison for Roy "Chubby" Brown to be banned from playing the City Hall. The Guardian says he has been appearing their for 20 years.
What I find objectionable here is the idea that every performance that takes place on council premises must be in accord with the authority's visions, values, social inclusion agenda and community leadership role. That sounds like the sort of policy that obtained in Eastern Europe before the Berlin Wall came down.
It is even suggested by the Guardian that the council may require comedians to sign contracts agreeing not to tell jokes that might offend minorities.
The paper quotes a Conservative MEP criticising the proposal. And he is right.
Some of the brighter young Tories have worked out that Blair's illiberalism is an area of vulnerability that opposition parties can exploit. We should not leave the field clear for a Conservative revival by apeing Labour's most authoritarian tendencies where we get into power.
Nothing to see here, sir
The Guardian reports:
I don't blame the police: I blame the BBC and its overexcited report on Radio 4's Today programme. I think it was the idea that this was a "leaked" report that affected their judgement.
Allegations that African boys were being trafficked into Britain for slaughter during macabre church services were largely discredited by Scotland Yard last night.I told you it was nonsense.
I don't blame the police: I blame the BBC and its overexcited report on Radio 4's Today programme. I think it was the idea that this was a "leaked" report that affected their judgement.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)