The monstrous silence of Nick Clegg

Britain in 2013.

The police detain a journalist's partner under anti-terrorism legislation in what look likes an attempt at intimidation. The police supervise the destruction of computers on the premises of a national newspaper.

And what does Nick Clegg have to say about it?

Nothing.

The longer his silence continues, the harder it becomes not to share the conclusion of Liberator's blog: Nick is abandoning the party's traditional concern for civil liberties in order to make it easier for him to continue his coalition with the Conservatives after the election.

But, I hear you protest, Nick once vowed to go to prison rather than carry a compulsory ID card.

The trouble is, as I pointed out in April when writing about his failure to support libel reform, Nick has previous:

This pattern seems all too well established. Nick courts an interest group with almost exaggerated language - think students or civil libertarians who oppose secret courts - only to let them down when he gets the chance to do something about it in government. 

I do not think people would mind being let down quite so much if Nick had not originally been so good at convincing them of his support for their cause.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: "They’ll never take... our freedom! MOO!"

Saturday

This secret courts business is getting very worrying as Clegg seems quite set on the idea. Many politicians get like this when they first meet the top brass of the secret service: they go native and start spouting whatever the spies want them to. I have never been so impressed by these types because, in my young day, every spy I knew later turned out to have been working for the Soviet Union, and I don’t suppose much has changed since then.

Still at Brig o’Dread, my Caledonian home, after the launch of the Ming Campbell, I learn that the Scottish Liberal Democrats are to debate secret courts this very day. I am not, strictly speaking, entitled to speak or vote at their conferences, but writing about Buttercup yesterday has given me an idea. Reasoning that the Scots would not turn away one of their own, I hire a Highland cow costume – you know the ones: they are pretty with long eyelashes, rather like the young Margaret Wintringham. Such a costume takes two, of course, but fortunately I have brought Meadowcroft with me to look at my tatties and neeps.

So after a practice during which Meadowcroft complains (a) about having to be the rear half and (b) that his udders are “befangled” by a bush we trample, we hurry to Dundee, undergo the necessary formalities and are sent on to the stage with a hearty slap on the rump – Meadowcroft’s rump to be strictly accurate.

I flatter myself that the speech is well received and I am particularly pleased with my peroration: “Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you’ll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin’ to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take... our freedom! MOO!” (I added that last bit because I could see the chair leafing through standing orders with a frown, but I do not think it detracted from my argument.)

Indeed, the motion against secret courts was passed almost nem con and a rather flushed Meadowcroft and I drive back to Brig o’Dread, the job well done. Our Auld Johnston will be well deserved this evening.

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

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Monday: Digging up the Bonkers' Arms car park
• Tuesday: Why Welsh education is the finest in the world
• Wednesday: Nick Clegg unveils his winning tactic
• Thursday: Ming Campbell is brought out of mothballs
• Friday: Buttercup pulls it off

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Ming Campbell is brought out of mothballs

Thursday

A grey morning on the coast of Fife. When the strategy of asking McNally to insult party members failed (as I said it would), Clegg decided an article had to be written for Liberal Democrat Voice defending his ridiculous decision to support secret courts. There was only one thing for it: Sir Walter Menzies Campbell CBE QC MP would have to be got out of mothballs and launched from Rosyth.

It is a magnificent sight as Ming takes to the water again, urged on by Elspeth – the only woman I have ever met who could have gone fifteen rounds with the first Lady Bonkers – and amid much hauling of ropes and creaking of rivets, and is born down the Firth of Forth on the turning tide.

“He’s no been the same since Jutland,” remarks one observer with mordant wit. “Since the Battle of the Nile, you mean,” returns another, pawkily.

People can be so unfair.

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

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Monday: Digging up the Bonkers' Arms car park
• Tuesday: Why Welsh education is the finest in the world
• Wednesday: Nick Clegg unveils his winning tactic

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Nick Clegg unveils his winning tactic

Wednesday

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

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

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

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

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

Six of the Best 337

Nick Clegg tells us he is busy hiding painted eggs in Switzerland. In reply, Caron's Musings lists just a fraction of the work Liberal Democrat candidates and activists are doing this weekend. I don't begrudge Nick having a break, but I would like to see him give a clearer sign that he recognises the efforts others make on behalf of the party.

Nottingham Liberal Youth interviews Tony Sutton, the Lib Dem candidate in the city's Wollaton East and Lenton Abbey ward by-election next week.

This enthusiasm when fundamental liberal principles are abandoned suggests that being in coalition has created something akin to the Stockholm syndrome among Liberal Democrat parliamentarians who are either on the government payroll or aspire to it," says Simon Titley  in discussing the secret courts vote on Liberator's blog.

"I hope to have breaks in the future, and do recommend it as a 'palate cleanser'. But it is hard work." From one of the Jilted Generation... gave up Twitter for Lent.

Swindon in the Past Lane writes of the town's tram disaster of 1906.

"So well-known is this image of Delius as tetchy and imprisoned by illness that we forget the younger man." The cricket career of Frederick Delius is explored by Go litel blog, go ….

My fifth Whipped column for Ad Lib

Whipped: From the desk of the Junior Whip

“Look, it’s quite clear,” I said waving the party constitution. “Conference decides policy and then the MPs should vote for it. So on secret courts…”

“Where does it say that?” said the Chief Whip, snatching the document from me.

He read intently and then looked up with a puzzled expression I have not seen before: “How did this get through?”

I was delighted some of our MPs voted against secret courts: the Chief Whip was not. Yet it gave him some grim satisfaction. He spent the next day planning the itineraries of fact-finding missions to Uzbekistan, chuckling horribly.

One MP who will not be off to Central Asia is Mike Thornton, newly elected for Eastleigh. I heard the Chief Whip say that he has “settled in nicely”, which counts as high praise in this office.

By the time you read this you will know how the Leveson business turned out. This week has been all conference calls, talks being broken off and talks being resumed. It has been so much of a farce that I half expected to find David Miliband hiding in the stationery cupboard or see David Cameron rushing through the office in polka-dot boxer shorts.

We are also waiting for the Budget. The hope is that George Osborne won’t put a tax on cupcakes or cute puppies this time.

At least I understand the Chief Whip better these days. Did you see Shetland? One reviewer described it as “fashionably bleak, with its raw weather, large, unglamorous jumpers and soundtrack alternating between seagulls and the wail of Celtic instruments”.

Add to that the dead bodies lying about and it is no wonder the Chief Whip is the way he is. Still, I think it might be safer to appoint someone who represents a Surrey constituency when the time comes for him to be replaced.

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"Huge pressure is being put on backbench Lib Dem peers to give up the position they held when the Bill was first debated in the Lords and back the Government line. Your support to them could make the difference." Liberal Democrats against Secret Courts wants us to write to Lib Dem and crossbench peers urging them to support the recommendations on secret courts of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

Lester Holloway says Nick Clegg should ditch his illiberal immigration bond.

Scrapping the beer duty escalator is good news for Shropshire's economy, argues Andy Boddington. Now do you see why I love that county?

"The power centers of British politics and media may reside in London, but their tentacles extend to a tiny working-class market town with rows of glistening stone buildings, 17th-century pubs and a medieval church." Amy Chozik visits Chipping Norton for the New York Times.

English Buildings enjoys a grotesque carving in nearby Winchcombe.

Wartime Housewife has the recipe of an insanely cheap and nourishing soup. And I've nicked her photograph.

Nick Clegg doesn't mention the war

Yesterday I called on the Liberal Democrat high command to come clean and tell us the real reason they are in favour of secret courts.

Today Nick Clegg's weekly email arrived. Eagerly I opened it. But nothing. Not a mention of secret courts.

It was worse than that.

The email was mostly about the Leveson proposals and the battle over whether and how we should legislate to implement them. It was quite long but, even so, we were referred to an article by Nick in The Times for a more detailed exposition of his views.

That was a big problem for me.

I am not concerned about referring people to a Murdoch paper. Increasingly these days, I find myself buying The Times rather than the Guardian.

The problem is that in order to read articles on the Times site you have to have paid a subscription first. So Nick's email is telling most of its recipients that there is more information available on this, but they cannot read it. That is only going to put people's back up.

You would hope that the team around the party leader would have grasped this simple point, but apparently not.

Liberal Burblings did not like Nick's email either, but made his point more succinctly than me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mark Thompson exposes Nick Clegg's faulty logic in supporting secret courts.

One recent episode of Moscow’s see-through machinations involved a London-based lobby group Conservative Friends of Russia (CFoR). Launched in August 2012 - in the garden of the Russian ambassador to Britain, no less - and shut down in December." World Affairs dissects Vladimir Putin's strategy of influencing and infiltrating European political establishments.

Despite the urging of Laurie Penny, Normblog refuses to care that the SWP is on the verge of collapse.

Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA - in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. Why? For fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where "the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys". Watch his video on TED.

Movement for Liveable London has a guest post by Mark Stanley making the case for a traffic-free Soho.

"The film is more subversive perhaps than it initially seems. Though I’m a sucker for a romantic ending I also think that, in the real world, most of us can buy that not everyone gets a silver lining. It does seem though, that in the face of emotional distress, we can all get a psychiatric diagnosis." John McGowan on Discursive of Tunbridge Wells goes to see Silver Linings Playbook.

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A Scottish Liberal reminds us that the leadership of the Scottish Liberal Democrats will be defending secret courts at the party's conference next week: "Will they, like Nick Clegg, avoid the real issues and reinforce the members' anger? Will it become increasingly obvious that a chasm is opening between grassroots activists and parliamentarians that is both destructive and unnecessary? Or will they succeed in convincing the members that they are listening, respectful and receptive - even if they take a different view on the policy detail?"

Eastleigh signals the beginning of the end for Nick Clegg not the end of the beginning, says Living on Words Alone.

There is not much left of Liam Fox by the time Alex Massie has finished with him.

"It is hard to see how journalists will ever again earn an enviable wage," says Tom Streithorst on Prospect Blog.

Helen O'Neil writes of John Stuart Mill's involvement with the London Library its blog.

"Liverpool St Station was opened in 1874 and survived largely unchanged into the nineteen seventies. So, in 1977, when proposals to redevelop the station were suggested, I decided to spend some time there, documenting the life of the station with its astonishing brick and iron architecture. I loved the cleaners, taking a break, and the young lad taking it upon himself to reschedule the next train." Tony Bock introduces his photographs on Spitalfields Life.

Secret courts: Tom McNally in Wonderland

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

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

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

According to the Guardian:

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

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

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

But the parallel with Alice in Wonderland is useful here:

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

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

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

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

"I won't!" said Alice. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nick Clegg's lack of leadership on secret courts

The Daily Express enjoys being able to report a difficult time for Nick Clegg at the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference this afternoon:

The atmosphere became more heated when activists began to challenge Mr Clegg over the Justice and Security Bill, which would allow courts to sit in secret in some civil cases. The legislation was comfortably given its third reading in the Commons last week, despite a rebellion from some Tories and Lib Dem MPs and continuing opposition from civil rights campaigners. 

One Lib Dem member questioned why Mr Clegg had "abandoned the high ground" by engaging with the proposals. And another said: "How can we call ourselves a Liberal Democratic party any more if we vote for this legislation?" 

However, the party leader said the intelligence services were currently unable to defend themselves in some civil court cases because they could not disclose sensitive material. He stressed that many changes had already been made to the original proposals, and said he was unable to do what activists wanted and block the measures because only 8% of MPs were Lib Dems.

Well, we'd like Nick to block this measure, but I think we would settle for him and the other Lib Dem MPs voting against it.

But the point of this post is to argue that Nick's discomfort is largely his own fault, even if you think he is right to support this measure.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that in the past Nick has gone out of his way to cultivate the support of civil libertarians. As Stephen Tall reminded us, Nick Clegg said in 2011:

"I need to say this – you shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government – full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good."

A bit like a teenage libertarian blogger perhaps, but that is what Nick said. You cannot blame civil libertarians for believing he really meant it.

Nor can you blame blame Dinah Rose QC for resigning her membership of the party now it appears he has changed his mind.

The second reason Nick is the author of his own misfortune is the lack of communication on the issue. The vote on secret courts took place on Monday, but - as far as I am aware - we had to wait until Thursday and a briefing from the party chief executive for any explanation.

Then, the next day, we had an article on Liberal Democrat Voice by Ming Campbell. Though Lord Bonkers had some fun this, Ming did make an attempt to  convince us. Though it is hard to see how the new measures can be at once less restrictive than the present arrangements and needed to keep matters private that would be public under those arrangements.

But where was Nick Clegg in all this? He may be right on secret courts or, as I believe, he may be wrong. What is not in doubt is that he should have done more to explain his thinking to the party.

My fourth Whipped column for Ad Lib

Here is my latest column from the new Liberal Democrat magazine Ad Lib.

It seems I never got round to posting the third Whipped here, but the interesting question is whether I shall manage a fifth one when there is nothing to laugh about in our MPs being whipped to vote for secret courts.

Whipped: From the desk of the Junior Whip

“Do you want to find out how politics really works?” asked the Chief Whip.

“Oh yes,” I replied. “That’s just what I hoped for when I got this job.”

“There’s a train to Eastleigh leaving Waterloo in 30 minutes. Be on it.”

I am writing this under the end of a hedge near Hedge End. My shoes are holed, my hands are black with ink and a Jack Russell has eaten my last canvass card.

Yet I was happy to get away. A resignation and a censuring: it was too much for me. (And if you haven’t been censured by a Scotsman, you never been censured.)

It got worse. The Chief Whip was determined the Tories would lose their vote on constituency boundaries. He even called in Jenny Willott, who was four days from giving birth. He had me standing by with plenty of hot water and Wikipedia. “You’ve seen Call the Midwife, laddie. How hard can it be?”

Now I wish I had stayed in Westminster. The only mercy is that we went for a short campaign – the Chief Whip did not want the Tories to have months to throw money at the seat. Having met their candidate, I wonder if he was right. The more the public see of her, the better we shall do.

So I know how politics really works – and I don’t like it. I never want to see another by-election, and if I become an MP I shall apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. And keep them.

Because I like the idea of being Crown Steward and Bailiff of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham. I fancy a life pottering around collecting the rents from trim brick and flint farmhouses set among beech woods, rolling chalk hills and steep- valleys.

But I must stop now. That Jack Russell has just sniffed me out.

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John Hemming MP explains why he voted against the government on secret courts (among other things) on Monday.

Remember those shameful "Keep Calm and Rape On" T-shirts on Amazon? They never existed. I Am Pete Ashton explains.

Craig Murray warms to Palmerston.

"The British continue to suspect that they lost something special, even moral, when their society graduated from an aristocratic empire to a modern democracy. Like all nostalgics, we take comfort in a past that only seems so good because so few are alive to remember it well." Tim Stanley on History Today is unimpressed by Downton Abbey.

"A growing number of pilgrims ... are lacing up boots and sneakers to walk across America. While their treks may not have the religious underpinnings of pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela, Mecca, Jerusalem or the current Kumbh Mela gathering in India ... they are nevertheless acts of faith and quests for existential meaning," says Kate Murphy in the New York Times.

Aqeela's House visits... well, Market Harborough actually. She took some nice photographs and I shall go and look at the town's old post office again myself.

That secret courts vote - Nick Clegg explains

Has anyone heard from Nick Clegg?

I got home about an hour ago expecting to find an email from Nick Clegg explaining why the parliamentary party voted in favour of secret courts.

Nothing.

There was an email from Sal Brinton urging me to come to Brighton for the Spring Conference, but nothing from Nick Clegg.

Like Paul Walter I am puzzled by his decision and want an explanation.

I am puzzled by the politics of this. What has been gained by adding civil libertarians to the list of people who feel that Nick Clegg has courted them and then let them down, I cannot imagine.

There is some suggestion that a deal has been done, trading Lib Dem support for secret courts for the Conservatives cutting back on the plans for competition in the NHS.

But that is puzzling too. If we Lib Dems were the kind of people who were relaxed about secret courts and determined to defend the status quo in the public sector we would have joined Labour long ago.

Unlike Paul, I am angry too. Not angry that the MPs went against a Conference decision - Conference does not always get it right and MPs must be free to exercise their judgement in the light of events.

But I am angry that they voted for secret courts at all. Opposition to such proposals should be hard-wired into every Liberal Democrat. Clearly, it is not.

Why we should not trust governments with secret courts

Last month Ian Cobain won the Debut Political Book of the Year category in the Political Book Awards for his Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture.

When Stephen Howe reviewed it in the Independent last year he began:

Legal bans on torture in England, then Britain, go almost as far back as written law itself. It was supposedly forbidden even in medieval times, while modern prohibition can be traced to a law of 1640. But for just as long, governments have in reality allowed it, practised it, and lied about it.

Was it a coincidence the news Nick Clegg's eldest child will attend a state school leaked out on the day of the secret courts vote?

I do hope so.