Ed Davey: If Keir Starmer misled parliament he must resign

After today's revelation that Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting when being considered for appointment as ambassador to the United States, but was appointed anyway, Ed Davey issued this statement:

Keir Starmer had already made a catastrophic error of judgment. Now it looks as though he has also misled parliament and lied to the British public. If that is the case, he must go.

Labour came into Government on a promise to clean up politics. Instead we’re seeing the same old sleaze, scandal and cover-ups as we did under the Conservatives.

You can read the Guardian story that broke the news on the paper's website.

The paper has a second piece that identifies five key questions. They are:

• Did the prime minister mislead the public?
• Did Yvette Cooper and Olly Robbins mislead parliament by omission?
• Who in the Foreign Office decided to grant Mandelson clearance despite the UKSV recommendation?
• Why did Mandelson fail his UKSV check, and will the reasons be made public?
• Will parliament now get to see Mandelson’s vetting documents?

A sure sign the tide is turning against Nigel Farage: Boris Johnson has condemned him

This is significant. Michael Heseltine once described Boris Johnson as:

"a man who waits to see the way the crowd is running and then dashed in front and says 'Follow me'."

Lib Dems call for a review of the law after Palestine Action arrests

Lisa Smart, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesperson, has asked the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation to urgently examine the "troubling precedent" of the use of the Terrorism Act to arrest large numbers of people expressing support for Palestine Action.

In the letter to Jonathan Hall KC, she said: 

"While we recognise the serious nature of this group’s activities, including criminal offences, such as vandalism of military equipment and RAF aircraft, aggravated burglary and violent disorder, and some cases awaiting the conclusion of trials, we are deeply concerned about the use of terrorism powers against peaceful protesters in this context."

Meanwhile, reports BBC News, Kishwer Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has written to the home secretary and Metropolitan Police commissioner Mark Rowley.

Her letter said

"We are concerned that some recent responses may not strike the right balance between security and fundamental rights. Heavy-handed policing or blanket approaches risk creating a chilling effect, deterring citizens from exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and assembly through fear of possible consequences."

Yesterday, I wrote a post suggesting the government's proscribing of Palestine Action has been counterproductive. 

I could have added that if people come to believe that government throws about the label "terrorist" to freely, they will be less likely to believe it when it warn us of groups that certainly are terrorists.

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John McEvoy reveals that the government was advised Palestine Action is "highly unlikely" to advocate violence and that officials struggled to produce evidence the group posed a national security threat.

"The might of the MATs give them a power within the DfE that smaller schools do not have, highlighted here in a 2019 Schools Week article reporting that an academy leader boasted that he 'flicked away safeguarding concerns' raised by a whistleblower." Pam Jarvis explores the dark side of multi-academy trusts.

"Just in case anyone reading this doesn’t have an inkling of the relevant law, this is horseshit of the highest order. It is absolutely untrue that council tenants can be evicted in order to house asylum seekers. It is not a 'complex issue with legal and ethical considerations', it is a non-existent issue because it cannot legally happen." Giles Peaker is furious about what people may now see if they use Google to research something in the news.

Jennifer Quellette talks to two researchers whose work suggests that people who believe conspiracy theories don't realise that they are in a small minority.

"Officials would want to avoid the fate of Dunwich, where erosion led to skeletons sticking out of the dunes after plots were washed away by the sea in the 1920s. There are similar macabre tales relating to Eccles-on-Sea, which featured in the Domesday book of 1086 and was swallowed by the sea over a number of centuries. The church tower finally collapsed in a winter storm in 1895." Owen Sennitt on the debate over what to do with the graveyard at Happisburgh in Norfolk, which will be lost to coastal erosion.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine finds that the new box set chronicling the birth of Nick Drake's debut album Five Leaves Left offers some quiet revelations: "Hearing Drake speak his aural aspirations for songs – notably, he wants Made to Love Magic to sound 'celestial' – helps reframe the refined baroque arrangements of the finished album, underscoring the intentionality of the sumptuous, sighing strings."

Lib Dem MP Calum Miller backs campaign against the reopening of Campsfield House immigration detention centre

Calum Miller, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bicester and Woodstock, took part in an Oxford demonstration yesterday against the Labour government's decision to reopen Campsfield House, the controversial immigration centre near Kidlington.

The centre was closed in 2018 after years of problems, including riots, escapes and complaints about conditions.

Calum told BBC News:

"I have to say I'm both shocked and angry to hear this news.

"There are many different pathways to addressing the problems in the system short of announcing in the middle of the summer that they are planning to increase detention."

He as also written to the home secretary Yvette Cooper, and you can see his statement on the subject above.

If Labour carry on like this they will lose the next election

'Were we better off in the single market than we are now?'

'How would you resolve the Northern Ireland Protocol?'

Andrew Marr challenges Labour Shadow Home Secretary @YvetteCooperMP.@AndrewMarr9 pic.twitter.com/Vofm0Pjy2u

— LBC (@LBC) June 7, 2022

Yvette Cooper is about the sharpest politician on the Labour front bench. I'm sure the Conservatives would fear her more as Labour leader than they fear Keir Starmer.

Yet her performance here is pitiful.

Marr's questions were perfectly fair and wholly predictable - Labour has had six years to sort out its response to the referendum result - yet Cooper had nothing useful to say in reply to them.

Come the next election, if they can't do better than this Labour will lose and deserve to lose.

Labour's moderate, sensible shadow cabinet should remember why Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership. It was because the moderate, sensible candidates arrayed against him barely had an interesting sentence to say between them.

And they should remember how ineffective the moderate, sensible Remain campaign was too.

It's easy for those of us who oppose them to work ourselves up into a state where we believe the Tories' wickedness is bound to see them swept from power, but moral indignation will not be enough to win the next general election. Opposition parties will need to be able to answer uncomfortable questions too.

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The Liberal Democrats must be at the forefront of a British Green New Deal, argues Daniel Willis.

"The most frightening examples were those that used violent language like “traitor” and “sabotage”, because they contribute to the normalising of that kind of discourse that led to Jo Cox’s death." Penny Andrewes looks at online memes attacking Yvette Cooper.

Hari Kunzru does not spare us: "Britain is a country under self-inflicted stress, gripped by fear of the unknown. Remainers and Leavers - two tribes that have taken on the mythic stature of Roundheads and Cavaliers in a second civil war - are clinging together like drowning swimmers, each side convinced that the other is provoking an epochal disaster, neither side understanding why the other won’t submit to its version of reason and allow itself to be guided back to the surface."

Margaret Talbot says Donald Trump's deep unfamiliarity with the lives of working Americans may create opportunities for the Democrats.

"I can’t believe I’m out and about. Somewhere along the way, I lost half my colon and gained a huge respect for the expertise that has saved my life. I feel fragile and as ever, the Long Mynd is my local cure." Andrew Fusek Peters, who.takes wonderful photographs of the Shropshire Hills, writes about being diagnosed with cancer.

Zachary Snowdon Smith shows how the moves always get chess wrong.

Dan Jarvis is benefiting from Kieron Dyer Syndrome

View image | gettyimages.com

Labour's leadership election was depressing for the party even before the dawn of Corbynmania.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago:

The problem for Labour is that the candidates who have something to say - Liz Kendall and Jeremy Corbyn - do not expect to win. That is why they can say what they really think. 

The two front-runners, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper, are so anxious about alienating different constituencies (the press, party members, the wider public) that they find it hard to say anything at all.

It was partly for that reason that I concluded that the next Labour prime minister is not in this leadership election.

I also suggested that the next Labour prime minister would be Dan Jarvis.

That is where I would put my money, and there can be no doubt that staying out of this election will only help Jarvis's reputation.

But maybe he is benefiting from Kieron Dyer Syndrome.

Let me explain.

In the day when we all believed that England's 'golden generation' (Ferdinand, Campbell, Beckham, Owen, Scholes Butt) was going to win us the 2002 World Cup, there was just one problem. We  had no one to play in an attacking role on the left.

But there was an answer. Kieron Dyer had broken into the Ipswich side as a teenager and then signed for Newcastle. He looked a great prospect.

He was injured in the run up to the tournament and could not play in any of the warm up games. But the odd thing was that the less he played, the more certain the pundits became that he was the answer to England's problems. His stock could hardly have stood higher.

At last Dyer was fit to play for England. And everyone saw that he wasn't very good.

So maybe Dan Jarvis's growing reputation is a an example of Kieron Dyer Syndrome. Labour must hope this is not the case.

The next Labour prime minister is not in this leadership election

View image | gettyimages.com

Ed Miliband's approach to the last five years reminded me of Neil Kinnock's failure in the 1980s. Both thought that constantly reminding the voters how selfish Conservatives would be enough for Labour to win.

Yes, the Tories are extraordinarily selfish. The problem that Labour faces is that many voters agree with this analysis but still vote Conservative anyway.

In part this is because we are all selfish to some degree, but it also has a lot to do with Labour's inability to convince voters that they are competent to run the country.

It follows that in order to win Labour need to do something more than attack the Tories: they need to sound like a government in waiting.

Note that this does not necessarily mean sounding more right wing: it just means sounding different and more competent than they do at the moment.

The problem for Labour is that the candidates who have something to say - Liz Kendall and Jeremy Corbyn - do not expect to win. That is why they can say what they really think.

The two front-runners, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper, are so anxious about alienating different constituencies (the press, party members, the wider public) that they find it hard to say anything at all.

Mary Creagh and her short-lived candidacy gave the clearest example of this. Her replies to Justin Webb's questions were so convoluted that he had to summarise them for her.

For this reason I suspect that the next Labour prime minister is not taking part in this election. I also suspect that his name is Dan Jarvis.

Labour: East European migrants are coming to take your job

Today has been the day the Romanians and Bulgarians did not come. The BBC's coverage would have been over the top if the Martians had landed, while Keith Vaz managed to find a new way to get his picture in the papers.

How has Labour responded?

The Guardian has a story headed "British workers left unprotected says Labour as immigration row deepens" which quotes the shadow immigration minister David Hanson.

For a full account of his comments go to Press TV:

The UK government fails to protect low-skilled British workers, Shadow Immigration Minister David Hanson has warned following the reversal of working restrictions on European migrants. 

Hanson slammed the government for ignoring the rights of British employees, saying their jobs could be threatened by influx of migrants from eastern European countries, including Romania and Bulgaria. 

He said the British government has ignored calls to enforce minimum wage and to focus on recruitment agencies, which are recruiting solely from the two EU countries. 

And then there is Yvette Cooper writing a blog on the Labour Party's website. She begins by calling for "a calm, considered debate" and then proceeds to gabble.

You may think its hard to gabble in a blog post, but she pulls it off:

David Cameron and the Conservatives have been rushing around with a frenzy of last-minute briefings and announcements, and ramping up the rhetoric. But they still aren’t addressing the practical problems around those who exploit migrant workers to undercut local businesses and staff. The last-minute confusion and heightened rhetoric is alarming rather than reassuring, and risks fuelling hostility, too. 

However, the Liberal Democrats’ position - suggesting there is no problem - won’t reassure people either. In a global economy, trade, travel and migration is really important for Britain. People are concerned about the impact of European migration, particularly on low-paid work and there are sensible policies we should pursue to make the immigration system fairer for all. 

That is why Labour won’t ramp up the rhetoric or join in empty tough language that just increases hostility and tension

And so on and on until her splendidly contradictory final paragraph:

Britain has always been an outward-looking country dependent on travel and trade. Hardworking and talented people have come for many generations and contributed to our nation. For the sake of investment, jobs and business in the future we mustn’t turn our backs on those traditions. Stronger controls and better management so that immigration is fair for all help us to do just that and that is why a calm long-term approach is so important.

Much of this relies on what economists call the Lump of Labour fallacy, but I am interested in the politics here.

One of the notable features of the recovery of Labour under Tony Blair was that is was designed to reassure the middle classes that the white working class would be kept under control. That is what the concern with antisocial behaviour was all about.

Now the white working class is being wooed again. Does that mean that Labour is worried about the inroads Ukip could make into that vote?/

Calder on Air: What Queston Time tells us about British politics

My Calder on Air column from today's Liberal Democrat News.

Against my principles

I have not gained much wisdom, but there are two principles I try to live by. The first is to enjoy things while you have them, because these are the times you will look back on with nostalgia one day. The second is never to watch Question Time (BBC1).

You know what it’s like at Liberal Democrat Conference: if you wander into the hall and sit down at random, you always find yourself directly in front of someone who applauds, very loudly, all the points made from the platform that you most disagree with. Well, the entire audience for Question Time is made up of people like that.

Actually, it is worse. There are times when an edition of the programme convinces you that Britain is ripe for a Fascist takeover - probably by next Tuesday. But watching the show last week convinced me that it is not the audience that is the problem but the panel.

And that despite the fact that, though this edition of Question Time came from Barking, it was actually less barking than usual. The panel was almost distinguished. Michael Heseltine is an elderly, toothless lion who needs 14 days’ written notice before he can roar, but a lion none the less. Vince Cable was his usual professorial self: able to appear above the fray while putting the boot in when it is required. Yvette Cooper has a high reputation... but more of her later.

Outside the three main parties, there was Nigel Farage. You can imagine him being fun to have a drink with if you found a new local. The first time. By the end of the week you would be giving his saloon bar and his saloon bar prejudices a wide berth. About five miles, to be safe.

The fifth member of the panel – the obligatory non-politician – was Victoria Barnsley, the chief executive of HarperCollins. It is a sign that something is wrong with British politics when one of Rupert Murdoch’s cohorts emerges as the voice of liberalism.

Take the first question, which was on the British Supreme Court’s decision that those placed on the sex offenders register should be able to have the decision reviewed by the courts. Without being melodramatic, the principle that it should be possible to challenge what the state does is pretty much the one that people have been dying for in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

It is not like that on Question Time. There was agreement between most panellists and most audience members that it was an outrage that this sanction should ever be open to review, but that if it really, really had to be reviewed then it should be by the police and not by the courts. It was taken as axiomatic that all sex offenders are paedophiles and the whole exchange suggested that wider society has adopted the morality of the prison system where, however wicked you are, you can cheer yourself by looking down on nonces.

Nigel Farage, of course, blamed it all on the European Union. Vince Cable and Michael Heseltine had the grace to remain largely above this debate. Yvette Cooper had no such scruples. Though she was careful not to commit herself to any coherent position, she sounded fierce.

And boy did she talk. She talked and talked and talked. Verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, old boots, gerunds. It was just the same on the economy. She did not explain how Labour could possibly borrow more, but she talked and talked. Look out, it’s the kitchen sink!

Living with Ed Balls can’t help. If the milkman called at their house about the bill he would get a lecture on the iniquities of Tory farming policy and another on the need to invest in new floats, but he wouldn’t get his money.

So you learn a lot from Question Time. It’s just that you don’t learn it in the way the producers intend.

Alan Johnson is neither Ed Balls nor married to him

It is hard to escape the conclusion that Alan Johnson has been made shadow chancellor because:

1. he is not Ed Balls;
2. he is not married to Ed Balls.

Still, Ed Miliband's decision to appoint does suggest that he is planning a strategy that goes beyond opposing every Coaltion spending cut. That will help the quality of political debate in Britain and will not do Labour's prospects any harm in the long run.

You can debate whether this shows Ed Miliband is strong - prepared not to give Balls and Cooper what they wants - or weak - unable to trust himself to control economic policy if he gives one of them the post to which they are most suited. I tend to the theory that it means he is weak. I am reminded of the way the England selectors used to leave out good players (John Snow, Phil Edmonds) because they might be disruptive or hard to control.

But today's events do show how odd the Labour party's internal organisation is. You have a leader who was not the preferred choice of most Labour MPs (or most Labour members, come to that) obliged to put together his Shadow cabinet from the names those MPs have come up with. More than that, he is more or less obliged to give senior positions to people who come high in the poll

So Labour ends up with Alan Johnson, a shadow chancellor who knows nothing about economics; Yvette Cooper, a shadow foreign secretary with little experience of foreign affairs; and Ed Balls, who has hitherto shown no interest in home affairs - he promises to be like Charles Clarke but without the charm.

Incidentally, once Ed Miliband had made up his mind to appoint a shadow chancellor who was not Ed Balls or married to him, John Healey might have been a better choice than Alan Johnson. Healey has a little of Vince Cable's lugubrious charm about him.