Olympic success is great but it will not change society

I love it when British sports teams do well. We all love it when British teams do well. But it does not change society.

Winning the 2003 rugby union world cup and regaining the Ashes did not change society. In fact they have barely changed rugby or cricket.

So while I have been enjoying our extraordinary success in Beijing, I do not have much time for arguments like this:

The Olympics ... provoke children, and adults, into running, swimming, cycling, jumping and rowing. They give the ordinary heroes, and draw us a little way after them. They remind us what hard work, dedication and skill can do. They provide stories about heartache and bravery - Paula Radcliffe - and giving something back - Kelly Holmes. And by doing that, they change millions of people's lives far away from grand stadiums.

Take, for instance, the ludicrous and offensive suggestion that overweight children should be taken into care because obesity is a form of "child abuse". (If it is, then removing children from their parents is a worse one.) The real way to fight child obesity is through food education, yes, but also sport.

Looking around at all the lean kids in coloured shirts, even I can see that Manchester United or Liverpool do more to stop British boys being too fat than any government programme.

What the glamour of football does for millions of boys needs to be matched for other boys, and for girls.

It comes from an article in the Guardian by Jackie Ashley: "The Olympian feats can inspire our obese nation."

Let's take the author back in a time machine to the mid 1980s. It is a land where Ian Botham and David Gower are bigger names than any footballer. The Premiership is years away and far fewer kids wear football shirts. Yet there are many more lean kids around than in 2008.

Which suggests that whatever regulates how many obese children there are, it is not the popularity of our leading football clubs.

Sport these days is big business - it is hard not to agree with David Mitchell observation (on Mock the Week a few days ago) that we are very good at sports that African men are too poor to enter. If current trends continue, in 10 years' time the Premiership will by played out entirely by African youths for the benefit of obese British crowds.

What used to make British kids lean was not organised team games but unsupervised play. So it is alarming to read that Newark and Sherwood District Council is planning to fine children who play football in the street £100, it is profoundly depressing.

This may be a function of the breakdown of informal policing of children - people no longer feel entitled to tell them to go and play somewhere else, so they phone the police instead - but it is profoundly depressing.

John Major on Neil Kinnock

I have always suspected that John Major will be treated more generously by posterity than he has been by his contemporaries. And I am pleased to see him receiving his share of the credit for Britain's improved performance in the Olympics today.

While we are feeling warm towards him, let me quote an example of his wit (via Danny Finkelstein):

As John Major pricelessly commented, as Kinnock didn't know what he was saying, he never knew when he had finished saying it.

Oh yes.

Steve Winwood on tour

This blog's favourite musician is currently playing in the USA and Canada with his band. He is supporting - and sometimes playing with - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

A member of his crew is writing a blog about the tour.

Universities: Schools for biologically mature children?

In July 2005 Frank Furedi reminisced in the Times Higher Education Supplement:

In 1997, I completed my book The Culture of Fear. Most of the comments my copy editor made about the manuscript were routine questions about grammar, incoherent formulations and inconsistencies. But one of the comments stood out as an explicit challenge to the authenticity of the text. The contentious passage informed the reader of a relatively new development - the arrival of parents on campus. To illustrate the changing character of university life, I pointed to what was then a relatively novel phenomenon: students arriving on campus for their interviews, accompanied by their parents. "This cannot be true," exclaimed my editor.

At first, I was taken aback by her implicit challenge to my integrity. But after we had discussed this issue, I was able to understand where she was coming from. As someone who was an undergraduate in the 1970s, she could not reconcile her experience of a parent-free university with the subsequent changes.

He returned to the same theme today in a BBC report on parents chasing university places through the clearing system on behalf of their children:

Frank Furedi, social commentator and professor of sociology at the University of Kent, says that controlling parents are "destroying the distinction between school and higher education".

"All universities now have to take the parent factor into account. On university open days you can see more parents attending than children," says Professor Furedi.

He says there have been cases of parents who arrive expecting to attend their children's university interviews.

Professor Furedi says that he tells parents that they have to leave, but there are other academics who "accept that this will be a family discussion".

"There is a powerful sense of infantilism, where parents can't let go."

This extends to universities having to handle complaints from parents over grades awarded to students, he says, and a constant over-involvement during term time.

"We have to remind parents that there is a professional relationship between academics and students," he says.

Professor Furedi expects this parental pressure to grow - with the risk of turning universities into "schools for biologically mature children".

It is worth pausing for a moment to reflect on just what a change in this. When I went to university in 1978 - and even during the interviews over the year before that - the whole point of the exercise was to strike out on your own and escape the influence of parents and schools. The change that has taken place makes me deeply sceptical when I am informed that young people grow up much faster these days.

James Graham thinks the process happened so long ago that it is hardly worthy of comment. But then he is younger than me.

Incidentally, I am not convinced by James's view that the answer to everything is to change the system so that university applications take place after people know their A level results. This seems to carry the assumption that A level grades are to be the only factor in the offer of a place.

Back in the 1970s I received remarkably generous offers from five good universities despite being armed with no more than a rather ropey set of O level results. That was because they were prepared to interview me and to back their own judgement of my potential. If you leave everything to A level results I am not sure that my equivalent today would be half as well treated.

Government "eco-towns" programme in crisis

From the Public Servant Today site:

The government’s eco-towns plans continue to be blighted by set-backs and protests, according to some reports.

Not only is the promised shortlist of towns now going to be released in 2009 rather than this October – because ministers say they need more time to look at revised applications – but it may be much shorter than originally planned, for a variety of reasons.

The list began with 16 towns but is now said to be down to 10 and could reduce further still. The plans could also be affected by an unexpectedly high level of hostility to the plans from the public and the possibility of legal challenges following accusations that eco-towns bypass traditional planning procedures.

For arguments against development of the Pennbury site in Leicestershire, see my recent article for Comment is Free.

My latest New Statesman column

A new Calder's Comfort Farm can be found on the magazine's website.

It covers Tim Leunig, The Bog Centre, the Telford penguins and Allison Pearson - all subjects that will be familiar to readers of this blog.

Genesis: I Know What I Like in Your Wardrobe

OK so the first minute and a half are silly and pretentious, and the ending is not much better. But in between there is a great song.

And, yes, the long-haired drummer is Phil Collins.

Back in 1974 I was aged 14, and in those days Market Harborough was a town with no branch of W. H. Smith's, let alone a bookshop. Most of my culture came from the charts, but this was the era of glam rock and, though I followed those charts closely, I sensed even then that most of it was crap.

Suddenly there was a single that was different. "I Know What I Like in Your Wardrobe" told me that music could mean more than that.

Over the years, as Peter Gabriel left and Collins became the dominant influence, Genesis degenerated into a middle of the road band. (There is also an interesting social drama in there somewhere: Collins was originally the little man from the village who came to drum for his three Charterhouse-educated bandmates.)

But in their days of playing what Steve Winwood calls "twisted mushroom pixie rock", they really were something special.

BritBlog Roundup 183

The Roundup has a new home this week: Mick Fealty's blog on the Daily Telegraph site.

Charles Kennedy or Paddy Ashdown for Lib Dem President?

Atticus in the Sunday Times leads with the following item this morning:

Lembit Opik, Liberal Democrat MP and official boyfriend to the stars, is campaigning to be party president. Simon Hughes gives up the job later this year and the former lover of one or other of the Cheeky Girls has declared his interest.

He could face stiff competition. There has been talk in Lib Dem circles that Charles Kennedy, former party leader, might run for the job. Now it’s even being whispered that Kennedy’s predecessor, Lord Ashdown, will make a comeback.

Could this be an “Anyone but Lembit” campaign? “I couldn’t possibly comment,” says a senior Lib Dem MP (although not Lembit, obviously).

This blog supports Ros Scott. Goodnight.

Sandy Bruce-Lockhart's Liberal connections

The New Statesman website recently called me "the family historian of British politics". So I would be failing in my duty if I failed to note these connections.

Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, the Conservative politician who died on Thursday, was the great nephew of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart. R. H. Bruce Lockhart (as he is better known) was a British agent in Russia during and after the Revolution and (or so the legend goes) was the lover of Moura Budberg. And she is Nick Clegg's great great aunt.

Better than that, according to R. H. Bruce Lockhart's Wikipedia page he was a friend of the occultist, Aleister Crowley. Crowley was also a friend of Frieda Harris (she painted a set of Tarot cards for him), the wife of Sir Percy Harris. Sir Percy was Liberal MP for Harborough 1916-8 and Bethnal Green South West 1922-45. As was recently revealed, he was also the great grandfather of Matthew Taylor, the current Lib Dem MP for Truro and St Austell.

I wrote about both the Budberg/Clegg and Harris/Taylor connections in a House Points column in March.

Resist the Finlandisation of Georgia

There is a good article on Comment is Free about the situation in Georgia. It is written by Alan Johnson.

It begins:

Finlandisation is back. During the cold war the term described those states which had a formal independence but existed in barely disguised servitude to Moscow. Finland, Jean-Francois Revel noted in his 1983 book. How Democracies Perish, "preserved the inviolability of its territory, what was left of it, and the right to live privately in a non-totalitarian society" but was forbidden to accept Marshall Plan aid, join the EEC or sign trade agreements with Europe. It took its orders from Moscow in foreign policy.

This is the fate Putin (and some in the west) now seek to impose on Georgia. And now, as then, Russia hopes to impose Finlandisation by a mix of hard and soft power.

The hard power comes in the form of tanks and Russia's control of other countries' energy supply.

And the soft power?

That, says Johnson, is supplied these days by the anti-American left. He rightfully takes issue with a shameful article published on Comment is Free on Thursday by Seumas Milne.

Johnson takes fire at Milne here:

The conflict in Georgia "is not a story of Russian aggression, but of US imperial expansion". Georgia is no fledgling democracy to be defended but a "fully-fledged US satellite". Its government came to power in a "western-backed coup" don't you know, and western support for Georgia meant "conflict was only a matter of time". And after all, "'unipolar domination of the world has squeezed the space for genuine self-determination and the return of some counterweight has to be welcome".

Milne here manages something quite extraordinary: he "forgets" the mass escape from the prison house of nations that was only made possible by the collapse of Communism, while supporting the resurgence of an authoritarian Russia as the very means to open up "genuine space for self-determination". Astonishing.

The trouble is that elements of the left in Britain are so consumed with the Bush administration that they will support anyone who opposes it. Even a hard-line Russian government intent on holding its 19th century empire together.

Johnson also links to a valuable article by Ronald D. Asmus in The New Republic which analyses the West's failure to support Georgia.

Next week: Resist the Georgiaisation of Finland.

Russian cyber war on Georgia

From The First Post ("The online daily magazine"):

While Russian tanks rolled into Georgian territory on August 8, a simultaneous 'cyber-attack' was turning Georgia's government web pages into a tangle of broken links.

Malicious technological mischief is something of a feature of Eastern European diplomatic relations. But the scale and, particularly, the timing of this cyber-attack, and the existence of a mysterious 'practice attack' a month earlier, pose important questions about the lead-up to the Russia-Georgian conflict.

A levels: Easier exams and harder-working students

A year ago I wrote about the "annual festival of concern about exam results":

One side says they are examinations are getting easier: the other says that students are working harder than ever before.

I have come to the conclusion that both sides are right.

At the time I wrote this I felt rather daring, but I did say:

My impression is that, while for years liberals and the left have hotly denied that exams have been getting easier, it will soon be widely accepted that they are. (It is remarkably how quickly the unthinkable can become the new conventional wisdom.)

It seems I was right. This morning's Guardian has a question and answer piece on the A level results by Polly Curtis which takes just this line. It begins:

Have A-levels got easier?

Research by Durham University suggests that most subjects have got two grades easier over the past two decades - this means an A is the new C grade. The same research revealed marked differences between subjects.

You would not have found that in the Guardian even a year ago.

The article also quotes Alan Smithers, professor of education at the University of Buckingham. He says:

"From the point of view of pupils the exams are harder because they are more competitive. It's not enough to get a pass or a C. You need an A or three As to get into the top university."

Francis Gilbert's piece on his experience of teaching English is also worth reading:

In my quest for good exam grades I encourage pupils to slap down the material that will enable them to meet the assessment objective rather than painstakingly help them craft essays – like I used to.

Since teachers are now judged solely on results by their students, parents and line managers, and their pay is dependent upon this, they would be foolish to teach like they used to.

The net result is that exam grades have risen, but standards have declined.

Liberal England: The Best Bits 2007-8

One of the categories in the Lib Dem Blog Awards is for "The best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog (since 1st September 2007)."

Alex Wilcock has suggested that, to help people make nominations, Lib Dem bloggers choose their favourite posts from their own blogs.

On looking through the last year of this blog, I find it to consist largely of Spencer Davis Group videos, funny stories from the Shropshire Star and posts sending you off to good articles by other people.

Nevertheless, here are half a dozen of my own more political Best Bits:

• Nick Clegg, what have you sacrificed?


• Antidisestablishmentarianism


• Lord Bonkers' Diary: Remembering Sugar Ray Michie


• David Cameron's bicycle and the demoralisation of society


• Being posh and being educated are two different things


• That Policy Exchange report: Is Tim Leunig a closet Marxist?

A message from Prince Charles

"Buy my luxury biscuits or you will all die a horrible death!"

That Policy Exchange report: Is Tim Leunig a closet Marxist?

The Tories and the media have missed the big story about Cities Unlimited, the Policy Exchange report on regional development policies. (You can download a PDF copy of it from the think tank's website.)

As James Graham pointed out this morning, the report's lead author Tim Leunig is a Liberal Democrat. Indeed, during my days on the party's federal policy committee he was something of a fixture on that committee's working parties.

Earlier this evening, debating the report with John Prescott on Channel 4 News, Tim said he was not a member of the Conservative or Labour parties - and said no more. He may be an academic, but he is not unworldly.

David Cameron has called Cities Unlimited "insane". My own reaction on reading it is quite different. While I like the idea of selling empty property cheaply to its neighbours and local control of development funds, it seems to me to be based on two quasi-Marxist assumptions. They are:

• contempt for piecemeal reform;
• the belief that it is the state's role to forecast how society and the economy will develop and then expedite that development.

Let me explain.

The assumption behind the report seems to be that unless regional development aid can be shown to have reduced regional disparities then it is a waste of time. The argument that it might be worth putting some effort into slowing the increase of those disparities is not even considered. Policy Exchange scorns our bourgeois liberalism: it wants revolution.

And I am puzzled by the idea that Oxford and Cambridge should be vastly expanded. Can government really predict where industry will wish to expand before industry knows itself? If government had made such decisions 25 years ago, just before the implications of information technology began to be realised, they would seem very strange to us now. How can we know that our own decisions will not look equally strange in 25 years' time?

I also wonder if this development might not be self-defeating in that it destroys the quality of life that attracts people to Oxford and Cambridge in the first place. I do not know Oxford well, but Cambridge, which was until recently a small city, has now outgrown its centre. As a result, that centre is now grossly overcrowded and I now rarely visit the place.

Of course, I may be wrong, but my point is that it is not possible for government or anyone else to know such things in advance. Therefore a less ambitious policy, not the Policy Exchange's picking of winners, is indicated.

A market economy is dynamic, and places do rise and fall. Some of the settlements where my Stiperstones lead miners lived have disappeared altogether. And Iflracombe in the late 1980s, a seaside resort abandoned by the railway and by most holidaymakers, is one of the saddest sites I have seen. Every B&B had its price in the window, trying to undercut the establishment next door.

Government cannot prevent such historical movements, but it seems to me it is worth trying to ameliorate their worst effects. And when I see a former mining village like Creswell, I cannot help thinking the fact that the most ambitious and able young people are leaving is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

There is nothing funny about the situation in Georgia

But it was hard not to smile at this item in the Guardian Diary today:

Comprehensive coverage of the crisis developing in the South Ossetia province of Georgia on Sky News - it's just unfortunate that the breaking news service seems to think the war is raging in the US rather than eastern Europe.

"Georgia is a state in the southern United States," reads the ever-so helpful "Background on the Region" section of its "Georgia In Depth" pages. "Georgia was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution ...

I expect Sky think this is the Georgian national anthem.

Is Statcounter still having problems?

At the end of May, Statcounter - the service I use to tell me who is visiting this blog - went down for a couple of days. But as far as I am concerned it was only for a couple of days and it has worked perfectly since then.

Today a couple of people have left comments on the post I wrote at the time. They say that Statcounter is still not working for them.

Am I lucky or are they unlucky? Someone from Statcounter left a comment on that posting at the time. I think you have some customers who would like to know what is going on, folks.

Telford penguins refuse to be cowed

More news of the climate campaigners who were asked to leave a Telford park after dressing as penguins and handing out leaflets.

That original newspaper report has led to lively exchanges in the comments. My own favourite runs:

How ridiculous! when people have been mugged in Hollinswood and Wellington……… that’s what we need to be monitoring, not innocent people in penguin suits .

Today the Shropshire Star reports:

Environmental campaigners who had dressed as penguins today defied a ban on handing out leaflets without permission in Telford Town Park.

Rachel Whittaker, of Wellington, was thrown out of the park last week after being told she needed permission, a criminal records bureau check and a risk assessment, before she would be allowed to distribute her leaflets on climate change.

But today she risked being ejected again, after deciding to finish giving out the 200 leaflets she has had printed. Joined by campaigner Graham Bunn, of Madeley, the pair vowed to stay until the job was done.

The 34-year-old once again donned a penguin beak and yellow flippers to highlight the plight of penguins and how they are affected by climate change.

Thanks to the Star for the photograph too.

Allison Pearson sued over missing novel

The Guardian reports that Allison Pearson is being sued after accepting an advance for a novel but failing to deliver it:

Miramax Film Corp filed its suit for breach of contract against Pearson on Friday in Manhattan Federal Court, according to Reuters, saying that although Pearson accepted $700,000 in August 2003 under a two-year contract, she has still not delivered the novel.

Miramax also said that Pearson has ignored its requests for information about the book's whereabouts since 2006.

When I was at school with the then Allison Lobbett, she never had any such problems. During mock O levels and then the real thing, if I held up my hand to ask for more paper before she did I knew I was doing really well.

David Davis's vanity has boosted the enemies of liberty

Dominic Grieve has pledged that the Tories will give the police more unregulated surveillance powers if they win the next election.

After David Davis won his fatuous by-election victory at Haltemprice & Howden, I wrote:

Dominic Grieve, who has taken Davis's job in the Tory shadow cabinet, has an honourable record of fighting for liberty in the Commons. Yet you sense he is a good lawyer who has done the best he can with the brief he has been given. If the balance of power in that shadow cabinet changes or David Cameron changes his mind about where advantage lies, Grieve will argue against liberty just as effectively.

And, of course, Davis's absence from the shadow cabinet makes it more likely that the balance of power will change and that the likes of Liam Fox and Michael Gove, who would feel happier attacking the government for not being Neo Con enough, will be the decisive influences on Cameron.

And I said more pithily on the New Statesman site:

And what has David Davis achieved by his resignation? If you care about liberty, then shadow home secretary looks quite a useful job to have.

His action looks more and more like an outbreak of the male menopause. He should have bought himself a sports car instead.

It is now clear that Davis's political suicide bombing damaged his career and - far more important - has made it easier for the enemies of liberty in the Conservative Party (a club with a large and thriving membership) to prevail.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

David Cameron's reversion to type will help Lib Dems

The article of the day is John Kampfner's piece about the death of the husky-hugging side of David Cameron. It begins:

These were words to gladden the heart. "Wealth is about so much more than pounds or euros or dollars can ever measure. It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money. It's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB - general well being." This was David Cameron, 2006 vintage. His speech to the Google Zeitgeist conference suggested a new set of political and economic priorities. He spoke of a "passionate desire for capitalism with commitment". He noted that many companies and ordinary people "are expressing a profound dissatisfaction with rootless, rampaging globalisation".

Fast-forward two years, to the verge of a recession and the fears of knife crime, and what do we hear? Society is broken; more prisons should be built; more people should be denied bail. While the Tories are nowhere near the point of Michael Howard's dog-whistle anti-immigrant pitch of 2005, they are slipping back into their political comfort zone. That is a shame for the country, and a lost opportunity for them.

Developments today have shown how right Kampfner's analysis is.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, has announced that a Tory government would:

amend the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act so that police no longer need to secure authorisation to conduct surveillance on those suspected of non-terrorist offences.

The changes would mean that the police would automatically be able to:

• Use covert video or listening devices in premises or vehicles.
• Watch premises to identify or arrest suspects.
• Conduct visual surveillance of public locations.
• Patrol, in uniform or plain clothes.
• Use thermal imaging and X-ray technology.
• Conduct surveillance using visible CCTV cameras.

And Simon Milton has defended the actions of councils who use the act to spy on people. He says:

"Generally [the powers] are being used to respond to residents' complaints about fly tippers, rogue traders and those defrauding the council tax or housing benefit system.

"Time and again, these are just the type of crimes that residents tell us that they want to see tackled.

"Without these powers, councils would not be able to provide the level of reassurance and protection local people demand and deserve."

Milton is the person who was put into City Hall by the Tories to act as Boris Johnson's representative on Earth.

All of which confirms the impression that the attractive green, liberal Toryism of David Cameron's first couple of years as leader were no more than an act. The Tories now seem to believe that because Labour is so unpopular they are free to return to what they really believe in.

It may be a tragedy for the country, but it represents an enormous opportunity for the Liberal Democrats. When liberal-minded voters see the Conservatives in their true colours, it will make it far more likely that they will decide to stay with us after all.

In defence of Tom Daley

I feel sorry for Tom Daley. A few months ago we thought it almost miraculous that a 13-year-old could qualify for an Olympic final.

A few months later he is 14, the press has made the mistake of believing its own hype and as a result he is treated as a failure for not having won a medal.

But I did like Sam Wollaston's take on synchronised diving in the Guardian this morning:

It's clear that no one understands the scoring, not even the people doing it. A dive by the German pair gets four and a half out of 10 for execution from one judge, and nine out of 10 from another. And none of the numbers corresponds with what the commentators have just said about the dive. It's basically the Eurovision Song Contest, in Speedos.

Lord Bonkers on the Glorious Twelfth

Or on game shooting at least.

From September 2005:

Nor even does pheasant shooting, where each man arrives with a small army of loaders, valets and cartridge boys, appeal to me.

No, give me the Rutland partridge: shoot at this fellow and he will take cover and fire back. That’s what I call good sport.

In Memoriam: Isaac Hayes

I wasn't going to do this, but I am fed up with people talking about South Park...

Some forgotten recent books for wonks

There is a nice article by James Harkin in The Times today, occasioned by the publicity that Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein have been getting for their book Nudge recently.

He writes:

Good for Nudge. But there is a cautionary tale here, and one to which all aspirant salesmen of ideas should pay heed.

Wonkish books occasionally hit the big time but their shelf life is often fitfully brief. How much influence can the authors of Nudge expect to wield in five years' time? Go to any second-hand bookshop and bear humbled witness to the debris of big ideas past, books which merited only a flicker on the attention span of the intelligentsia on their way to the bargain bin.

Take these five examples.

And those examples are:

• The De-moralization of Society by Gertrude Himmelfarb (1995)
• Beyond Left and Right by Anthony Giddens (1994)
• The State We're In by Will Hutton (1995)
• Connexity by Geoff Mulgan (1997)
• Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard (2005)

David Aaronovitch trespasses on my manor

Photo by Sabine J Hutchinson
http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk/

I have written far too much recently about the Stiperstones and its abandoned mines - try the latest Calder's Comfort Farm on the New Statesman site.

It seems I am not the only one who likes them. In Saturday's issue of The Times David Aaronovitch wrote:

I am as captivated by the abandoned cottages and workings of the 18th-century barytes miners beside the Shropshire Stiperstones as I am by the 2,000-year-old white tombs of Turkish Lycia.

I am pleased to hear it, but he is wrong on two counts.

The remains you see today are not from the 18th century but 19th (though you can find the remains of Roman workings a couple of miles away near Shelve).

And they did not mine barytes much here until the 20th century. The remains you see today - notably at Snailbeach - date from the 19th when this part of Shropshire was a great centre of lead mining.

Now read about David Aaronovitch on University Challenge.

BritBlog Roundup 182

Mr Eugenides goes to Beijing.

Of course, it all started in Much Wenlock.

The Kinks: Waterloo Sunset

I seem to be stuck in the sixties at the moment, but there are worse places to be. So let's have what in most moods I regard as the best song of the decade. It is timeless yet also, with its references to "Terry and Julie" - usually assumed to be Terence Stamp and Julie Christie - entirely of the period.

The YouTube poster claims this is a live version, but it sounds remarkably like the single to me. But never mind if they are miming - I have always loved the way you think the bass is never quite going to get there in time, but it always does.

And those who say the songs from the shows were better, try listening to "London Pride" after this. It makes the Noel Coward song sound terribly false.

Comment is Free: Vince Cable and local income tax

I have a piece on the Guardian's Comment is Free site about the rumours that Vince Cable is not too keen on replacing the Council Tax with a local income tax:

I was a newly elected Liberal Alliance councillor back in 1986 when the Thatcher government began consulting over the introduction of the poll tax.Conservative members didn't want it phased in over 10 years: they wanted it at once. You could see the pound signs in their eyes as they calculated how much they and their neighbours would save.

As a dutiful Liberal – it was party policy even then – I moved an amendment calling on my council to support a local income tax in its reply to the consultation. After it was voted down, one of the county ladies on the Tory benches came over and asked: "Do you realise why the rates are unpopular? It's because you can't hire a sharp accountant to get you out of them, the way you can with income tax."

She was right, and I have had a soft spot for property taxes ever since.

A visit to Creswell Crags

Yesterday I visited Creswell Crags on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border.

As its website says:

Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge honeycombed with caves and smaller fissures. Stone tools and remains of animals found in the caves by archaeologists provide evidence for a fascinating story of life during the last Ice Age between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Further evidence came to light in 2003 with the discovery of Britain's only known Ice Age rock art. Creswell Crags was among the most northerly places on earth to have been visited by our ancient ancestors, a story that is unique on a European and World scale.

Better still, the gorge contains a lake that was constructed for the Dukes of Portland in the 18th century.

A new visitor centre is being constructed at the Crags, but at presently it is a pleasingly underdeveloped attraction despite its archaeological importance. You can go on a guided tour of the caves, but you have to book in advance.

Up until a couple of years ago, a B road ran through the gorge - it must have been one of the more unexpectedly spectacular drives in the country. Now it has been diverted and the authorities have moved a neighbouring sewage farm too.

I travelled there by train. Creswell is on the Robin Hood Line, which runs between Nottingham and Worksop. The train calls at Mansfield, which always used to compete with Corby for the accolade of being the largest town in Britain without a railway station.

The Robin Hood Line was opened after the closure of the area's coal mines in the 1990s. As Wikipedia explains, it is a modern creation made up from the routes of more than one of the Victorian railway companies. It also involved the relaying of track in one place and even the reopening of a tunnel that had been filled with rubble after the line closed.

The way the remains of the mining industry have been planted over is impressive, but this remains a despoiled landscape. Yet, as I wrote after visiting Bolsover Castle, it did not come to the area until late in the 19th century.

Creswell is clearly still suffering from the closure of its mine, which was the site of a disaster in 1950 in which 80 people died (though it was not possible to recover some of the bodies until a year afterwards).

Photo from flickr

Authorities swoop on rogue penguins in Telford park

It's time to see how Shropshire is getting on without me. And it's not looking good.

From the Shropshire Star:

Two campaigners dressed as penguins were removed from Telford Town Park after being told they would need a criminal record check and risk assessment to hand out leaflets.

One of the penguins, Rachel Whittaker, 34, from Wellington said:

“It was only a fun thing. I was saying to people ‘Hello I’m a penguin and my ice cap has melted so I’ve ended up in Telford - can I give you a leaflet’. People were loving it.”

But officialdom was not to be moved:

“They have to be CRB checked and risk assessed under the Child Protection Act. There are a lot of children playing in the park at this time of year and we have a duty of care to them and our adult visitors.

Dog clone woman is "Manacled Mormon" kidnapper

Those of us of a certain age have memories of Joyce McKinney and the "Manacled Mormon" case in the back of our minds somewhere. The Times helpfully provides a reminder of the details:

In 1977, the former Miss Wyoming stalked her lover, a Mormon missionary, to a tabernacle in East Ewell, Surrey, allegedly kidnapped him and held him in a cottage in Devon. There, the 17-stone Kirk Anderson claimed, his petite, busty admirer tied him to a bed using mink-trimmed handcuffs, slipped into a see-through nightie and forced him into sex.

At a remand hearing she declared her love for the Mormon with the immortal line: “I’d ski naked down Mount Everest with a carnation up my nose if he asked me.”

It does so because it turns out that Joyce McKinney is the same person as the Bernann McKinney who this week was reported as having paid $50,000 for five cloned copies of Booger, her pit bull terrier.

It seems that all these years on, McKinney still loves not wisely but too well.

Praise for Liberal England

As Lord Bonkers would say, I am not one to blow my own trumpet. But in all the nominating for the Lib Dem Blog Awards and the Total Politics list, I have spotted some praise for Liberal England.

Paul Linford: "Well-written, funny and wistful, it's about time Jonathan Calder (Lord Bonkers) achieved wider recognition."

James Graham: "Still a great staple for commentary and odd miscellenia."

Mark Valladares: "still churning out great work. Besides, as Lord Bonkers' diary secretary, he should be preserved for the nation."

As Lord Bonkers would say, people are Terribly Kind.

August: Time to put missing children on the front page

It's August so it must be time for little Maddie to return to the front pages. Yesterday the Daily Mail had The 48 questions Kate McCann wouldn't answer - and the one she did. Today Metro has Girl told shopkeeper: My name is Maddie... And tomorrow's Daily Telegraph has Madeleine McCann 'was snatched by paedophile ring to order' on the front page. These stories are all nonsense. They all contradict one another. And tonight I heard the McCann's spokesman say that their daughter was always known as Madeleine within the family, not Maddie. But then as the Bulger case, where James became Jamie, the press is happy to rename a child to make them a more fitting victim. And there is no end to it. Last Friday there was a report that remains had been found on Saddleworth Moor. Immediately newspaper websites sprang into action with speculative reports and photographs of Ian Brady, Myra Hindley or Keith Bennett, the only one of their victims whose body has not been found. The Daily Telegraph excelled itself and pictured all three. Later the same day it was established that the remains were those of a sheep. Keith Bennett disappeared 44 years ago.

David Cameron was warned about Watford Tories

From A Lanson Boy:

I was ... in Watford for a visit by Ming Campbell a couple of years ago. Mr Oakley and a large number of other Tories tried to disrupt the visit. So far, common enough - if regretable. But their actions that day went well beyond what might be considered fair game. Their yelling and screaming was massively abusive and had no place in our politics. They constantly tried to disrupt every media interview and were obnoxious beyond belief.

After that visit, Ming wrote to David Cameron asking him to take action about Watford Tories. Unfortunately, Cameron ducked that opportunity to investigate and simply replied that such behaviour was what party leaders should expect.

Doubts about Uighur terrorism

My first reaction on hearing of the alleged bombing in Xinjiang was to wonder whether it had really happened. It was so convenient for the Chinese authorities that they should be seen as the victims of terrorism while the eyes of the world are on them.

Craig Murray shares these doubts - "It is entirely predictable that the Chinese government is responding by organising 'terrorist incidents' to try to blacken the Uighurs as part of Al Qaida. Do not be taken in by this rubbish" - and also explains the geopolitical background to the situation in Xinjiang :

The Uighurs are one of a swathe of Muslim peoples across Central Asia, who fell into the thrall of foreign Empires between the middles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are at least eighteen of these identifiable and mostly Turkic ethnicities, running from the Chechens in the West to the Uighurs in the East.

About half the groups who fell under Russian, then Soviet, rule are now in "independent" republics named after Turkic ethnicities. But their political, cultural and religous freedom is still generally repressed as a consequence of continued domination by Soviet apparatchik elites who cling to power through ruthlessness. Meanwhile both Russia and China keep down the Turkic ethnicities within their borders through fierce and relentless brutality.

Writing on Comment is Free, Jason Burke is less dismissive but still has his doubts:

The East Turkestan Liberation Organisation appears to be a new name – and an odd one given its 1960s nationalist, third-world sound. Claims of responsibility, videos full of boastful rhetoric and the occasional attack do not reveal much of the reality of what is going on in Xinjiang.

Nor, sadly, do the claims of government officials.

Iain Dale brings forward voting deadline

If you have not yet nominated your Top 10 blogs, you now have only until Friday of this week to do so.

Iain Dale explains why he has brought the deadline forward.

Former Tory PPC for Watford convicted of hate campaign

The BBC reports:

A former Tory candidate has pleaded guilty to a campaign of harassment against his Liberal Democrat rivals.

Ian Oakley, who quit as a prospective parliamentary candidate in Watford last month, admitted five charges of criminal damage and two of harassment.

Oakley, of Ryeland Close, West Drayton, west London, asked for 68 other offences to be taken into account.

Sal Brinton, the Lib Dem PPC and one of the chief targets of Oakley's campaign, gives further details on Lib Dem Voice:

This campaign of intimidation included slashing of car tyres, graffiti (sexual and racist) sprayed on cars, homes, fences and posterboards, distribution of false and defamatory leaflets purporting to come from the Liberal Democrats and a range of other criminal acts aimed at intimidating Liberal Democrat supporters, councillors and candidates.

These incidents were of such a persistent and systematic nature that it became clear they were part of a sustained campaign, and that it appeared to be intended to influence and subvert the democratic process. Virtually all the targets lived in wards where we had made gains from the Conservatives.

It was also noticeable that damage to posters and vandalism was particularly targeted at houses on busy main roads, where the owners displayed Lib Dem posters at election time. The perpetrator would either leave behind a Lib Dem leaflet or poster board or write graffiti such as ‘F*ck the Lib Dems’ to intimidate people into not displaying posters in the future. Likewise, the false allegations appear to have been targeted at new and inexperienced candidates, with the apparent hope of discouraging them from pursuing their candidatures.

And Iain Sharpe points out:

It has been a sustained campaign of intimidation, aimed at subverting the democratic process - and which arguably has made the difference to the results of elections in Watford (we have failed to win seats by margins of 2, 3 and 47 votes in wards where our candidates and supporters have suffered criminal damage during the election campaign.

My own feeling is that no one who reads right-wing blogs will be that surprised by events in Watford. Some of the writers of those blogs, and many more of the people who comment on them, seethe with hatred and resentment of anyone who does not see the world their way. Perhaps the wonder is that we have not seen more of this sort of thing.

Sara Bedford repeats a number of blogs comments from the time Oakley was charged which sought to deny he had done anything wrong or make the whole affair a joke. I shall repeat one here, because it comes from a Tory PPC - Rachel Joyce from Harrow West:

‘Ian was nothing other than supportive, helpful and kind as a fellow candidate. The last few times I saw him he complained that he was having trouble with dirty LibDem campaigns. I would be amazed if he was really guilty of this but if it is true then I presume the stress of a nasty campaign would have got to him.’

In other words, it didn't happen but if it did it was all the Lib Dems' fault.

Our opponents like to accuse us of dirty tricks, so it is worth pointing out that we have been the victims in the two most outrageous cases to come to light recently - this one and the Miranda Grell affair.

Nor, as he admits, can Danny Finkelstein escape his share of the blame.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Dobbin goes to Henley

And so another week at the demi-Eden that is the Bonkers Hall Estate draws to a close.

Sunday

The tractor has made only slight inroads here on the Bonkers Hall Estate; for the most part I prefer to use shire horses to haul my agricultural machinery. One beast in particular has my undying admiration: after a full day’s ploughing, it enjoys nothing more than delivering Focus around the neighbouring villages. I will sometimes call by its stable in the evening for a word about the current political scene.

Why, I asked Dobbin, was Clegg not putting up a candidate in Haltemprice and Howden? If one of your chief opponents gets a rush of blood to the head and resigns from the House, you are under no obligation to smooth his passage back. Yes, we agree with him on 42 days and so forth, but then we agree with all sorts of people on all sorts of things. It does not stop us standing against them come election time.

Dobbin listened to all this with his head inclined and then replied: “Mr Clegg is a very clever man and I am sure he will decide what is best for the Liberal Democrats. All I know is that I must work harder for the party. Never mind Haltemprice and Howden . Tomorrow I shall be going to Henley to deliver lots more leaflets.”

It shows a wonderful spirit, of course, but I am not sure I shall give Dobbin my first preference this time if he decides to stand for the Federal Executive again.

Now read on...

Saturday: "Eeh! I could write a shuttleworth!"

Friday: Nick Clegg on the Lib Dem constitution

Thursday: The limits of wind power

Wednesday: Felicity Kendal's bottom

Tuesday: Irina breaks it off

Monday: Antibes Focus

Recess Monkey grabs Gove by the Nuts

I rather approved of Michael Gove's complaints about lads' mags yesterday. Their values are crass and it ought to be possible for a politician to criticise something without being assumed to be calling for it to be banned.

But now Recess Monkey had discovered that in April 2005 (in other words, in the run up to the general election at which he was first elected) Gove's constituency received a donation of £2000 from Red Fig Ltd.

And Red Fig is the company that helped launch Nuts TV.

A press release on its website gives a taste of the channel's output:

programming highlights include: Fit and Fearless, where young ladies, aided by spirit medium Ian Lawman, travel across the UK seeking out paranormal experiences and Britain’s Fittest Barmaid, which invites the Nation’s top pint pullers to show off their physical skills as they journey across the country.

Actually, that sounds rather fun. But let's leave the last word to Mr Gove:

"The images they use and project reinforce a very narrow conception of beauty and a shallow approach towards women. They celebrate thrill-seeking and instant gratification without ever allowing any thought of responsibility towards others, or commitment, to intrude. Thank you, a cheque will do nicely."

My latest New Statesman column

Another editon of Calder's Comfort Farm is up on the magazine's website:

Last time I visited the Statesman offices, Julian Clary was holding court. I elbowed my way through the crowd to congratulate him on the publication of his first novel.

Eyeing the broad acres of the inside back cover, I suggested he would soon be giving up his column.

“No,” he replied, “I like to keep my hand in.”

Jersey and other institutional abuses

Congratulations to John Hemming for establishing that children in care from Birmingham were sent to Jersey. He writes about the subject on his own blog, but the Mail on Sunday has more details:

At least five children were illegally placed in care on Jersey by Birmingham social services, which then lost track of them.

Four of the youngsters - who are now adults - are still on the island and have been traced by local police. But the whereabouts of the fifth, a male born in the Fifties, remains unknown ...

Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who discovered that his local city council had sent children to Jersey, believes other children from the UK 'were also placed in care there'.

The MP for Birmingham Yardley added: 'The Government has refused to order councils to check properly because it does not want to open a can of worms, on the links between abusers in England and Jersey.'

The newspaper goes on to say that Birmingham council discovered it had placed five children in foster care on Jersey because, at John's request, it checked old accounts. It found it made payments to Jersey for child care between 1960 and 1990. Yet a social work file survived on only one child.

Kevin Brennan, the schools minister, had told the Commons that checks are unnecessary because children from the UK cannot be placed in care in Jersey without a court order. Yet the five Birmingham children were sent to Jersey without such orders.

This blunt denial of the truth reminded me of the BBC investigation last week that found that sane women who were typhoid carriers were detained in a mental hospital in Surrey until as recently as 1992.

The report was impeccably researched and obviously true, yet:

The Department of Health told the BBC that there is not, and never has been, "a policy of incarcerating" anyone, in this context.

I suppose we should not underestimate the instinct of government to lie when its darker dealings are exposed to the light, but the explanation may be simpler than that. The workings of the state are now so vast and so convoluted that no one knows what is going on.

Now read Heresy Corner on Michael Gove's speech about the Conservatives' social policies:

It shouldn't be forgotten how much of the target culture started under the last Conservative government, which did after all introduce the national curriculum in schools, with its apparatus of centrally-controlled testing, and which also began the catastrophic culture of managerialism in the NHS.

It was the Tories, too, which emasculated local government, removing powers and imposing rate-caps. But all these trends have gone further, much further, under Labour.

And while the Conservative forerunners of such policies were means to an end, whether increasing efficiency or consumer choice, with Labour the opposite seems to be the case. Claims about efficiency and choice often seem to be mere excuses for the true motivation of ministers, the extension of state supervision into every nook and cranny of personal life.

Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards 2008

Here we go again. Lib Dem Voice announces this year's Awards.

You have until the end of the month to nominate your favourite blogs in the following categories:

• Best new Liberal Democrat blog (started since 1st August 2007)
• Best blog from a Liberal Democrat holding public office
• Best use of blogging or social networking by a Liberal Democrat
• Best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog (since 1st September 2007)
• Best non-Liberal Democrat politics blog
• Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year

This blog was shortlisted for Blog of the Year in 2006 and 2007 but came up short both times.

And don't forget you have until 15 August to send Iain Dale and Total Politics your top 10 political blogs. Please mark your entries "1. Liberal England".

James Graham on Nick Clegg's leadership

Writing on Comment is Free, James Graham says:

I've been struck by how many people I have spoken to over the past few weeks – candidates, councillors and activists alike – who appear to be either demoralised or disenchanted with Clegg's leadership.

I wish I felt more motivated to disagree with him.

You will find James more often at Quaequam Blog!

Lord Bonkers' Diary: "Eeh! I could write a shuttleworth!”

Saturday

I was sorry to read of the death of the comic actor Hugh Lloyd: he was one of the Liberal Party’s celebrity supporters in the days when such creatures were indeed in short supply. What is now forgotten was that he had his own radio comedy – "Mind My Majority! – in which he played a hard-pressed agent.

Many young thespians – Maggie Smith, Albert Finney, Basil Brush, Rodney Bewes – first came to public notice in the show and, in its day, Lloyd’s catchphrases “Eeh! I could write a shuttleworth!” and “You’ll have the Acting Returning Officer to answer to!” were on the lips of every schoolchild.

Now read on...

Friday: Nick Clegg on the Lib Dem constitution

Thursday: The limits of wind power

Wednesday: Felicity Kendal's bottom

Tuesday: Irina breaks it off

Monday: Antibes Focus

BritBlog Roundup 181

Like a bird on The Wardman Wire.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died

BBC radio news is reporting the death in Moscow at the ago of 89 of the Russian novelist. Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 and was an icon of resistance to the Soviet regime.

There is a self-penned profile of him on the Nobel Prize site.

Later. Monsters and Critics quotes the Russian news agency Interfax:

The world famous writer and historian had not been seen in public for months. He died from the aftermath of a stroke, according to unconfirmed information.

Solzhenitsyn's main work was the Gulag Archipelago in 1973, which described the years of Stalinist terror using thousands of details and individual cases.

The 1970 Nobel winner has reportedly been seriously ill for months.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Nick Clegg on the Lib Dem constitution

Friday

In Westminster to settle some business before I leave for France, I come across Clegg in expansive mood.

“All those party committees. What is the point of them? When I decide it is a good idea to tell everyone how many sexual partners I have had, I don’t want a load of people in anoraks questioning my judgement.

"And what about David Heath? When I made up my mind to sack him for not abstaining on a referendum on the Nice Treaty because we wanted one on Britain’s membership of the European Union – albeit that we voted against one when someone else proposed it in the Lords – I just went ahead and did it. I didn’t want a lot of women with badges on telling me I was wrong.”

It is always a sign of danger when leaders get like this – and all do eventually, though it took even little Steel a few years. I recommend giving Clegg both volumes of The Open Society and its Enemies by my old friend Sir Karl Popper (he was Terribly Clever) to read.

And if that does not work we can always try hitting him over the head with them.

Now read on...

Thursday: The limits of wind power

Wednesday: Felicity Kendal's bottom

Tuesday: Irina breaks it off

Monday: Antibes Focus

Dudley Moore: Little Miss Britten

In the 1960s and 1970s it must have seemed clear that the two most important figures in the cast of Beyond the Fringe were Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook. Miller was in demand all over the world as a director of plays and operas, and Cook was an acknowledged comic genius.

The picture is not so clear now.

Miller is not much heard of now, and when he was interviewed by Radio 4 at the Millennium as a Great Man, he had no wisdom to impart. He seemed to be the eternal student, still picking holes in the question to show how clever he was.

Though Cook was at one time a prolific writer, his reputation among his friends seems to have rested chiefly upon his scintillating conversation. It is hard for later generations to understand quite why he was seen as such an important figure.

Meanwhile, Alan Bennett has been elected to the position of the nation's teddy bear, which fell vacant at John Betjeman's death. It is far more prestigious than the Poet Laureateship, which Betjeman also held.

And Dudley Moore was a brilliant musician who also became a Hollywood heartthrob.

Today's video is a parody of Benjamin Britten's folk settings for the voice of his partner and lover Peter Pears. It is written and performed by Moore with enormous skill, capturing both Britten's compositional style and Pears's singing style. Yet it also shows affection for its subjects.

It is also telling that a West End audience gets the joke so easily. It is hard to imagine a modern audience laughing so readily at a parody of Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle or Thomas Ades, But then Britten, if not classical music as a whole, occupied a far more central position in British culture in those days. The first recording of his War Requiem was to sell 200,000 copies within five months when it was issued in 1963.

It is said that Pears and the notoriously thin-skinned Britten were offended by the title of this piece. And perhaps today we do detect a note of homophobia in it.

But attitudes change. Today, Britten's creative and sexual partnership with Pears would be celebrated, quite possibly to a tedious extent. While his habit of forming intense friendships with small boys would have landed him on the front page of the News of the World, if not in court.

Liberal England: Solid bronze

This blog has been voted the third-best Liberal Democrat supporting blog in the 2008 Witanagemot Club Awards.

It won't change my life.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The limits of wind power

Thursday

One thing the aforementioned Dromgoogle was particularly keen on was wind power. I showed him the windmill on the Estate – it sits atop the highest hill, next to the Triumphal Arch celebrating Wallace Lawler’s victory in the Birmingham Ladywood by-election of 1969 – but he was not satisfied; wind turbines, he insisted, were the latest thing.

Well I had them installed and a fat lot of use they turned out to be. They cost a fortune to run – I hate to think what my electricity bill would have been if it were not for my treadmill and my hydro-electric plant – and I am not convinced that they made the wind a single jot stronger.

I had the thing demolished and Dobbin insisted on towing it to the nearest scrapyard (after he had finished writing a letter in praise of our then Leader to Liberal Democrat News).

Now read on...

Wednesday: Felicity Kendal's bottom

Tuesday: Irina breaks it off

Monday: Antibes Focus

Blogger gives me my blog back

Yesterday evening I logged into Blogger to be greeted with a message saying that Liberal England had been identified as a spam blog and would be deleted in 20 days if I did not request a review. In the mean time I could not post anything.

Surfing the net, it soon became clear that this was a widespread problem. The general theory was that Blogger's spambot had run amok and returned numerous false positives.

Blogger Buzz admits to the problem as follows:

While we wish that every post on this blog could be about cool features or other Blogger news, sometimes we have to step in and admit a mistake.

We've noticed that a number of users have had their blogs mistakenly marked as spam, and wanted to sound off real quick to let you know that, despite it being Friday afternoon, we are working hard to sort this out. So to those folks who have received an email saying that your blog has been classified as spam and can't post right now, we offer our sincere apologies for the trouble.

We hope to have this resolved shortly, and appreciate your patience as we work through the kinks.

The good news this morning is that I am allowed to post again, but the episode has brought home to me that I rely upon Blogger but have no control over its actions.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Felicity Kendal's bottom

Wednesday

The morning’s newspapers foresee choppy economic seas ahead; we shall all have to tighten our belts, batten down the hatches and so forth. It makes me glad that I had the wisdom to lay down a good cellar of Stilton many years ago and also that I went in for this self-sufficiency business at the same time – one can only save so much by watering the Orphans’ gruel.

I was inspired by watching The Good Life on the moving television – that amusing programme starring the delightful Felicity Kendal. Catching sight of it upon my set once, Meadowcroft described her bottom as resembling “two mommets a-canoodling”.

Be that as it may, she inspired me to live entirely on the produce of the Bonkers Hall Estate: bread made from flour ground from our own wheat; fish caught by my trawlers on Rutland Water; pineapples from my hothouses; and so on.

Rather proud of my achievement, I once invited that well-known environmentalist Malachy Dromgoogle to visit. I showed him all around the Estate and he then asked “But is it sustainable?” “Well, it certainly sustains me,” I replied.

Now read on...

Tuesday: Irina breaks it off

Monday: Antibes Focus

Can the Lib Dems win Labour seats while promising to cut taxes?

Not for the first time, the comments on a Spectator Coffee House posting about the Lib Dems are far more sensible than the original posting.

The other day Peter Hoskin wrote:

Nick Clegg's declaration that the Lib Dems will now concentrate on snaring 50 paticularly vulnerable Labour seats at the next election ... is a puzzling one.

... the potential's there for Clegg's new tactic to further divide the party, and perhaps even weaken their election efforts. You see, this is the same Nick Clegg who sold the Lib Dems as "tax-cutting" party only a couple of weeks ago - one assumes in an effort to nab votes from the Tories. But now the priority is nabbing votes from Labour, and Clegg will surely have to take his party leftwards in order to achieve that.

Of course, the sizeable Lib Dem left will be delighted. But - as James Kirkup writes over at Three Line Whip - the right-leaning elements of the party will be less than amused. The general feeling, though, will be confusion: "Which direction is Clegg taking us in? Where will we be next week?"

The more I think about it, the more sure I am that there is no contradiction between promising to cut taxes and aiming to win Labour seats. As one of the commenters says, tax cuts are attractive to people on low incomes who are struggling to make ends meet.

And another commenter is right when he says:

I think the claims about confusion etc say more about the prejudices of the author of this piece than about the actual events they are reporting on.

Those prejudices seem to be rooted in an outdated class-war view of politics. The Tories favour low taxes and low spending, which is good for their class. Labour promises high taxes and high spending, which is good for its people.

Presumably Hoskin believes that David Cameron's leadership is a sort of con trick designed to persuade enough Labour voters to vote against their own interests to allow a Conservative government back into power. It is not a very edifying view of politics.

Thoughtful Conservatives and Liberal Democrats realise that statist solutions are hugely expensive and hopelessly inefficient, and that the burden of paying for them falls upon people who can ill afford it.

One difference between them is that Lib Dems want to ease that burden on the poor, while the Conservatives are far more interested in cutting tax for the wealthy.

Your top 10 conspiracy theories

Here is a perfect silly season story. A thousand British adults were interviewed to see which conspiracy theories they believe. Here are the results:

1. Area 51 exists to investigate aliens (48%)
2. 9/11 was orchestrated by the US government (38%)
3. Apollo landing was a hoax (35%)
4. Diana and Dodi were murdered (32%)
5. The Illuminati secret society and masons are trying to take over the world (25%)
6. Scientologists rule Hollywood (17% )
7. Barcodes are really intended to control people (7%)
8. Microsoft sends messages via Wingdings (6%)
9. US let Pearl Harbour happen (5%)
10. The world is run by dinosaur-like reptiles (3%)
    

Thanks to the Guardian for the full list. There is an article about it in the Scotsman.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Irina breaks it off

Tuesday

It is cook’s evening off, so I send out for haddock and chips. I am saddened to learn from the wrappings – our national dish tastes so much better eaten from the paper, don’t you think? – that poor Lembit has been given the bum’s rush by those spirited Cheeky Girls.

I always feared that their love was too urgent, too ardent, and might one day burn itself out. I am reminded of the Esquimaux couple I met while working as a fur trapper on Baffin Island: they made passionate love throughout the long Arctic night, but in the end she broke it off.

Now read on...

Monday: Antibes Focus

Those 50 Labour-held target seats in full

Nick Clegg's summer message (video here; full text here) tells us he has:

instructed our campaigns chief Chris Rennard to step up our campaigns in the 50 seats where we’re best placed to beat Labour.

Jonathan Isaby has a list of the 50 Labour-held seats in the order in which they would fall to the Lib Dems, assuming a uniform anti-Labour swing. It is based on the projection of the new boundaries done by Profs Rallings and Thrasher of Plymouth University. As he admits, they may not be the precise 50 Nick Clegg and Chris Rennard have in mind. In particular, the Lib Dems are in third place in some of them.

Anway here is the top 10 - see Jonathan's Daily Telegraph blog for the full list - with the swing required to win:

1 - Rochdale (0.17 per cent)
2 - Oxford East (0.37 per cent)
3 - Edinburgh South (0.47 per cent)
4 - Hampstead & Kilburn (0.57 per cent)
5 - Islington South & Finsbury (0.78 per cent)
6 - Watford (1.17 per cent)
7 - Ealing Central & Acton (1.37 per cent)
8 - Aberdeen South (1.62 per cent)
9 - Edinburgh North & Leith (2.52 per cent)
10 - City of Durham (3.69 per cent)

Rochdale is in the list because it is (just) a notional Labour seat under the new boundaries.

Gordon Brown loyalists are bad-mouthing David Miliband

Michael White is an affable fellow, but no one could ever accuse him of lacking loyalty to the Labour leadership. So it is fair to assume that the following passage in his political briefing today comes straight from the Gordon Brown camp:

Jack Straw is mistrusted and did not risk a run for deputy leader last year. David Miliband, so it is claimed, finds the burden of the Foreign Office heavy enough to have contemplated resignation, not a coup.

If a prime minister's best hope of staying in office is putting it about that his foreign secretary is not up to the job, he really is in trouble. Words like "ferrets" and "sack" spring unbidden to mind.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Antibes Focus

The latest issue of Liberator has been mailed to subscribers, so it is time for another week of the old brute's adventures. This particular diary was written largely in the Three Tuns, Bishop's Castle.

Monday

As ever, high summer will find me residing at the Hotel Splendide, Antibes. Having spent more holidays at this fine establishment than I care to remember, I have naturally become a part of the life of the town. In particular, it is the only resort on the Riviera that has a regular Focus delivered to every door. I write it myself – whether dictating it over dinner at the Hotel or sending it by electric telegraph from Rutland. Because the temperamental French refuse to make the slightest effort to learn English, I am obliged to have the entire newsletter PRINTED IN BLOCK CAPITALS (like so, what?) so that they can understand it.

The Curse of Lembit is lifted

Lembit Opik's antics used to be an unfailing source of inspiration for Lib Dem bloggers. But in recent days his life has been touched by personal tragedy, so we have tended to leave him in peace.

But things may be looking up. Because someone has finally defeated the feared Curse of Lembit.

Back in April I reported that Ruth Reed had launched her campaign for the Presidency of the Royal Institute of British Architects by publicising her endorsement by Lembit. Given what normally happens to people who receive his support (Charles Kennedy, Mark Oaten), you had to admire her courage, if not her judgement.

The good news is reported by The Architects' Journal:

Ruth Reed has been elected as the next president of the RIBA – the first time a woman has ever been appointed to the role.

Reed was also endorsed by George Ferguson, a former RIBA President and Liberal parliamentary candidate for Bristol West.

Lady Allen of Hurtwood and the 1948 Children Act

An article in today's issue of The Times begins:

Sixty years ago this month an Act was passed that was to revolutionise the way that vulnerable children in Britain were protected by the State. The Children Act of 1948 has been described as “the most comprehensive and humane children's legislation in history”.

What is less well known is that the Act had its origins in a letter to The Times, published four years earlier — in July 1944, at the height of the Second World War. The reaction to its publication was so extraordinary — the paper estimated that no single subject throughout the war had led to so much correspondence that ministers were forced into action to strengthen the law.

Well, you will know it if you have read my chapter in the book Making and Breaking Children's Lives.

Marjory Allen's one of my heroines. The Times site also has the text of her letter and the website of the Trust founded in her memory has a short biography of her (PDF). I have heard an interview from the 1960s about her work with adventure playgrounds. "We give all the children hemmers and chisels," she says in an impeccable cut-glass accent.

As The Times says, the campaign that led to the 1948 Act was given great impetus by the death of Dennis O'Neill. I have written about this before.

Despite my enthusiasm for Shropshire, I have never been certain where the farm where his death took place is. Last week the people running the bed-and-breakfast place where I stayed some of the time lent me their large-scale OS maps. It was clearly marked.

Once I had made my mind up to walk back from the Stiperstones to Bromlow, it was clear that my route lay past it. It is in an idyllic spot surrounded by wild flower meadows, though the Devil's Chair does overlook it. The owner was charming and came down from a ladder to show me the correct path.

The next day, quite by coincidence, a member of the O'Neill family left a comment on this blog.

Tributes to Russell Johnston

Lib Dem Voice has a round up of tributes from his fellow Liberal Democrats and there is an obituary on the Daily Telegraph website:

The Lord Russell-Johnston, who has died on the eve of his 76th birthday, was a civilised, internationalist Highlander who made a sterling contribution to Scottish Liberalism and to Britain’s involvement with Europe; in 33 years as MP for Inverness, he brought steadiness to a febrile party and when the Liberals and the bulk of the SDP combined in 1988, was elected unopposed as deputy leader of the merged party.

BritBlog Roundup 180

This week at Philobiblon.